ED&I Hub | Diversity Fellow Project, Carolina De La Mateo Rosa

Empowering Child Caregivers to Advocate for Children With Disabilities

Empowering child caregivers to advocate for children with disabilities (1946 K) Download

Project Narrative

1. Please describe your activities during your Fellowship experience. Describe your final capstone project(s).
As part of my fellowship, I had the opportunity to work with a community-led organization called La Red Latina that provides training for caregivers of young children. The primary audience for this group is Latino/a adults, but all are welcome. I worked with the founders to develop training on caring for children with disabilities and how to talk to the parents of those children if they have concerns about the child’s development. After weeks of research, we put on a two-hour training for the caregivers. We also provided information sheets, a website with resources, and children’s books on disability to the caregivers.

2. Who did your project inform, help, influence or impact? (UCEDD, individual, community, state) How?
The project informed caregivers that attend La Red’s meetings. Most of the attendees are women and identify as Latina. Many have their children of varying ages, and all take care of children in the home or at daycares. The founders of La Red have personal experience and professional experience with disability and they have invaluable expertise that they continue to share with this audience.

3. Why did you choose to work on that project(s)?
Being Latina and having a sister with a disability myself, I have lived experience with this as well and understand that there is a need for factual information in my community regarding disability. We chose to do a training on disability specifically because after talking to the founders, we realized that there is some misinformation on disability and some people just don’t understand what it is or what a disability can look like. We wanted to give the La Red community an opportunity to learn more about disability in general, as well as share with them some resources that they can use or share with the parents of the children they care for.

4. What did you gain from being a Diversity Fellow?
I had the opportunity to work and network with women doing meaningful work in their community. I learned a lot more about disability and the types of resources available for different people, and it’s information that I can share with others but also use for my family. I also had the opportunity to present and write in Spanish, which is not something I get to do often and I skill that I want to continue to grow.

5. How will this experience impact your education or career decisions?
Health equity is really important to me, as well as promoting inclusion for all people, so this experience has helped me connect to more resources that will allow me to stay engaged with this work in the future. I do hope to go back to working in program development in a few years and I will seek out opportunities that allow me to do work related to disability and inclusion.

6. What are your future goals? Where do you see yourself 5 years from now?
In five years I would like to still be working at the evaluation firm that I am currently at. In terms of the work I do, my goal is ultimately to help people understand different types of data and encourage organizations to make decisions based on that data that will lessen some of the disparities we see today. I hope to continue to be involved with my community and be engaged in this as best as I can, even if it is outside of work hours.

7. What recommendations do you have for other fellows?
Have open communication with your team members and start early! Deadlines will creep up on you which can be stressful, especially if you are in school. It’s important to listen and let community members guide the work when possible. You must work collaboratively and use your skills and resources to uplift other’s voices.