Creating Pathways to Healing for Survivors with Disabilities

People with disabilities experience violent victimization at rates 3-5 times higher than people without disabilities. Yet, they are less likely to receive services that help interrupt violence and support healing from trauma. Activating Change is working to remove barriers to services and create new pathways to healing.

Only 13% of survivors with disabilities receive victim services.

Unfortunately, through no fault of their own, people with disabilities are less likely to receive services that increase their safety and support their healing. The barriers are even greater for people with disabilities and Deaf people from communities of color and other marginalized communities. The two organizations most likely to help - survivor advocacy and disability organizations - haven’t been designed to serve survivors with disabilities and they don’t routinely work together. This creates barriers to survivors with disabilities getting the support they need.

Activating Change is driving a field to end victimization of people with disabilities. We support the leadership of people with disabilities in efforts to address violence. We help disability organizations become more survivor-centered and victim services organizations and systems integrate a disability lens. We also bring the two fields together. Working together, we can ensure survivors with disabilities can heal and live free from violence.

Our Solutions

Amplifying the Voices and Leadership of People with Disabilities

We support the leadership of people with disabilities and Deaf people in efforts to end domestic and sexual violence by providing training that is designed to strengthen their leadership and advocacy skills and facilitating and supporting leadership opportunities within our organization and the broader survivor advocacy field. We also convene the Uniting to End Violence Against People with Disabilities National Coalition, which is working to amplify the voices of Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color with disabilities and dismantling racism and ableism.
Fostering a National Network of Advocates

The Accessing Safety Initiative is a network of community-based collaborations between disability organizations, and culturally-specific and mainstream rape crisis centers and domestic violence programs, as well as other stakeholder groups. We support these collaborations to engage people with disabilities in their community; identify and remove barriers to direct services; enhance coordination of services across organizations, and advocate for policy changes that support survivors with disabilities. The network is active in more than 150 communities across the country.
Building Capacity in Community-Based Organizations

Through our National Resource Center and national End Abuse of People with Disabilities campaign, we provide training and expert guidance to people working in disability organizations, mainstream and culturally-specific domestic violence programs and rape crisis centers, law enforcement, and state funding entities. We help these organizations strengthen and expand their work to benefit survivors with disabilities. For example, we build the capacity of survivor advocacy organizations to be more accessible and to fully integrate a disability lens. We also build the capacity of organizations in the disability movement to be more survivor-centered and trauma-informed. Our work with systems and with system actors focuses on reducing harm and disparities, especially among people with disabilities and Deaf people from communities of color, and adopting strategies that promote healing.
Advocating for Supportive Policies

We are educating policymakers in Washington about the needs of survivors with disabilities, especially those from Black and brown communities. We are also working to ensure Federal legislation that addresses victimization - such as the Violence Against Women Act and Family Violence and Prevention Services Act - centers people with disabilities and Deaf people and promotes self-determination, sexual rights, well-being, and racial equity. We also work to increase funding for disability-centered programs. We also collaborate with disability advocacy groups to fight for policy changes to address long-standing issues such as mandatory reporting, sexual assault consent laws, guardianship, marriage penalties, and police brutality.

Explore More

How Safe are Americans with Disabilities?

This brief provides basic information on disability in the United States. It explores what is known about violent victimization of people with disabilities and the factors that contribute to their higher risk of experiencing violent crime. It also explains the obstacles people with disabilities encounter when seeking access to the services and supports they need to heal. Finally, it stresses the limits of existing victim-service, human-service, and criminal justice systems, policies, and practices in responding to violence against people with disabilities.

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Applying Disability Justice to Meet the Needs of Human Trafficking Survivors

Traffickers deliberately target victims they think will be easily isolated and controlled, so conditions surrounding people with disabilities, including the fact that they are marginalized, devalued, and isolated, make people with disabilities more vulnerable to this type of abuse. While there currently is no research on the rate of trafficking among BIPOC survivors with disabilities, it is evident that BIPOC survivors’ experiences of ableism, racism, and other forms of oppression create a situation in which they are at greater risk and encounter more barriers to getting help. This webinar explores the issues facing victims of trafficking who have disabilities, including the unique ways they are trafficked and implications for service providers.

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Designing Accessible Events

This tip sheet series helps organizations working to end domestic and sexual violence plan events that are accessible to people with disabilities and Deaf individuals. The series contains tip sheets on key aspects of event planning from budgeting to registration to meeting set-up. Each tip sheet provides user-friendly information on access considerations, practical tips to maximize access, and resources for more information.

Download the Tip Sheets
Words Matter: The Importance of Identity and Language

In the disability community, where there is a history of erasure, exploitation, and misunderstanding, language choices we make when talking about people with disabilities (also referred to as disabled people) are ever-changing and important. Recognizing and honoring people’s choices about their identity is critical to supporting survivors with disabilities. In this discussion, Max Barrows Cierra Olivia Thomas-Williams, and Olga Trujillo delve into their perspectives on identity and language.

Watch the Discussion
Sexual Victimization of Men with Disabilities

This brief provides an overview of the latest research on the incidence and prevalence of sexual violence in the lives of men with disabilities and Deaf men, identifies gaps in the field’s knowledge on the subject, and documents the unique barriers both groups face in accessing services. It concludes by looking ahead to how additional research, public policy changes, and educational efforts can contribute to ending the victimization of men with disabilities and Deaf men.

Download the Brief
Just Ask: An Accommodations ToolKit

Just Ask: A Toolkit to Help Advocates, Attorneys, and Law Enforcement Meet the Needs of Crime Victims with Disabilities was created in response to conversations with professionals working with survivors, many of whom are open to asking about accommodations, but don’t know how and are worried about saying the wrong thing. The toolkit lays out four simple steps for providing accommodations to survivors with disabilities, and includes sample language you can use when talking to survivors. It also outlines what your agency needs to have in place for staff to be able to provide accommodations as soon as survivors request them.

Get the ToolKit