Advance, Cornell ILR School's publication for alumni and friends.
Issue link: https://advance.epubxp.com/i/362921
10 ehind the disability research of Teresa Danso-Danquah '15 is motivation that comes from the heart. "Every day that goes by, it's another day my sister doesn't have a job or more educa- tion," said Danso-Danquah, whose older sibling has an intellectual disability. "This is more than a passion," said Danso-Danquah, who plans to make disability policy her career. Danso-Danquah said her ambition to study issues relevant to her sister's future was cemented when she was named a Hunter R. Rawlings III Cornell Presidential Re- search Scholar. The Rawlings program provides research support for up to 200 Cornell undergraduates a year. Cornell's obligation as a land grant university to extend its research into the real world also dovetailed with Danso-Danquah's personal philosophy. Danso-Danquah began her work in disability policy re- search by joining the Employ- ment and Disability Institute team that developed the New York State Sibling Needs As- sessment Survey. Survey results are expected to help policymakers identify sup- ports needed for adult siblings who have brothers and sisters with disabilities. "I was really lucky to have that as my foray into college re- search," said Danso-Danquah, who grew up in Richmond, Va., and who is a Truman Scholar. Danso-Danquah internation- alized her disability focus last summer at the Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty in Hyderabad, India, through the ILR's Employment and Disability Institute is conducting research and providing coordination and support for a $32.5 million federal project to improve education and career outcomes for low-income teens with disabilities in New York state. "PROMISE" — short for Promoting the Readiness of Minors in Supplemental Security Income — is designed to help students graduate from high school, complete post- secondary education and job training, obtain jobs and reduce reliance on Supplemental Security Income. It also seeks to provide support to students' families by increas- ing their employment, educational and economic outlook. Employment and Disability Institute Associate Direc- tor Thomas Golden is the lead principal investigator at Cornell for the fve-year project. "Never have we tried to address all of the policy and practice barriers in one comprehensive set of interventions. PROMISE embraces this complexity," he said. The initiative aims to increase self-suffciency for teens entering adulthood, and their families, by improving in- teractions of local, state and federal services available to students with disabilities who also receive Supplemental Security Income. Golden said the grant will focus on "a very vulnerable population of youth who experience low education and economic levels, high school dropout and incarceration rates, and who often have limited access to school-to- work transition services." Two-thousand students ages 14 through 16 who receive Supplemental Security Income and their families are be- ing recruited to participate in the project. One-thousand will be randomly selected to receive PROMISE services, said New York State PROMISE Research Director Arun Kar- pur of the Employment and Disability Institute. Outcomes of youth in the intervention group will be compared with those of 1,000 students who continue to receive services, typically provided by school programs. Ten states are participating in PROMISE, an initiative of the federal education department, the Social Security Ad- ministration, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Labor. In addition to the ILR institute, the project's core manage- ment team includes the New York State Offce of Mental Health and the Research Foundation for Mental Hygiene. Research Passion Inspired by Sibling B