Rice University’s Center for Community and Public Health (CCPH) at the Kinder Institute will premiere a new series of accessible grief educational resources for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, or IDD, Sept. 21 at The Health Museum.
The community event, scheduled from 9 a.m.-2 p.m., will feature the premiere of six educational videos, panel discussions with adults with IDD, families, researchers and community partners, lunch and a hands-on “Create Your Own Mosaic” art activity focused on healing and connection.
The new resources build on Paths, an evidence-based educational program developed during the COVID-19 pandemic to help medically underserved communities cope with grief and loss. Drawing from lessons learned through Paths, the CCPH at the Kinder Institute partnered with adults with IDD, their families and community organizations to develop a new program tailored to the experiences of people with IDD.
“This new set of tools is designed to support adults with IDD in understanding and expressing grief, developing coping skills, and navigating loss and life transitions, while providing families, caregivers, and community organizations with guidance to better support them,” said Luz Garcini, Director of the CCPH at Kinder Institute and an associate professor of psychological sciences at Rice. “Adults with IDD deserve to be included in conversations and decision-making around death and loss, and to have tools created for them, with them, and by them—grounded in their voices, experiences, and needs.”
EVENT DETAILS
What: Paths premiere
When: Monday, Sept. 21
9-2 p.m.; doors open at 8:45 a.m.
Where: The Health Museum, 1515 Hermann Drive, Houston
Media wanting to attend the event can contact Media Relations specialist Kat Cosley Trigg at Kat.Cosley.Trigg@rice.edu.
Paths is a project of the Kinder Institute’s Center for Community and Public Health. The IDD-focused work is supported partially by the Texas Council for Developmental Disabilities and the Anchorage Foundation of Texas.