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Disability Awareness Training honored by Quota International
Thursday, June 3, 2010 8:31 am
Disability Awareness Training is being recognized by Quota International of Amherst (NY) on Thursday, June 17th.
Quota International, founded in 1919, is an international service organization that links members of all ages, occupations, and nationalities in a worldwide network of service and friendship.
With a motto of "we share," Quotarians are known especially for their service to deaf, hard-of-hearing, and speech-impaired individuals and disadvantaged women and children. Quota members share the values of serving and encouraging others, developing friendships, and promoting international understanding.
Quota will be awarding DAT with a monetary donation that will be used to train Diocese of Buffalo Parish disability advocates on June 22. This will forward the move to ensure all individuals of the Catholic faith in Western New York are fully accepted in their churches and faith community.
Dynamic duo aids disabled
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 3:35 pm
By Phil Fairbanks
The Buffalo News, May 13, 2010
Dan D'Andrea and Dave Whalen are a dangerous duo.
One, they have money, and, two, they have a passion, a righteousness if you will, that drives them.
Together, they're a recipe for success unless you're a municipality, restaurant or hotel that thumbs its nose at people with disabilities.
"There's nothing worse than traveling to some place and not being able to get inside," said D'Andrea, a former construction worker paralyzed from the chest down in a 2004 workplace accident.
With the first-ever grants awarded by D'Andrea's charitable trust, a $1 million fund formed last year, the men are out to correct a great wrong — widespread ignorance over the needs of the disabled community.
The result is two initiatives that could open doors for thousands of people with disabilities.
"Our intent is to ensure that everyone is included in society," said Whalen, a disability awareness trainer and consultant. "That's not happening right now."
Their first initiative is to create a Web site — www.accessbuffalo.com — that reviews local restaurants and hotels with an eye toward rating their accessibility. The site will be up and running July 1.
The second initiative is "Town Hall Training," a new program aimed at training local government officials in what their legal responsibilities are under the Americans With Disabilities Act.
"That's the law, but most people don't know the law, or say they don't," said D'Andrea, "And if people don't know what to do, how can we hold them responsible?"
Whalen said a lack of awareness "permeates local government," and the most obvious symptom of that is the dearth of local municipal committees dedicated to addressing the needs of the disabled community.
One of the few towns with an active and effective committee is Amherst. By no strange coincidence, D'Andrea and Whalen are members.
Just this year, at the committee's urging, Amherst Council Member Mark Manna asked building inspectors to review town-owned facilities with deficiencies identified by the committee. The problems ranged from poor signs to inadequate doorknobs to doorways too narrow for wheelchairs.
"Every elected official needs to look inside himself and ask if they're committed to spending taxpayers' money on these things," said Manna, the Amherst Town Board's liaison to the committee.
Whalen thinks Amherst eventually can become a model for the rest of Western New York as he and D'Andrea push for the creation of committees for the disabled in every city, town and village.
They also plan to target Western New York's restaurants and hotels as part of a new Web site offering recommendations on where people with disabilities can eat or stay.
The local restaurant industry is cooperating.
"Bottom line, it's the right thing to do," said Robert Free, president of the local chapter of the American Restaurant Association. "It also opens the door to an expanded and largely untapped market."
In short, it's good business to be open and accessible to the disabled.
As director of food service at Coca-Cola Field, Free knows the benefits. Pettibones, the heart of his operation there, is known as a restaurant with widespread access.
And thanks to accessbuffalo.com, even more people will soon know that.
When the Web site debuts in July, people will be able to select from reviews that look at everything from a restaurant's entrances to the accessibility of its restrooms.
The reviews will be done by volunteer college students from Canisius, Niagara, Hilbert and the University at Buffalo.
"We're not coming in and saying, "You're bad because you're not accessible,' " Whalen said. "What we're saying is, "This is what you need to do to become accessible.' "
The common theme in everything Whalen and D'Andrea do is access and inclusion. Spend a few minutes with them, and you'll hear it over and over again.
Poke a little deeper, and you'll find out why.
For D'Andrea, it's a passion rooted in a December 2004 accident at the old Holling Press building, the site of one of downtown's first housing rehabilitation projects.
D'Andrea was working there when a large piece of scaffolding fell and landed on his back. The young construction worker eager to start his own business found himself in a wheelchair instead.
"My goal," he said, "is to make as many places as possible — public and private — accessible to people like me."
For Whalen, it's not so much about him as his young son, who was born with cerebral palsy. "I've worked in the field for years," he said, "but what drives me now is my son. I want to ensure that he, like everyone else, is included in every aspect of our society."
A tall order, but then again, you should never sell righteousness short.
