Improving life for rural Americans with disabilities
University of Montana Rural Institute for Inclusive Communities
Rural Institute for Inclusive Communities (RIIC) is committed to creating better lives for rural people with disabilities and their families. With innovative services, training and research, RIIC strives to improve independence and participation of people with disabilities in everyday activities and all aspects of the community.
- Education and Training include Living Well with a Disability, a health promotion program that helps participants reach the quality of life goals through healthy lifestyles.
- Our community services include assistive technology demonstration and equipment loan to enable independence at home, school, work, and in the community throughout Montana.
- Research areas include rural transportation and employment options to support economic independence. The 40+ RIIC projects focus on employment, independent and healthy living, education, accessible housing, and transportation to enable rural Americans to be fully included in their communities.
The Rural Institute for Inclusive Communities is one of 67 University Centers for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD), funded by the U.S. Administration for Community Living.
RTC:Rural - Driving Change
Research that Impacts Rural Americans with Disabilities
RTC:Rural connects research to practice and policy by identifying concerns faced by people with disabilities and developing evidence-based solutions. Our research addresses health, employment, and independent living issues to uncover personal and environmental factors that influence quality of life. We conduct our research with disability stakeholders who help us understand and apply our findings in their communities.
Read 2-page Executive Summary: RTC:Rural - Research that Leads to Solutions for Rural Americans with Disabilities (PDF)
Read 10-page Research Summary: RTC:Rural Research Summary_2017 (PDF)
- Geography of Rural Disability analyses lay the groundwork for health, employment, and community living research. The Disability Counts Data Finder enables users to view and download data on disability rates of any U.S. county.
- Employment research focuses on rural barriers such as limited economic opportunity and access to services for people with disabilities. We develop and test employment and service delivery options such as the Telecom Toolbox, a website for Vocational Rehabilitation specialists and job seekers that offers online job search tools.
- Rural people face unique Health and Wellness challenges. We work to identify and address these barriers. Our Living and Working Well with a Disability programs are evidence-based, peer-led health promotion workshops provided by organizations that serve people with disabilities.
- Rural Community Living research focuses on how the accessibility of rural environments affects community participation and quality of life. The Rural Disability Resource Library offers online resources for people with disabilities who live in rural areas, including the Advocacy Skill Building Toolkit to facilitate youth advocacy skills.
EDUCATION and SERVICE - Changing Lives
EDUCATION
Building the future
In FY2017, we educated 44 student trainees, helping prepare them to be disability leaders in their rural communities.
Katie Barcus-Kuka from the Blackfeet tribe in Browning, Montana is taking online and summer-resident classes to become a certified speech-language pathologist. After completing her degree in 2019 she plans to, “work as a speech language pathologist in my reservation community, helping to provide a much-needed service for the children of my tribe.”
Kaitlyn Ahlers, one of three Utah Regional LEND trainees, completed her second year of training with an emphasis in Autism Spectrum Disorders. Kaitlyn’s hard work lays the groundwork for a career working with children with autism and their families.
An undergraduate in the Human and Family Development Minor program, Kassie Gahagan, said, “The practicum has helped me to gain valuable real-life experience…. My experience working with children…led to a job as a summer camp counselor.”
SERVICE
Helping people achieve independence and self-support
Tom Koontz Jr. was a long-haul trucker until an atypical stroke ended his career and left him with a vocabulary of seven words. MonTECH loaned Tom an iPad Pro with communication and therapy apps, and then taught him how to use it. Tom has since received a grant for his own iPad which helps him run his new business. MonTECH helped Tom get back on track so that he can be the independent, self-supporting man he was before the stroke.
MonTECH loans assistive technology and adaptive equipment to any Montanan with a disability. Last year, MonTECH loaned 846 assistive technology devices, gave 517 technology demonstrations, and trained 1,325 Montanans to use assistive technology.
After working for several years as a research assistant for the Montana Disability and Health program at the Rural Institute for Inclusive Communities, and completing her Master’s in Public Health at UM, Helen Russette went to work for the Missoula City-County Health Department (MCCHD). There, she aided in the development of a community health needs assessment (CHA) process that fully includes representatives of marginalized populations. She recently shared this work in February 2018 article published with co-author, Robin Nielson-Cerquone, MJ, MCCHD Accreditation Specialist, on the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) website. 
Congratulations to Molly Kimmel, a 2017-2018 URLEND Graduate! Molly will stay on next year to coordinate URLEND training, research and clinical service opportunities for Montana trainees in various locations across the state.