What is home? Public Integrity will host event featuring disabled storytellers

Join the Center for Public Integrity, USC Annenberg’s Center for Health Journalism and State of Mind, a partnership between Slate and Arizona State University, on July 26 at 7 p.m. Eastern for a unique storytelling event and panel. The discussion will be lead by Amy Silverman, whose award-winning reporting for the Center for Public Integrity highlighted the challenges in finding appropriate homes for people with complex disabilities. 

Too often, much journalism around intellectual and developmental disabilities lacks the perspective of the individuals most impacted by their own experiences.

Silverman created Wordslaw as a platform for storytellers with intellectual and developmental disabilities. For this event four people with disabilities will share their stories around the theme: “What is home?”

Storytellers: 

• Paul Costantini, an actor with Detour Company Theatre, which provides theater training  for adults with intellectual, developmental and physical disabilities.

• Leah Mapstead, a Detour actor who also volunteers at the Phoenix Herpetological Society.

• Hailey Simon, a life-long storyteller who is Deaf. 

• Sophie Stern, a dancer at Glendale Community College and an actor in Detour Company Theatre. 

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What is home? Public Integrity event will feature disabled storytellers

Four people with disabilities share stories about home.

Following the stories, Silverman will moderate a panel discussion.

Moderator: 

• Amy Silverman is a journalist, teacher and memoir writer based in Phoenix. She is executive producer for The Show, an original production of KJZZ, the Phoenix NPR member station.

Panelists:

• Becca Monteleone, an assistant professor of disability studies at the University of Toledo. 

• Patricia M. Jones is a person with a developmental disability. She is a certified Therapeutic Recreation Specialist and has been a member of the Independent living moment since the early 1990s.

• Zoe Gross is Director of Advocacy at the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. 

The event will be a zoom webinar. Registration is required to attend. Once registered, participants will receive reminders about the event and a link to join prior to the event. The event will have an American Sign Language interpreter, closed captioning and audio descriptions. 

Register now through Eventbrite.

Read Silverman’s Public Integrity investigation here.