The Lurie Institute for Disability Policy at Brandeis University’s Heller School leads research that helps shape policies, programs and practices which improve the lives of people with disabilities across the lifespan.

We partner with people with disabilities, community organizations, policymakers, and clinicians to produce research that addresses the critical issues that people with disabilities and their families face. This research incorporates qualitative and quantitative projects that are informed by the disability community and grounded in disability justice. Our research team includes established academic scholars, postdoctoral fellows, professional research staff, and student research assistants. We prioritize mentorship of the next generation of researchers.

What's Happening at the Lurie Institute

Strategies for Supporting Parents with Disabilities: when there is Child Protection Involvement

Strategies for Supporting Parent with Disabilities: when there is Child Protecting Involvement. January 30, 2025. 12:00pm ET. Speaker: Kara B. Ayers & Elizabeth Lightfoot. Lurie Institute logo. Headshot of Kara & Elizabeth.

The webinar will provide an overview of ableism and discrimination within child protection and provide parents with strategies for addressing these injustices. Presenters are Dr. Elizabeth Lightfoot, Distinguished Professor of Social Policy and Director of the Arizona State University School of Social Work, and Dr. Kara Ayers, Associate Professor at Cincinnati Children's Hospital.

We will be providing ASL and Zoom automated captions. For any other accommodations, please contact us at lurie@brandeis.edu as soon as possible.

Register now

Introducing an interactive dashboard to learn more about people with disabilities

Introducing the Community Living Equity Data Dashboard! January 16,2025 3:00pm ET. Speakers: Laurin Bixby & Jennifer Lee-Rambharose. Community Living Equity Center logo. Lurie Institute logo. Graphic of a black woman interacting with the data dashboard. Headshot of Laurin and Jennifer.

The Community Living Equity Center (CLEC) is thrilled to launch our new data dashboard that examines who needs and receives Long Term Services and Supports (LTSS) across the United States. While research has been conducted on how disabled people of color access, use, experience, and are affected by education, healthcare, employment, and criminal legal systems, little has been done to understand racial and ethnic disparities in community living. This new dashboard presents data on the percentage and demographic characteristics of racial and ethnic minorities with LTSS needs and their utilization of Medicaid HCBS and institutional LTSS by racial and ethnic categories, as well as other indicators of disparities in community living equity. The disability community has historically faced barriers to accessing information and timely, credible data vital for local communities and individuals to advocate for data-driven responses for equity in policymaking. The dissemination of data through the Community Living Equity Data Dashboard will enable disability advocates from the local levels to advocate for shifts in policies and services to advance community living equity. Jen and Laurin will demonstrate how to use this data dashboard and will discuss the data. The webinar will emphasize how this data dashboard can be used by advocates in the disability community and other stakeholders.

We will be providing ASL and Zoom automated captions. For any other accommodations, please contact us at lurie@brandeis.edu as soon as possible.

Register now

Introducing an interactive dashboard to learn more about people with disabilities

Disability Data Dashboard. A graphic of a black woman interacting with the data dashboard.

Historically, data about people with disabilities and their experiences has been difficult to access, navigate, and understand. Our interactive data dashboards offer a solution for advocates, policymakers, and researchers, portraying information about parents with disabilities and community living services in visually engaging and easy-to-use ways. We hope these dashboards can serve as an effective tool for disability advocates to further the rights, access, and inclusion of the disability community.

Access the Disability Data Dashboard

Webinar: Unlocking Potential: Social Housing as a Catalyst for Accessible, Affordable Living

Unlocking Potential: Social Housing as a Catalyst for Accessible, Affordable Living. December 5, 2024 3:00-4:00pm ET Panelists: Mary Lou Breslin, Hanneke van Deursen, Morgan Tweed. Register now! Community Living Policy Center Logo. Lurie Institute for Disability Policy logo.This exciting and timely webinar explores the burgeoning movement for social housing in the United States and the untapped opportunities it presents to increase permanent, affordable, accessible housing for disabled renters. Social housing embodies the growing view that private, for-profit housing development has failed to meet the nation’s growing affordable housing crisis. Shielded from the market, rent-stabilized, and sustainable, social housing holds the potential to help solve the housing shortage for renters with diverse incomes, including very low-income disabled people.

Access the accessible PowerPoint file.

