Sonoran Center Attends 2024 Association of University Centers on Disabilities Conference: Stronger Together
By Drew Milne
On November 3rd through 5th, 2024, the Sonoran Center’s staff - Jacy Farkas, Celina Urquidez, Drew Milne, Agnes Attakai - and trainees, Diba Fallah and Jenny Haggerty, attended the annual Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD) conference in Washington, D.C.
The AUCD Network is made up of UCEDDs (University Centers for Excellence in Disability), LENDs (Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities), and IDDRCs (Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Centers). Collectively, these organizations exist in over 60 universities around the United States, with at least one in each state. The Sonoran Center is a UCEDD, established in 2006 at the University of Arizona.
AUCD’s mission is to “help member centers by advancing policy and practice for and with people with developmental and other disabilities, their families, and communities.” The conference was an opportunity for the Sonoran Center, along with dozens of other University and disability organizations from around the United States to once again come together, share knowledge, and learn from one another.
This year’s theme for the conference was Stronger Together: Creating a More Inclusive World. The events and seminars of the conference reflected this desire to strengthen connections within the AUCD network and the broader disability community.
On Tuesday, November 5th, Sonoran Center staff and trainees presented a concurrent session and two posters at symposia sessions.
Agnes Attakai and Sonoran Center affiliate Jim Warne presented a concurrent session with representatives from the University of South Dakota Center for Disabilities’ Oyàte Circle and The University of Rochester Strong Center for Developmental Disabilities. This opportunity for sharing, networking, and developing collaborations highlighted Indigenous Initiatives Across the AUCD Network. They detailed promising practices and examples of collaboration for reaching Indigenous communities. Along with representatives from from UCEDDs/LENDs in several states including South Dakota and New York, they provided information on unique initiatives on "Indigenized" approaches for Indian Country.
Diba Fallah, Sonoran Center diversity fellow trainee, presented her poster, titled Understanding Refugee Perspectives on Accessing Disability Services. Created along with Jacy Farkas and Julie Armin, this poster describes the findings and recommendations from the recent Elevating Refugee Perspectives project. This research study prioritized the lived experiences of disability among refugee communities in Arizona to better understand the gaps and needs for accessing services and supports. Learn more about the project and access the community report and plain language summary of the study findings here.
Drew Milne presented a poster he created along with Jacy Farkas, Celina Urquidez and Elizabeth Jeffery-Franco. The poster, “I Understand You” Accessible Communications Webinar Series: Increasing Capacity for the Production of Cognitively and Digitally Accessible Content, detailed the series of webinars on plain language and accessible communications offered during the spring and summer of 2024. The findings resulting from the series demonstrated that online content can be a powerful way to spread accessibility techniques.
Thanks to all of our Sonoran Center attendees for commendably representing the Center at this conference.
To learn more about AUCD and the Sonoran Center's role in it, visit aucd.org.