"This project will develop a skilled community of stakeholders through collaboration with Special Olympics to create capacity-building working groups. Groups will collaborate to develop stakeholder training modules focused on leadership, research fundamentals, and health. Collaboratively developed trainings will be piloted to support revision of the toolkit for the engagement of people with IDD in research. A range of stakeholders will be essential members of the team to design and provide critical feedback on the effectiveness of the toolkit, research priorities, and ecologically valid methodologies. Finally, research priorities will be refined, and the research engagement toolkit will be nationally disseminated to Special Olympics and relevant community organizations. The toolkit will be the first of its kind to provide an accessible, structured process with the necessary training for people with IDD and their paid and unpaid caregivers to be engaged partners. Through collaboration, traditional research methodologies will be challenged to confront longstanding barriers and develop procedures that are inclusive for people with IDD." For more information see: https://www.pcori.org/research-results/2018/research-engagement-people-intellectual-and-developmental-disabilities

My specific involvement on this research project included helping to pilot three different 4-session modules for participants in two different states; helping to develop a website and online database to disseminate project deliverables; create an interactive workshop guide intended to supplement the modules.