RECORDING available now

Cultivating Disabled Leadership for an Inclusive & Sustainable Future

Cultivating Disabled Leadership for an Inclusive & Sustainable Future. December 2, 2024. 9:30am ET. Panelists: Yujiao Peng, Sushil Adhikari, Alan Herbert, Jennifer Lee-Rambharose. Moderated by: Dr. LuanJiao Aggie Hu. Lurie Institute logo.

This webinar is in honor of International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD). Panelists Yuijao Peng, Sushil Adhikari, Alan Herbert, and Jennifer Lee-Rambharose discuss their work and vision as it relates to this year’s IDPD theme ‘amplifying the leadership of persons with disabilities for an inclusive and sustainable future.’ Dr. LuanJiao Aggie Hu facilitates the discussion, asking questions about their approaches to disability-related work in their country and the role of international perspectives in their work.

Recording now available

Addressing Dental-Care Underutilization Among Adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

Addressing Dental-Care Underutilization among Adults with Intellectual and Developmental DisabilitiesA Policy Framework for Enhancing Access and Provider Engagement

How might policymakers improve dental care for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, affecting overall health in the process?

A new research brief by Isabella Doulas—alum of the Lurie Institute's student research fellowship program—discusses the results of her intensive study of the issue.

Access Addressing Dental-Care Underutilization Among Adults with IDD

#TeachDisabilityHistory Campaign Event

#TeachDisabilityHistory. Finish off Disability History Month by learning from disabled youth who are working to promote teaching disability history in schools and beyond. October 31, 2024. Heller School, Zinner Forum & via Zoom. 2:00pm EST. Reception to follow. Easterseals Massachusetts logo. Lurie Institute logo.#HellerAt65 Celebrating 65 years of Knowledge Advancing Social Justice. Picture collage of Judy Heumann, Fannie Lou Hamer, Carrie Ann Lucas, Alice Wong, and Julian Gavino.

Easterseals Massachusetts is a nonprofit that works with people with disabilities to provide equal opportunities to live, learn, work, and play. Within the youth department, they are currently working on a campaign to #TeachDisabilityHistory. During this recording, you will hear from the young adults working on this campaign. They will share some of the work they have done to promote teaching disability history in schools, and everyone will play a game to test their knowledge of disability history. Committee members will also share insights from an earlier facilitated conversation on community building and Massachusetts disability history.

REcording now available

 

 

Disability Research for a New Generation

Photo of Monika Mitra, Shoshana Finkel, Alanna Levy, Norma Stobbe, Monica Chen, Rachel Steinberg. Front row: Shira Levie, Judy Heumann, Max Tang. Text on picture reads "Disability Research for a New Generation"

The Lurie Undergraduate Fellowship offers opportunity to learn policy and create community.

For more than half a century, the Brandeis University community has championed the rights of people with disabilities, part of the school’s commitment to social justice.

READ THE FULL STORY

Current Featured Work

Living with Anxiety as a Disabled Parent

Webinar: Living with Anxiety as a Disabled Parent

The Center for Parents webinar will discuss the anxiety of new parenthood from the viewpoint of two disabled mothers. Both generalized anxiety disorder among disabled parents and day-to-day anxieties of parenting with a disability when parents often experience stigma and ableism at both a structural and personal level will be discussed. Register here.

Beyond the Minimum: How Social Housing Can Fully Include Disabled People

Issue Brief: Beyond the Minimum: How Social Housing Can Fully Include Disabled People

This Community Living Policy Center issue brief explores the burgeoning movement for social housing in the United States and the untapped opportunities it presents to increase permanent, affordable, accessible housing for disabled renters.
Olmstead 25th Anniversary Panel: The Progress and Promise of the Olmstead Decision

Webinar: The Progress and Promise of the Olmstead Decision

For the 25th anniversary of the Olmstead decision, join the Community Living Policy Center for a timely and important panel event on key milestones of Olmstead advocacy and future directions for community living policy. Access the recording.

Housing Circumstances of Parents with Disabilities within the Child Welfare System

New Brief: Housing Circumstances of Parents with Disabilities within the Child Welfare System

This study from the National Research Center for Parents with Disabilities examines the housing circumstances of parents with disabilities in the child welfare system, with particular attention to race/ethnicity and disability.

“People with disabilities, like everybody else, should have the supports to live and to thrive in their communities.”
—Monika Mitra, Director of the Lurie Institute