DISABILITY
ISSUES
INFORMATION
FOR
JOURNALISTS
ABOUT
THE CENTER
Disabled Mom and Activist Wins National Health Leadership Award
Note to readers: links to news articles may not work after a few weeks, as news media remove current stories to their archives. The link may take you to the archives section, where, for a fee, you can view the article.
Sept. 3, 2002 -- Activist and author Judi Rogers,an occupational therapist and disabled mother of two who drew on her experience to help Berkeley-area disabled parents care for their children, will receive the 2002 Robert Wood Johnson Community Health Leadership Program award at its September 24 ceremony in Washington, D.C. Rogers, on the staff of Through the Looking Glass, will receive $15,000 as a personal award and $105,000 for programs at Through the Looking Glass.
Rogers's speciality is in developing adaptive babycare equipment for parents with disabilities. Interviewing disabled women for her book "Mother to Be: A Guide to Pregnancy and Birth for Women with Disabilities" fueled her commitment to improving healthcare practices, she says. In her development of babycare adaptations for parents with physical disabilities she has been able to offer ingenious solution because of being a parent herself, says the organization's press release (Read the press release at http://www.lookingglass.org/rogers.php).
Through the Looking Glass's National Resource Center for Parents with Disabilities, funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, provides information, consultation and resources for the nearly 11 million parents with disabilities in the U.S. There Rogers is part of a team of staff occupational therapists "who work with parents with physical disabilities to develop customized babycare adaptations and strategies which fit the babies' and parents' needs," says TLG. (Learn more about TLG's National Parent-to-Parent Network at http://www.lookingglass.org/ppn.php). She also runs a monthly support group for parents with disabilities.
Learn more about Rogers's book, Mother to Be, at http://www.lookingglass.org/publications/pubdetails.php#MTB Read more about the manual on babycare at http://www.lookingglass.org/publications/pubdetails.php#ABCE
Read about the Robert Wood Johnson Community Health Leadership program at http://www.communityhealthleaders.org
Rogers was selected from more than 450 nominees for this year's award. Now celebrating its 10th anniversary, the Robert Wood Johnson Community Health Leadership Program awards $1.2 million annually to 10 people who have expanded access to health care and social services to underserved and isolated populations in their communities.