Each year, the National Disability Rights Network honors the extraordinary work of Protection and Advocacy agencies with the NDRN Advocacy Award
The NDRN Advocacy Award is given each year to P&As who have demonstrated outstanding work, allied organizations who have partnered with P&As, as well as to P&A clients who have successfully advocated for improvements in services that not only benefitted them but the broader community of people with disabilities.
The awards this year were presented during general sessions at the 2022 National Disability Rights Conference.
We are thrilled to announce the recipients of the 2022 NDRN Advocacy Award.
Disability Rights New Jersey
DRNJ was honored for their exceptional advocacy and network collaboration with respect to children and youth with disabilities placed in restrictive institutional settings.
DRNJ works actively to divert children and youth with disabilities from the juvenile justice system and recently participated in a project on misincarceration. In addition, DRNJ staff were active participants in a nationwide P&A project on youth residential placements, contributing generously to the report, “Desperation Without Dignity”, profiling the abuse and neglect of children and youth with disabilities in private equity operated residential facilities. DRNJ staff were instrumental in connecting the profit related incentives guiding these programs to cut services to the abject neglect of wards in their care.
Please join us in congratulating Disability Rights New Jersey for this well-deserved recognition. You can learn more about their work here.
Disability Rights DC
It is with great pleasure that we share that Disability Rights DC has been awarded the NDRN Advocacy Award for their Jail and Prison Advocacy Program. The program assists formerly incarcerated residents of DC who are diagnosed with psychiatric disabilities by advocating for them during reentry. Using an evidence-based, client-centered approach to reentry, the program works with individuals who have significant histories of trauma, poverty, victimization, and criminal system involvement. Ninety percent are chronically homeless and more than 90 percent are people of color — overwhelmingly African American in a city where just under half the population is African American.
Across the country, Protection and Advocacy agencies consistently rise to the challenge of defending the rights of all individuals with disabilities. Disability Rights DC’s efforts are an extraordinary example of P&A advocacy and a model for us all.
Learn more about the Disability Rights DC Jail and Prison Advocacy Program.
