Webinar February 25, 2021
Supporting Survivors with Disabilities and Deaf Survivors
Research shows that people with disabilities and Deaf people are at greater risk of experiencing domestic and sexual violence compared to people without disabilities. They also experience unique barriers to healing and justice, everything from learning about available support services, being able to access services, and being believed. This webinar will help you begin to understand the unique dynamics of sexual and domestic violence in the lives of people with disabilities and Deaf people and the barriers they face when seeking services. You will also receive practical recommendations for making your services safer and more accessible for all.
Free for members / $25 for non-members
All registrants will receive a recording of this webinar offering. Closed captions will be provided during the webinar. A transcript will be sent to all registrants afterwards.
This webinar is presented in partnership with Respectability.
SPEAKERS
This session features advocate Renee Lopez from ADAPT of Texas and Advisory Board Member for SAFE Disability Services, and Anneliese Brown, Project Director at the Center on Victimization and Safety, Vera Institute of Justice.
The webinar will be introduced by Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, president of RespectAbility, a diverse disability-led nonprofit organization that fights stigmas and advances opportunities for people with disabilities. She is a former JWI Woman-to-Watch. Mizrahi has been listed three times by the Forward, and once by The Jerusalem Post, as one of the top 50 most influential Jews. Dyslexic, she is also a rape survivor.
In her role as project director with the Center on Victimization and Safety at the Vera Institute of Justice, Anneliese Brown oversees projects designed to strengthen the capacity of gender-based violence advocates, disability advocates, and those within the legal system to effectively support people with disabilities and Deaf people to address trauma and violence in their lives. Anneliese has been working to address domestic and sexual violence for over 15 years, and in 2014 began working closely with community collaborations striving to improve services to victims of domestic and/or sexual violence who have disabilities or are Deaf. In recent years, she has expanded this work to include supporting college campuses in enhancing their response to student survivors with disabilities and Deaf student survivors. Anneliese has presented to national audiences on a variety of issues related to domestic and sexual violence and victimization, including providing accessible services to victims with disabilities and Deaf victims, working with students with disabilities and Deaf students who experience domestic and sexual violence on college campuses, and creating and sustaining successful collaborations. Her work is grounded in her experience serving victims and children in Maine, Vermont, Alaska, and California.
Renee Lopez is a 59 year old woman with a physical disability. She uses a wheelchair. She graduated from the University of Texas in 1984 and 1986 with a BA and an M.Ed. respectively. She worked for the State of Texas for 30 years and is now retired. She has a long history of advocating for the rights of people with disabilities since 1982 when she was a student at The University of Texas. As a student with a life-long physical disability, she joined other students with disabilities for campus accessibility. She continues to advocate to this day.
She is on the Advisory Board for SAFE Disability Services since 2010. She has attended conferences on behalf of SAFE as a workshop presenter teaching and informing conference attendee's on issues of violence and abuse against persons with Disabilities. She is also a member of a core group of a coalition put together by the VERA Institute of Justice on ending violence against people with disabilities.