Center on Aging and Disabilities
Welcome to the homepage of the Center on Aging and Disabilities (CAD) at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. On this site you will find a wide variety of information for older adults, adults with disabilities and their families and the various community professionals who work with them. The mission of the CAD is to use education and training, awareness as an instrument for the creation and improvement of programs and services for older persons and individuals with disabilities and their families in the community. The CAD:
HISTORY OF THE CAD Housed in the University's Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, the CAD began in 1989 as the Aging Training Initiative of the new University Affiliated Program (UAP) in Developmental Disabilities, now called the University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities Education, Research and Service (UCEDD). The original CADD was – and still remains – a joint effort of the Center on Aging and the Mailman Center in the Department of Pediatrics. The initial work of the CAD focused solely on the needs of aging parents of older adults with developmental disabilities, particularly as they look to the future care of their dependent adult children with severe disabilities. Since those early years, the CAD has both retained this original focus and broadened its scope to include issues of concern to adults with disabilities throughout the life span. Accordingly, family caregivers of elders and/or individuals with disabilities remain the focus of many of our efforts. In 1995, the CAD enlarged its vision of vulnerable adults and expanded its educational efforts into the criminal justice arena, with the creation of its first training workshop on elder abuse for law enforcement. Since that time the CAD has developed several training curricula and conducted dozens of workshops on the abuse of elders and people with disabilities for a variety of criminal justice professionals, and participated in a number of regional and has national conferences on the topic. OUR CURRENT AREAS OF INTEREST Individuals with lifelong disabilities want to become valued, contributing members of the communities in which they live. One way to do that is by becoming a volunteer or member in a community service program. Since 2003 The CAD – as part of the (UCEDD) – has conducted annual grant projects to promote the inclusion of individuals with disabilities in national and community service. These grants are subcontracts from The National Service Inclusion Project (NSIP) conducted jointly by the Institute for Community Inclusion at UMass/Boston and the Association of University Centers on Disabilities. The 2004-05 NSIP project conducted by the CAD is called FLAGs (Florida’s Local Action Groups) for Service. A complete report of this community educational outreach project, its activities and products can be found on this web site. OUR RECENT PROJECTS |
