March 4, 2024
March 4, 2024 –The New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD) has launched a new series of videos designed to empower people with developmental disabilities and fight the societal stigmas that can stand in the way of them living full lives of their choosing. The videos were launched on March 1 to coincide with National Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month (DDAM).
“Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month does more than just raise awareness, it’s an opportunity to highlight all the ways that people are empowered to take charge of their own lives. The videos we’ve released are incredibly beautiful and insightful, and we hope people will take the time to watch them and connect with them,” said Kerri Neifeld, OPWDD Commissioner. “We also hope more people will share their messages with us about who they are and how they want others to view them as we launch this new participatory component of our “Look Beyond” campaign. We can all learn something new when listening to another person’s message. I encourage people with developmental disabilities to be empowered and share their voices with us this month and beyond.”
The National Association of Councils on Developmental Disabilities (NACDD) has chosen “A World of Opportunities” as the theme of Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month in 2024. By celebrating people and working together to remove obstacles, the NACDD and its partners, including New York State, seek to build a community that’s committed to creating a world where everyone can succeed and all people have the chance to thrive.
In 2023, OPWDD launched a statewide public awareness campaign named “Look Beyond My Developmental Disability.” The campaign's call to action is to combat stigma towards people with developmental disabilities by asking everyone to look beyond the disability and see the person for all they are – a neighbor, friend, co-worker, business owner, and more.
This month, in its series of empowerment videos released for DDAM, OPWDD introduced a new group of “I AM” videos that are part of its Look Beyond campaign in which people with developmental disabilities affirm how they choose to define themselves and want others to see them. In another video titled “The Art of Advocacy,” self-advocates speak up and tell us what advocacy means to them and what they hope the future of advocacy will hold. In the “Sexuality and People with Developmental Disabilities” sequence of videos, the public is educated about the importance of providing information to people with developmental disabilities and supporting them in their sexual self-advocacy. This last series of videos was developed with the training company Elevatus, the Self Advocacy Association of New York State (SANYS), and the filmmaker, the University of Minnesota. The videos will soon be followed up with an online toolkit that will further assist self-advocates, professionals, and family members in supporting people with developmental disabilities around sexuality and relationships.
In conjunction with the release of the videos, OPWDD is launching a new participatory component to its “Look Beyond” campaign this month that encourages people with developmental disabilities to share their own unique I AM messages to raise awareness. Detailed instructions about how to participate are on the OPWDD website. Those wishing to participate are asked to send their photo and their original “I AM” message to OPWDD at [email protected]. People can also share their pictures and messages on their personal social media pages and tag @NYSOPWDD. All New Yorkers are encouraged to follow OPWDD on Facebook, Instagram, X, and LinkedIn this month and like and share the agency’s videos and posts using #DDAM2024, #LookBeyond, and #WorldofOpportunities.
“I congratulate OPWDD on all of the work they have done both with these powerful videos and the tremendously thought-provoking anti-stigma campaign, “Look Beyond”,” said Chief Disability Officer Kim Hill Ridley. “It is my hope that as we move forward collaboratively that all people with disabilities will be viewed exactly how they want to be viewed and portrayed first and foremost – as people. Individual people that have their own thoughts, dreams, wishes, goals, passions, talents and so much more. The fact that they might have a disability should always be secondary to that. I believe these videos and the anti-stigma campaign go a long way towards getting us to that point.”
###