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The supported employment movement, an initiative to expand the opportunities for people with disabilities to find work in their own communities through vocational rehabilitation and ongoing job coaching, began spreading across the United States…

When Frank Epperson's van was pulled over by the Southport, Indiana police in 1988, it wasn't about a broken taillight. They wanted to give him an official escort upon his triumphant return from the Paralympics in Seoul, South Korea. Frank competed…

“We were scratching our heads saying, this is wrong. This isn't the right way to do it, but I'm not sure what the right way is,” describes Patrick Sandy of his experience with the Deinstitutionalization Project at the Developmental Training Center…

“I have a servant's mentality… so what do I do? Well, now my focus is on helping families with young children with disabilities and as they go up through the school system, how do you get supports after age 22.” Erika Steuterman has two daughters…

“What I learned is that I had to prove myself constantly, that people with very good intentions just didn’t think I was capable of doing things because of my vision. They wanted to protect me,” says Peter Bisbecos talking about his school…

"There's a new crop of people that are saying, wait a minute, I'm not ashamed of anything. I don't need to distance myself from anything. In fact, I am a disabled person first." In this interview, Lawrence Carter-Long discusses his views on the…

"That's only for regular people, not for us kind of people." That’s what Darcus Nims says she was told when she wanted to take a typing class in school. Darcus founded Self-Advocates of Indiana, the statewide group of advocates with…

“To be part of that and to watch the leadership and those agencies catch fire…" Connie Ferrell recalls the excitement of introducing supported employment to Indiana in the early 1990s. "At the time they were doing it, it was like heresy. And they had…

"I think it's extremely important that people with intellectual and developmental disabilities be a continued and increasingly strong voice in developmental disability issues of the day. And be in the rooms where decisions get made about funding,…

Bettye Dunham got her start in the disability field in 1975. She was a support person to an Indiana University student needing assistance with note taking and studying. Bettye says, “The things I learned from Chris really endeared me to the field.”…