The Children’s Hospital Colorado (CHC) has invited Dr. Stephanie Cawthon to share her insights and expertise with medical faculty and staff at its Child Mental Health Training Annual Meeting and Pediatric Mental Health Grand Rounds on Tuesday, May 14, 2024.
Besides the timeliness of addressing disability research during National Mental Health Awareness Month, Dr. Cawthon is excited to visit CHC because two of her doctoral mentees — Dr. Laura Judd-Glossy and Dr. Yasmine Jassal — are employed by the private, not-for-profit pediatric healthcare network that has more than 3,000 pediatric specialists and over 8,000 full-time employees.
Building an Accessibility Mindset
Dr. Cawthon will present “Disability is Human: Building an Accessibility Mindset from the Inside Out” at the annual training meeting.
An interactive workshop, it will address the foundational concepts of disability research and explain how access is more than simply providing accommodations to disabled colleagues, students, and patients. Key takeaways for attendees include how to:
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Understand their own lens on disability and how it affects them and their work to improve accessibility.
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Learn to recognize ableism in its many forms.
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Build accessibility into protocols and processes.
Launching a Disabled-Led Research Center
When she joins the Pediatric Mental Health Grand Rounds later that day, Dr. Cawthon will present “From Incubation to Launch: Findings from the New National Disability Center for Student Success.”
She will share her experience as Principal Investigator and Executive Director of the National Disability Center, which strives to establish an actionable research foundation for higher education — including medical schools and training programs — and the process of innovating its disabled-led, student-centered approach to research.
In addition to explaining recent research findings, Dr. Cawthon will explain the issues that are most important to Center stakeholders:
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Improving accessibility
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Understanding disabled experiences
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Reducing ableism
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Providing inclusive education
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Addressing mental health crisis
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Embracing intersectionality