Below are links with resources to help you live your best life and advocate for yourself and others. Some of these links also provide information on best practices and system innovations for the disability service field:
Government Resources on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, and Autism
New Jersey Division of Developmental Disabilities
New Jersey Council on Developmental Disabilities
Administration for Community Living
National Center on Advancing Person Centered Practices and Systems
Transition Into Adulthood
SPAN’s Transition from School to Adult Life
New Jersey Youth Transition Conference
Advocacy
Self Advocates Becoming Empowered (SABE) Self-Advocacy Resources
Academic and Research Resources
Rutgers University The Boggs Center on Developmental Disabilities
Human Services Research Institute
Temple University Institute on Disabilities
University of Minnesota Institute on Community Inclusion
National Leadership Consortium on Developmental Disabilities at the University of Delaware
Blogs/Writing/Speaking by Self-Advocates
Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network
AWN is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization with a mission to provide community, support and resources for Autistic women, girls, transfeminine and transmasculine nonbinary and genderqueer people, trans people of all genders, Two Spirit people, and all others of marginalized genders.
Listen2Us: DJ Saverese & Jaime Burke
DJ Savarese: A 2017-2019 Open Society Foundations/ Human Rights Initiative Youth Fellow, DJ has been working to make literacy-based education, communication, and self-determined, inclusive lives a reality for all nonspeaking people through artful advocacy, community-based projects, presentations, trainings, and teaching.
Jaime Burke: A national and global presenter and trainer since his mid-teens, Jamie advocates for full inclusion and typed communication as gateways to speech, literacy, and connection and currently serves on the Advisory Board for the Lucky Hollow Nature and Sensory Retreat in Fabius, New York.
Lydia X. Z. Brown is an advocate, organizer, educator, attorney, strategist, and writer. Their work focuses on addressing state and interpersonal violence targeting disabled people living at the intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, faith, language, and nation.
Morénike Giwa Onaiwu (she/they) is an educator, writer, public speaker, parent, and global advocate. A proactive, resourceful professional and disabled woman of color in a multicultural, neurodiverse, serodifferent family, Morénike, who is American-born to immigrant parents, possesses undergraduate and graduate degrees in International Relations and Education.
Jen Deerinwater (Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma) is the founding executive director of Crushing Colonialism and is a bisexual, Two Spirit, multiply-disabled journalist, speaker, and organizer who covers the myriad of issues her communities face with an intersectional lens.
Aaron Westendorp: What Self-Advocacy Means to Me (audio recording)
Aaron Westendorp is a Musician, Online DJ Show Host, and a Self-Advocate in Hopkins, Minnesota, who uses a communication device.