MASKS AND MORE: ANOTHER COVID 19 D.C. DISABILITY UPDATE

I sent off 17 masks yesterday – hope you’re also working to make fabric masks for our disability support providers – the updated list is here:  https://www.dcqualitytrust.org/dd-provider-organizations-in-dc-in-need-of-homemade-masks/.

Joan Christopher of the Georgetown University Center (https://ucedd.georgetown.edu/about.php) passed along a request from the University Center in Connecticut. (What’s a University Center of Excellence?  See my page on D.C. organizations, and also https://www.aucd.org.) Drs. Mary Beth Bruder and Tara Lutz are conducting a survey entitled, “The knowledge, attitudes and behaviors of parents of children with disabilities in response to COVID-19,” which can be found at:

https://uconn.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0v9k95dKr4vsQAd.

I followed up with them to confirm that there is no upper age limit on what they mean by “children” – i.e., this applies to parents of adult children as well.  They hope to get responses by the end of the month, so I’m turning my attention to this promptly and hope you will, too.  (Hopefully there are similar surveys being conducted by someone with respect to self-advocates’ own perspectives on covid-19, and maybe one for sibs as well?)

And while I’m on the subject of parents’ concerns at this time – here is an article that I had somehow missed in the Washington Post from several days ago:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/on-parenting/a-time-of-unprecedented-fear-for-parents-of-adults-with-intellectual-and-developmental-disabilities/2020/04/02/9c195416-7295-11ea-87da-77a8136c1a6d_story.html.  This article hits home for me, since I haven’t seen my son in person since March 21 and his four-day-a-week volunteer job at a D.C. library has been on hold since March 16.  We worry daily for him and his loyal DSP staff.

I hope all of you are keeping well and busy.  As my son keeps telling me, “We’ll battle through this, Mom!”