A Letter From Our Founder

 

I hope everyone is staying healthy and are following the WHO guidelines. We are facing an unprecedented time with COVID-19. There is no known treatment for this severe virus and we all wait anxiously for the virus to cease. Our medical healthcare team is working tirelessly to save lives with a shortage of supplies and hospital beds.  We are witnessing first hand staggering numbers of positive cases and death toll. As I write this, my prayers and thoughts are with anyone affected or knows someone who has the virus.

According to the World Health Organization, there are a few things we can do to prevent infection and slow the spread: 

👉  Wash your hands regularly for 20 seconds with soap and water, or clean them with alcohol-based hand rub.

👉  Avoid touching your face.

👉  Cover your mouth and nose  with your arm or tissue (not your hand) when coughing or sneezing.

👉  Stay home if you feel unwell.

👉  Practice physical distancing by avoiding unnecessary travel and staying away from large groups of people.

Here at Different & Able, we wanted to provide you with resources that may be helpful during this difficult time. Please see our extensive list below.

Stay safe!

Alexandra Nicklas

NYC Coronavirus Information

 

For up to date on the coronavirus, call the number or visit the website listed below. These resources are from New York City.  

Phone: 311

Hotline: 888-364-3065

Website: NYC COVID-19 Information 

 

·      Relief

For help paying your rent and bills due to coronavirus layoffs, call the hotline below for assistance. 

Hotline: 866-211-9966

 

·   Unemployment

If you have been fired or laid off, apply for unemployment. The two week waiting period has been waived for New York City.

Website: New York Unemployment Assistance

 

·      SNAP Benefits 

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is a federal program that helps low-income families have access to fresh produce and food. They provide a special card that can be used to buy groceries.

Website: Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) 

 

·    Emergency Cash Assistance

If you have been laid off or fired due to the coronavirus, apply for emergency cash assistance that can be used to pay bills and rent.

Website: Emergency Cash Assistance

 

·      Coping

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has provided information on how to manage stress and anxiety that are caused from the coronavirus epidemic. These resources include information for individuals, parents, first responders, and people who have been released from quarantine.  

Website: NYC Stress Coping Skills for COVID-19

Website: CDC Manage Anxiety & Stress  

 

·    Assistive Technology

If your child needs an assistive technology device, call the number or visit the website listed below.

Website: https://www.includenyc.org/content/includenycs-response-to-covid-19

 

Care

 

·    Rights Protection

If you are disabled or have been diagnosed with a mental illness and feel your rights are being violated, reach out to your state’s Protection and Advocacy Agency. They will provide you the support and assistance that you deserve.

Website: List of Protection and Advocacy Agencies

 

·      Helping Hands for the Disabled of NYC

The action line provides service from allowing users to call with questions about disability, or if they just wish to speak to someone.  Everything is confidential. Helping Hands for the Disabled provides help with everyday obstacles that people may face such as shopping, running errands, eating and other daily life activities. 

Phone: 718-606-9712

Website: www.hhdnyc.org

Document: A letter from a doctor confirming disability

 

·    Health Home

The Health Home service is a group of health care workers who help individuals ensure they get the care they need and deserve. Individuals who are approved will have a care manager who will map out the care and services that are needed to ensure optimal health. Home Health provides care coordination, transportation, help to obtain food, and help with many other needs.

Eligibility; Enrolled in Medicaid AND must have: two or more chronic conditions OR one single qualifying condition OR Serious Mental Illness (SMI) OR Serious Emotional Disturbance (SED) OR Complex Trauma. 

Website: Health Home Website 

 

·     INCLUDEnyc

INCLUDEnyc has been helping young people (Birth to 26 years) with disabilities and their families since 1983. They help young people with getting access to services, health care, and support for the family.

Phone: 212-677-4650

Text: 646-693-3175

Hotline: 212-677-4660- Provides “1 to 1 help” Monday to Thursday 9AM-3PM

Website: INCLUDEnyc

 

·   ADAPT Community Network

Provides direct services and advocacy to children and adults with cerebral palsy and related disabilities. Services include: early intervention, adult residential and day programs, vocational and supported employment programs, recreational programs for children and adolescents as well as comprehensive health care services. 

