Over the past 25 years, the number of violence-related disabilities has risen. While reports of murder frequently make the news, victims who survive violence–who may be left physically or mentally disabled, or bothû-live on in silence.
“It used to be years ago the reality was that people with spinal cord injuries and traumatic brain injuries tended to get those injuries through falls, diving, motor vehicle accidents, etc.,” Robert Kilbury, director of the Illinois Department of Human Services Division of Rehabilitation services said.
“Over the last 25, 30 years, a larger and larger percentage of those disabilities have occurred as a result of gunshot wounds especially.” Kilbury’s assessment is part of the reason the state hosted the “Don’t Dis Your Ability” fair at the Illinois Center for Rehabilitation and Education on June 20.
The event was the first effort to reach out specifically to those with disabilities acquired through violence but was open to the general population and all people with disabilities. More than 10 state and independent agencies and organizations were represented at the fair, with tables and workshops full of information on everything from getting criminal records expunged to home modification.
IDHS secretary Carol Adams, Ph.D., said she got the idea to have the fair a year ago after listening to a focus group for young men to hear about some of their challenges. “We realized we need to make them a target population and aggressively go after them, not just wait for them to hear about us,” Adams said.
Adams said the event began to come together when she started working with LeVon Stone and the Metropolitan Area Group for Igniting Civilization that he works for. “He goes to Christ Hospital and calls on people once they’ve been shot to try to help them and their families. She has a network of people that he has talked to in the past,” Adams explained.
Stone, who was shot over 15 years ago, at the age of 18, while trying to break up a fight between friends, has been working with victims that come to Christ Hospital. He was treated there for his gunshot wound.
“We go out and find the people that are hard to reach in urban communities. We go out and find and inform them about the services and open those doors that they thought were going to be closed to them,” Stone said. Kilbury said he hasn’t seen statistics on whether the people who seek IDHS’s services were merely innocent bystanders or if they were actually involved in violence.
But, he said, IDHS wants to help people with disabilities, who have legitimate barriers, to go back to work and live independently after falling victim to violence. “We’re hopeful that having outreach programs like this will help us reach that population,” Kilbury said.
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