Virtual Retreat

HDI receives Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation Grant

A team of HDI staff including Dr. Chithra Adams, Jason Jones, Lindsey Mullis and Abby Marsh have received $50,000 through Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation’s 2020 COVID-19 Quality of Life grants program, funded through a cooperative agreement with the Administration for Community Living. Their proposal, Recharging Resiliency Together-Virtual Retreat will help people with paralysis recharge their resilience and provide the necessary connections and supports that are needed to navigate in a COVID-19 environment.

This series of virtual retreats will be accompanied by three follow up group calls to build upon the skills learned during the retreat and to build a tightknit group of peers (pods) who are supportive of one another. Each session in the retreat will be universally designed, accessible and have expert presentation followed by a group activity. The purpose of the group activity is to participate in real time sense-making about how strategies presented can be used presently or in the future.

Contact Chithra.Adams@uky.edu for more information.

Woman receiving award from another woman

Lindsey Mullis receives 2019 APHA Student Member Award

The American Public Health Association (APHA) has selected Lindsey Mullis to receive the 2019 Disability Section Student Member Award presented at their Annual Meeting and Expo in Philadelphia, PA. The Disability Section Award recipients join a distinguished group of achievers who have made significant contributions to the disability field and to improvements in the lives of people with disabilities nationally and internationally.
Lindsey is the Program Director for the Health and Wellness Initiative of the UK Human Development Institute (HDI). The mission of the initiative is to ignite positive change to address the significant health disparities for individuals with disabilities across the lifespan. Kathy Sheppard-Jones, Executive Director of HDI says, “Lindsey’s passion and drive for the work are evident in all of her efforts. She has been instrumental in making health and wellness programming more inclusive by: 1) building key collaborations with state and local partners, 2) incorporating universal design strategies that makes data collection systems more inclusive, and 3) ensuring that people with disabilities lead and are in partnership with all health and wellness work. She is a guru at resource development. From creating comic books to exercise videos, Lindsey’s leadership has grown the Health and Wellness Initiative to be a real model of quality inclusive health promotion for the Kentucky.”
Lindsey is pursuing her doctorate in Health Education. Learn more about the Health and Wellness Initiative at https://www.wellness4ky.org/.

People cooking in a kitchen

Project CHEER Collaborates with the American Heart Association to Present at APHA

Natalie Littlefield, the community health director for the Lexington Division of the American Heart Association (AHA) has partnered with the Kentucky’s CDC State Disability & Health Program called Project CHEER (Community Health Education & Exercise Resources) to co-author a presentation titled “Promotion of Successful Inclusion of Individuals with Disabilities Through Universal Design in American Heart Association’s Health Programs,” that will be presented at the 2019 American Public Health Association’s (APHA) annual meeting and expo, November 2 – 6 in Philadelphia.
Presenting with Littlefield from Project CHEER will be Lindsey Mullis, Megan Jaspersen, and Danielle Augustin of the University of Kentucky Human Development Institute.
The presentation, scheduled for 3 pm EST on Monday, November 4, will review the community collaborations, universal design strategies in health programming, and pilot results of an inclusive offering of the AHA’s Mobile Kitchen series. Future directions for broadening efforts and sustainability will be explained. Additionally, presenters will briefly discuss adaptation and implementation of a second inclusive pilot of AHA’s Healthy for Life program with implementation late spring 2019. “This is such an important partnership with the AHA because we want to promote the broad accessibility of great health services to individuals who are often at the highest risk for being unhealthy and underserved, and this presentation provides us the opportunity to encourage other programs to do the same.” Lindsey Mullis, Inclusive Health Director, Project CHEER. Continue reading

Child reading a book with teacher.

Latest Fund for Excellence Awards: August 2019

The Human Development Institute (HDI) established the Fund for Excellence for the development of innovative programs, services or products to address the needs of individuals with developmental disabilities and their families, for which funding is not currently available. In the July, 2019 funding cycle, HDI awarded three Fund for Excellence projects:

  • Universally Designed Health Coaching Pilot with Danielle Augustin, Lindsey Mullis, and Morgan Turner
  • You Can Do So Many Things project with Caroline Gooden, Kathy Sheppard-Jones, and Brittany Granville
  • Disability in Public Health Training with Tony Lobianco and Donald Lollar

Continue reading

Photo of Danielle Augustin

Spotlight on Danielle Augustin

Danielle Augustin is a part-time Inclusive Health Project Assistant at HDI with work spanning several projects, including the Health and Wellness Initiative: Project CHEER and Wellness Edge. Danielle is a student in the Master’s Health Promotion program with expected graduation in May, 2019. She will also be starting next semester as a Research Assistant under Dr. Elaine Eisenbaum’s newest grant, the Serious Mental Illness National Training Center grant from the Administration on Community Living. Continue reading