Access Buffalo Arrives
Monday, March 8, 2010 11:03 am
Aimee Levesque is an incredible parent/disability advocate who stumbled upon the Access Nashville program about a year ago. She called me and said we need to meet on this. 8-9 meetings later we are about to embark on the Buffalo version of this Vanderbilt University creation.
Access Buffalo is a project whereby trained college students do accessibility reviews of local restaurants. They are then rated in three categories; Excellent/Wow, Good, or Limited. The approach is designed to be comfortable and informative. The Principal investigators then review the survey results and apply the grade. We will also be training restaurant owners on Disability Awareness through their regional association. Its staying power comes from the relationship with the Buffalo Niagara Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Access Buffalo link whereby all surveyed restaurants will be available to the general and visiting public. We have an advisory council that is representative of the community across disability spectrums and professionals.
DAT receives funding to train municipalities
Wednesday, December 23, 2009 11:00 pm
Disability Awareness Training (DAT) has received funding from the Dan D’Andrea foundation to train disability advocates in Western New York (WNY) on how to train, educate, and work within their municipalities so as to ensure proper response by elected officials and Town/village employees to the needs of individuals with disabilities in their communities. DAT has partnered with The Advocacy Center in Rochester, NY, who has run the NYS Partners in Policymaking program (I’m a 2007 graduate) and has access to disability advocates who, as part of their commitment, are responsible for ongoing advocacy. We will also recruit other advocates through an application process. DAT has identified Town Hall training as one of the main initiatives to ensuring total inclusion. Through my role on the Town of Amherst (NY) Committee on Disabilities, I have seen the lack of awareness and subsequent poor response to the needs of citizens. The base of this is accessibility, hiring practices, department specific understanding (i.e. Police, Emergency services) and program options (i.e. Recreation, Parks), and employee education. This does not mean that employees and elected officials don’t care and are not willing to learn, but it is a reflection of today’s society and their lack of knowledge as to what is NOT being done to bring equity to the disabled community. This is often times discriminatory (unknowingly) and, quite possibly, a violation of federal law. Recent Department of Justice audits in WNY have cited the city of Niagara Falls and Chautauqua County for non-compliance. We do not want to have to bait municipalities into responding appropriately but if it takes the threat of DOJ citations, we will help the Town to be proactive so as to avoid any greater issues.
What DAT will do is develop a Train the Trainer program that will teach disability advocates how to educate their audience, develop a committee, seek out and provide resources and materials, and ensure this is ongoing. We will be there for technical support and to answer all questions of concern the municipality may have, all in the best interests of their residents with disabilities. We are helping to ensure a community where each belongs and is accepted as a person.
For more information on this program, contact me at 716-565-9338 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Together we can make a difference.
Team USA Sled hockey powered by local talent
Tuesday, December 1, 2009 6:49 pm
Published in: Western New York Hockey Magazine, November 2009
By Dave Whalen
Western New York continues to establish itself as a hockey hotbed. Sold out Sabres games, NCAA Division 1 and NHL players being produced steadily, and youth hockey galore all support the fact that we love this game and we're good at playing it.
However, where our area may be at its hockey finest is a sport that is slowly coming into its own. Western New York has become America's home for USA Hockey's finest players. Need proof? Forwards Brad Emmerson, Adam Page, Al Salamone and goalie Mike Blabac hail from the area (F Chris Manns just retired this past summer). D Nikko Landeros and F Andy Yohe have moved to the area to work out with their teammates. Head Coach Ray Maluta is from Rochester and is heading the effort to make the ESL Center a prestigious hockey palace for the national team to train and play year round. Team USA hosted Canada there on Halloween in a highly anticipated match up. Buffalo hosted the National Disabled hockey Festival this past March. Riverside's Bud Blakewell rink was one of the first accessible rinks in the country.
New York Makes Work Pay Summit: Employment moving forward
Thursday, October 15, 2009 1:18 pm
Cornell University's Employment and Disability Institute and Syracuse University's Burton Blatt Institute joined forces October 6-7 in Albany, NY bringing some 200 individuals across disciplines, agencies, and sects of the disability community to aggressively address the on-going issue of unemployment amongst individuals with disabilities. This is an initiative that Disability Awareness Training (DAT) has been working on over the last two years. The timing could not have been better; October is Disability Awareness Employment Month, DAT recently met with the Buffalo Niagara Human Resources Assn to move forward the initiative DAT introduced July 2007, President Obama announced his administration is taking several steps to ensure fair and equal access to employment for all Americans, the US Dept of Labor is going to establish the National Technical Assistance Center for employers on people with disabilities, and the Summit was held with the intent to identify AND address the issue.
Read more: New York Makes Work Pay Summit: Employment moving forward
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