Phone: 877-827-2666

 

·      AHRC New York City  

This agency provides a wide-range of services for the ID/DD population, and this is the central intake to access these services. Services include: Counseling services, psychological and psychosocial testing, speech, physical and occupational therapy evaluations, educational advocacy, home health care, case management, adult day and vocational services, camps, respite, residential services, and sibling support. Also assist with: family reimbursement and legal services (guardianship, future planning).

Phone: 212-780-4491

 

·   Insurance for Children

Insure Kids Now is an organization that helps families get their children health services that include health, vision, dental, and other medical treatments and devices as needed.

Website: https://www.insurekidsnow.gov/

 

·      Center for Human Development and Family Services 

The Center for Human Development and Family Services (CHDFS) provides multiple resources for families who have children with physical or mental disabilities. They can provide speech/language therapy, physical therapy, occupational therapy, vision therapy, sensory integration therapy, feeding, family training, respite work, and many more if eligible. They also provide care management, wellness services and home & community-based services.

Website: CHDFS Programs  

 

Grocery Shopping

 

·      Target

Target announced that it would reserve the first hour of shopping each Wednesday at stores nationwide for "vulnerable guests," including the elderly and those with underlying health conditions. 

Website: Target Shopping for the Elderly & At Risk Populations  

 

·   Walmart

Walmart is adding an hour long "senior shopping event" every Tuesday for customers aged 60 and older from March 24 to April 28. This would start one hour before the store opens to the public and includes its pharmacies and vision centers.

Website: Walmart Early Shopping Hours  

 

·      Fairway Market 

Fairway Market is reserving 8AM to 9AM, from Monday to Friday, for shoppers aged 65 and older and people with "increased susceptibility to serious illness". 

 

·   Stop & Shop

Stop & Shop will open its doors from 6AM to 7:30 AM for customers aged 60 and older as well as people who are at-risk. Though they won’t require I.D. for entry during these hours, the company said in a statement it will "reserve the right to ask customers to leave if they are not a member of this age group.

 

·      Whole Foods

Whole Foods Market stores in the U.S. and Canada will service customers 60 years of age and older one hour before opening to the public.

 

·     Dollar Tree

Dollar General is strongly encouraging that the first hour of operations each day be dedicated solely for the shopping needs of senior customers.

 

Internet

 

·      Spectrum Broadband & WiFi

Charter will offer free Spectrum broadband and Wi-Fi access for 60 days to households with K-12 and/or college students who do not already have a Spectrum broadband subscription and at any service level up to 100 Mbps. 

Phone: 1-844-488-8395

Website: Charter Communications- Free Spectrum Broadband & WiFi

 

Food 

 

·      Helping Hands for the Disabled of NYC 

The food pantry provides food to people with disabilities age 18 and over.  People must come in to pick up their food. The food pantry also makes deliveries on the 3rd Saturday of each month, and it is only for people who are blind or in a wheelchair. There is $20 Membership fee for deliveries, which may be waived if eligible.  

Phone: 718-606-9712

Website: www.hhdnyc.org

 

·   Food Bank for NYC

The Food Bank for NYC is operating and taking precautions from the CDC. If you need food, go on the website to find the closet pantry near you. 

Website: Food Bank NYC 

 

·      Food and Hunger Hotline

Provides emergency referrals to soup kitchens and food pantries throughout the city. This automated hotline will provide the hours of operation and directions to the emergency feeding program closest to the client.

Hotline:: 866-888-8777

 

·      City Meals

To qualify for home-delivered meals, a person must be at least 60 years old. In addition, the individual must have a chronic physical or mental disability preventing him or her from shopping for food or preparing meals for himself or herself.

Website: Find out if you’re eligible to Get Meals

 

·   Feeding America

Feeding America ensures that individuals and families get food they need during these stressful times. Feeding America is working with school districts and local government agencies to ensure that the 22 million children who rely on school meals have access to food outside of the classroom. They are building an inventory of emergency food boxes to distribute to food banks across the country as the need for food assistance increases.

