Research and Training Center on Independent Living
Research to Enhance Independent Living
The RTC/IL is a collection of projects and centers committed to enhancing independent living for people with disabilities and bridging local, state, and national levels. We work with those who will use our research to produce relevant, useful scientific studies and products.Current Research Projects
Research and Training Center on Community Living
This new center will develop evidence-based programs, policies and practices to further community living among people with disabilities.
Research and Training Center on Measurement and Interdependence in Community Living
MICL focuses on enhancing community participation by people with disabilities. Individual research projects address a range of topics, including healthcare access, the effectiveness of CIL services, personal assistant training and more.ADA Accommodations Training Project
This project is designed to improve post-secondary students’ self-advocacy skills and knowledge about their legal rights and responsibilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). College students who have disabilities don’t always know what they are entitled to under this law, nor how to request accommodations from their teachers or institutions.
KU Diet Project
This is a weight loss program for people with physical disabilities in Wichita. This program is based on an earlier study
that focused on adults with developmental disabilities.
Past Projects
Highlights of past projects follow.Full Participation. In 2005 the RTC/IL pooled the expertise and ideas of colleagues in independent living, governmental, and research sectors to develop and document priorities in disability research, practices, policies, and funding initiatives. The Center sponsored a working group in 2005 to identify specific, actionable recommendations with a 5-10 year horizon, with measurable outcomes, to increase full participation for Americans with disabilities in community life. These recommendations were given to the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research to aid in its development of research that will maximize participation and enhance community living of people with disabilities. View this executive summary at Independent Living Working Group Recommendations.
Besides engaging consumers and others in Consumer-Empowered Teams (also known as Participatory Action Research) to help identify key areas of policy concern, another way the RTC/IL research has been part of the dialogue guiding disability policy is by providing expert counsel, testimony, and scientifically drawn evidence in support of policy issues.
We also have participated in funded research of policy significance to persons with disabilities in specialized studies such as the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Full Participation in Independent Living and the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center forUnderserved Populations, which studied independent living needs assessment for underserved populations, assistive technology skills training for consumers with psychiatric disabilities, service accommodation for consumers with cognitive and intellectual disabilities, and facilitation of effective board skills for underserved disability populations.
Collaboration. Throughout our research and knowledge dissemination activities, we have collaborated with other individuals and organizations. For example, we teamed with the Independent Living Research Utilization (ILRU) Program of TIRR to improve access and use of independent living research information through the Research Information for Independent Living (RIIL) project, which included several webcasts and the interactive Internet database (www.getriil.org) that contains research summaries on key independent living-related topics.
Emergency Preparedness. In our Nobody Left Behind project we worked with numerous organizations throughout the United States to assess whether disaster plans and emergency response systems met the needs of people with mobility impairments. This was funded by the National Institute on Disability Rehabilitation Research and also by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through the Association of Teachers of Preventive Medicine,
For more about previous research, click here.
