March is National Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month. This year's theme is See Me For Me. You can follow or post related news and events on social media using hashtag #ddawareness18.  President Ronald Reagan first established March as National Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month in 1987. Read his original proclamation. Also check out Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf's 2018 … [Read more...]

Have you looked at our Facebook page lately? You can take two simple steps to help spread news by and about the Western Pennsylvania Disability History and Action Consortium. If you are active on Facebook, please take a moment to LIKE our page. This helps bring our posts to your attention. The LIKE button is at the top of the page, right under the large image of our logo. If you see a … [Read more...]

In January, NPR did a series of reports on a largely hidden epidemic of sexual assault against people with intellectual disabilities. Previously unreleased numbers obtained by NPR from the U.S. Department of Justice show that the rate of sexual assault against people with intellectual disabilities is seven times higher than against people without disabilities—and most often, it is by someone they … [Read more...]

A talk at the October Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference (MARAC) tackled how archives can make their collections more accessible to people with disabilities. Sierra Green, archivist at the Heinz History Center’s Detre Library and Archives and Coalition steering committee member, went to the 90-minute session titled “We Can Improve: Equal Access to Collections for Patrons with … [Read more...]

Sierra Green and Emily Ruby of the Heinz History Center recently met with Aaron and Chris Noschese at the Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf to discuss preservation. Green, Ruby, and Chris Noschese are members of the Consortium steering committee. The school has an extensive collection of original items that reflects its history, including photographs, yearbooks, correspondence, … [Read more...]