Website: Find Your Local Food Bank

Website: COVID-19 Response  

 

Education 

 

·      Comic about the Coronavirus for Children 

This is a printable comic that can be used to help children learn about the coronavirus. 

Coronavirus Educational Comic  

 

·    Beeline Reader

 BeeLine Reader is an online tool that improves the reading ability of students of all ages and skill levels. By displaying text using color gradients that wrap from the end of one line to the beginning of the next, BeeLine facilitates visual tracking and enables the reader to focus on other aspects of reading, such as decoding and comprehension. Free access to the BeeLine Reader Browser Plugin for Chrome through September 2020. Email education@BeeLineReader.com for a free account!

Website: https://www.beelinereader.com/education

 

·      Little Twisters Yoga Activities for Children with Autism 

For kids ages 2 and up, this resource provides tips on how to engage kids through yoga. Fun printable lessons like Space Shape Yoga and Kids Yoga Cards are free for all during the COVID-19 school closure and quarantine.

Website: https://littletwistersyoga.com/

 

·   Activities for Children with Autism 

This is a website that has 30 different activities that can be calming and fun for children with Autism. Many are engaging and are bound to keep your child busy while the schools are closed.

Website: https://www.merakilane.com/indoor-activities-for-kids-with-autism/

 

Crisis Intervention

  

·   NYC Well

NYC Well is New York City’s free, confidential support, crisis intervention, and information and referral service for anyone who seeks help for mental health and/or substance misuse concerns, available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. NYC Well is staffed by trained professionals who can help you find the services that best meet your needs.

Phone: 1-888-692-9355

Text: “Well” to 65173

Website:  Chat with NYC Well

 

·       Crisis Text Line  

Counselors are available 24/7 and are there to support and talk to individuals who are stressed, overwhelmed and feeling alone. This service is free for everybody to use.

Text: CONNECT to 741741 

 

·   National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

The Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress, prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones, and best practices for professionals.

Phone: 1-800-273-8255

Website: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/chat/

 

Letter From Our Founder

Welcome! 

 

We are excited to share our first newsletter of the year. Last year was a great year for us with many big things that happened. We officially launched, Mandy Harvey inspired us with her words and song, we raised money to help others and continue to grow. 

This year will be bigger and better yet. We have many exciting things happening we can't wait to share with you. But until then, we will continue to inspire, provide resources, support and knowledge to all of you.

This month we are looking deeper into the Americans with Disability Act (ADA). Before disability legislation was passed, life for people with disabilities was challenging. People had to navigate society without any physical, architectural, employment and transportation accommodations. There was no accessibility to restrooms, housing and transportation. Difficulties with note-taking in schools and employment settings affected achieving. In our featured article, Marilyn Saviola and Marca Briston, two influential advocates for disability legislation, are discussed in leading the movement for the passing of the American with Disabilities Act on July 26th, 1990 by President H.W. Bush.

 

Article of the Month

Before The Passage of the ADA

Rose Lynn Sherr, Ph.D.

 

Reading the New York Times’ obituary of Marilyn Saviola recently (December 1, 2019) made me remember what life was like before the passage of the ADA, the Americans with Disabilities Act, in 1990. Ms. Saviola was one of the leaders of the movement in New York that lobbied and marched for the passage of the passage of legislation that would remove physical, architectural, employment and transportation barriers that prevented those with physical, cognitive, sensory and neurological differences from full participation in society.

Tamara Dembo, Ph.D., a psychologist, wrote about such barriers as early as 1973.* She noted at that time that

…restrictions and handicaps are not only inherent in the loss or lack of

properties of the person, but are in large part due to the feelings and behaviors

of other people and the rules and regulations of the outside world, the 

environment surrounding the handicapped person.

