Women with disabilities and abuse

They want to use this opportunity to begin listening to women in safe environments, while also building partnerships with a variety of disability and women’s organizations representing a diversity of disabilities, regions, experiences, identities, languages, cultures, ethno-racial communities, etc… The focus of this component of the CWF’s research is to gather information on women with disabilitie [...] The following excerpt from The Right to Be Safe offers a good explanation of the types of disabilities and the importance of not medicalizing our understanding of disability. [...] When we are attempting to identify barriers and strategies to eliminate those barriers, it is more constructive to focus on the areas where social systems and services have the “deficiency” in meeting the diverse needs of all members of our communities, rather than the individual. [...] The lead facilitator was asked to meet with the recorder prior to the commencement of their group to go over research objectives and expectations for note taking. [...] Due to the lack of understanding of the experiences of women with disabilities generally and abuse women with disabilities specifically – there is very little accessible and culturally appropriate counselling supports for women with disabilities.