The Texas Center for Disability Studies strives to provide community services that provide training or technical assistance for individuals with developmental disabilities, their families, professionals, para-professionals, policy-makers, students, and other members of the community. We work to provide services, supports, and assistance for people with disabilities and their families to promote their independence, productivity, integration, and inclusion.

We engage in a variety
of system and individual interventions to promote the independence, productivity, integration, and inclusion of individuals with developmental disabilities and their families.

Specifically, we have three community training and service objectives:

• to support individuals moving into the community from institutional settings;

• to provide training and technical assistance on person and family-centered planning, family support principles, and disabiity advocacy to increase the capacity for self-determination; and

• to support best practices in education for students with disabilities.

Our training and technical assistance uses capacity-building strategies to strengthen the capability of communities, systems, and service providers; and addresses the unique needs of individuals with developmental disabilities and their families from diverse cultural and ethnic groups residing within the geographic locale.

We provide community education training and technical assistance for a wide variety of audiences. Services, supports, and assistance to people with developmental disabilities of all ages and their families provided by the Texas Center for Disability Studies are integrated into community settings.