The world in which handicapped people live is constructed by nonhandicapped

people for non-handicapped people, with little consideration of the needs of the

handicapped. (p. 720)

Ms. Saviola incurred polio when she was 10 years old, in 1955, the same year that the Salk vaccine was introduced. What happened to her afterwards illustrates the points made by Dembo and was typical of life before ADA. After spending time in an iron lung, she required a respirator to breathe and was sent from the acute care hospital to a long-term care hospital for people with chronic disabilities. When she returned to live with her parents; they lived in a two-story house and she could not negotiate the stairs. When she became too heavy for her parents to carry up or down, she was so socially isolated that she decided to return to the long-term care hospital where she had a peer group and would have greater mobility. She finished high school at the hospital which had a tutoring program for teaching the patients, and she was accepted to Long Island University. At first, she took classes remotely by speaker phone and then took classes at the LIU Brooklyn campus and obtained a BA and then a Masters in Vocational Rehabilitation at New York University. Since there were no accessibility laws, she could not use the library or restrooms at her universities because of physical barriers and could not use public transportation. During that time, she and many others realized that no changes would occur in accessibility of transportation, buildings, bathrooms, offices , jobs etc. unless people organized, protested and contacted lawmakers.

 

Marca Briston, a nurse in Chicago who became paraplegic at the age of 23, eventually came to the same conclusion as Ms. Saviola. While attending a conference in Berkeley, California she was amazed at the degree to which that city had made itself so accessible to those with physical differences. The city had curb cuts, accessible buildings and bathrooms and the city buses had wheelchair lifts! She later wrote, “No longer did I see curbs or stairs or inaccessible buses and bathrooms as a problem around which I needed to navigate. Rather, I saw them as examples of societal discrimination and I felt a responsibility to get involved to help people with disabilities, in Illinois and beyond.” She, like Ms. Saviola and many others across the country became activists. She lobbied senators and congressmen, others picketed, jumped on bus steps from their wheelchair and stopped the municipal buses from moving, lectured and publicized their situation and, as Ms. Briston said: “This ragtag army of people who couldn’t see, hear, walk and talk did what everyone said couldn’t be done. “We passed the most comprehensive civil rights law since the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.”

 

The ”ragtag army” was comprised of people with various differences who became aware that the prejudices and obstacles that they had endured were modifiable if required by law. Those who had visual limitations should not have to deal with not knowing what floor an elevator was at or not being able to see a voting ballot, people with cognitive or sensory limitations should have a notetaker when taking a college course, a disability should not preclude going to college or getting a good job or living in buildings that had no architectural barriers. Architectural , academic and vocational modifications would open the doors for those who had been kept out by ignorance and discrimination. They challenged centuries of beliefs about those with differences and after much lobbying, education and protests, they won when President George H.W. Bush signed into law the American with Disabilities Act, on July 26, 1990.

_______________________________________

*Dembo, T., Diller, L., Gordon, W., Leviton, G., & Sherr, RL. A view of rehabilitation psychology.  The American Psychologist, August 1993, pp. 719-721.

 

D & A Featured Story

How the ADA Helped Me 

My name is Jane and I was born in Chicago. Soon after my birth, doctors realized I had cerebral palsy.   My CP resulted in physical and cognitive deficits. I have a right arm weakness which prohibits me from doing two-handed tasks. My attention deficits, slower processing speed, and problem-solving skills affect my academic and vocational  performance if accommodations are not granted. 

The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) played a crucial role in my education. Because of the ADA, I was able to graduate from high school, college, and graduate school. Having my deficits did not make excelling easy. I had to work twice as hard as the typical student without a learning disability and I had to be pretty resourceful to get around my one-handedness in school and graduate training.  
        

Read More   

 

 

Welcome! 

 

We are proud to launch our first official newsletter! It has been an exciting year. In June, we launched as a 501c3 not-for-profit organization. It was a wonderful event of 100 guests, held at The Empire Rooftop in NYC with a special performance by Mandy Harvey. With your help, we were able to raise $17,426! Since launching, we have been working hard to refine the mission, vision and goals of the organization while simultaneously continuing to gather personal stories and resources.

