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Rose F. Kennedy University
Center
for Excellence In Developmental Disabilities
The
primary mission of the Rose F. Kennedy UCEDD is to improve the quality of life of
persons with developmental disabilities and their families. Specifically, this
involves four major functions.
- To serve national, regionally, and locally as a model and an
innovative developmental disabilities service agency functioning within an ethnically
diverse, largely poor, distressed and needy community.
- To receive input from consumers and families in order to create,
implement, and evaluate consumer-oriented and professionally valid family-oriented
strategies, making it possible to; deal with a needy and underserved population, promote
inclusive, person-centered services and enhance access to care in the community.
- To both work within an academic medical centers and as a service
"center without walls," providing extensive interdisciplinary training that is
responsive to local, state and national priorities, including the training of future
leaders and other professionals, as well as individuals with disabilities, especially
those from minority-group backgrounds.
- To support other agencies in the local region through direct
technical assistance, and nationally through enhanced program development supported by
effective demonstration, and basic or applied research.
We carry out this mission through:
- Delivery of exemplary direct services to persons with mental
retardation and developmental disabilities (MR/DD) and their families;
- Conducting interdisciplinary training programs for consumers,
family members, and professionals so they can, lead, develop, and provide these services;
- Helping agencies organize and initiate their own needed
community-based services for clients with MR/DD of all ages;
- Creating and operating model demonstration projects which can
help other agencies learn how to best ensure the independence, self-sufficiency,
productivity and community integration of persons with MR/DD;
- Researching and evaluating what works best and disseminating
these findings to professionals, researchers and policy makers, locally, regionally, and
nationally, to further improve services; and
- Promoting inclusion of children and adults with disabilities in
the full range of community activities.
We plan to use the knowledge derived
from these studies to improve services and promote constructive change in specialized and
generic institutions which serve this population. The primary purposes of our
investigations are to:
- Identify major issues related to the productivity, independence
and integration of people with developmental disabilities
- Employ multidisciplinary approaches to collect data and analyze
them in order to provide objective analysis and evaluation relative to those issues
- Translate existing knowledge into effective proposals, leading to
policies and programs that will enhance the well being of people with developmental
disabilities
- Disseminate any new findings and proposals in a timely fashion.
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