We also are making changes on our website to make it more user friendly, engaging and interactive.
 
Our goal is to have one newsletter monthly that focuses on a particular disability or medical condition that is being recognized for that month. November was epilepsy awareness month and to help raise awareness  we are showcasing a personal story about accepting life with epilepsy. We have also included a short infographic below that shows you what you can do if someone suffers a seizure in front of you.

For those that have been with us since the beginning, thank you for supporting our endeavors! For those that are new, welcome to the D&A family.

A percentage of donations made to D&A gets disbursed to different medical health organizations and charities. Our goal is to provide funds to help with research as well as finding treatments and possibly a cure for the variety of disorders we support. This year we have chosen to donate to Finding a Cure for Epilepsy & Seizures' (FACES)  College Scholarship Program that provides support to college students affected by epilepsy and seizure disorders.

 

December 3 is International Day of Disabled Persons

As an organization that supports those with differences, today is an important day.  In 1992  the United Nations called for an international day of celebration for people living with disabilities  and to promote the well-being and welfare of people living with disabilities. This is held on December 3 every year.
 

Two years prior to this, in 1990,  the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) was created. This is arguably the most important legislation in support of people with disabilities signed by the American Government. 

 

Americans with Disability Act (ADA)

D&A Resource

Our very own Dr. Sherr has written this article on Getting What You Need Out of the Americans with Disability Act.

Read More

 

For More Information

To be protected by the ADA, one must have a disability, which is defined by the ADA as a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, a person who has a history or record of such an impairment, or a person who is perceived by others as having such an impairment. The ADA does not specifically name all of the impairments that are covered.

Read More

 

Current Events & Updates

#GIVINGTUESDAY

December 3 is #GivingTuesday!  

#GivingTuesday is a global generosity movement  that inspires hundreds of millions of people to give, collaborate, and celebrate generosity to trans-form communities and the world on December 3, 2019 and every day.

This year Different & Able has joined the cause! With the end of the year approaching quickly, we encourage you to share your generosity with us so we can spread the generosity further! We are still $25,000 away from this year's goal of $45,000.

 

Shopping for a Cause

On November 4th, Diane B Shoes on the Upper East Side hosted a fundraising event for D&A where 10% of all sales were donated by owner Craig Blattberg.

It was a fun shopping for a cause event where several D&A supporters purchased gorgeous italian made shoes designed by Craig!

D&A would like to thank Craig and everyone who came out to shop and support us. Together with Diane B Shoes and individual donations, $1600 was raised!

 

Goals For Years End

A percentage of donations made to D&A gets disbursed to different medical health organizations and charities that have a common goal with us. Our goal is to provide funds to help with research as well as finding treatments and possibly a cure for a variety of disorders.

We have raised $20,000 so far this year and are close to achieving our year end goal of $45,000. Please keep us in mind when making your year end contributions!

 

November was Epilepsy Awareness Month

November was epilepsy awareness month. In an effort to support the epilepsy community, D&A will be disbursing funds to one of the many programs offered by the organization FACES (Finding a Cure for Epilepsy and Seizures). FACES goal is to “improve the quality of life for all those affected by epilepsy and seizures”.​ ​FACES provides funds raised to aid with research to improve epilepsy care, new therapies, and provides a supportive community for children, families and caregivers who are affected by epilepsy.

For more information on the College Scholarship Program D&A is supporting, please click here.

 

D&A Featured Story

Epilepsy Is A Part Of Me

As a child, I was told that I was prone to seizures, but I never thought I would experience them as part of my day to day life.  Everything changed, however, the first day of orientation during my freshman year at Wheaton College. 

 I spent the day like everyone else - moving into my dorm room, unpacking, saying goodbye to my mom and saying hello to the next chapter of my college life.  

And then it happened.  I was out with some new friends, eating pizza, when a piece got stuck in my throat.  Seconds later, my right arm lost sensation.  I started to lose consciousness.  I screamed for help.  I thought I was dying. 

Read more

 

What to do if someone has a seizure in front of you