Presenter: Melissa L. Desroches, PhD, RN
Date: Tuesday, April 14, 2020.
Time: 2:00-3:00 pm (Eastern Time)
Play recording (1 hr)
Handout:
Description: Mental Health Promotion for People with Intellectual and Developmental Disability Project SEARCH is committed to supporting health and wellness during transition to employment. The changes that transition brings can be exciting as well as stressful for transitioning adults as new opportunities and challenges are navigated. With these new experiences, new health promotion needs arise. This webinar addresses the health promotion needs of transition-age adults with developmental disabilities. These health promotion needs are similar to those of other young adults entering college and the workforce, yet a lack of accessible health promotion campaigns for transition-age persons with developmental disabilities exist. Nurses, as champions for health promotion and prevention throughout the lifespan, are uniquely poised to support transition-age adults with developmental disabilities through the transition period and fill in the wide health promotion chasm to promote a positive, healthy transition experience.
Presenter: Melissa L. Desroches, RN, PhD is a registered nurse and post-doctoral research fellow at Tufts University. The mission of her program of research is to improve the health, wellness, and quality of life of adults with developmental disabilities by improving developmental disability nursing care. Her current research project examines nurses’ attitudes and emotions toward caring for adults with intellectual disabilities in the US. Dr. Desroches earned her PhD in nursing at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and a Certificate in Disability and Health Policy from Suffolk University in Boston in conjunction with the Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (LEND) program at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester.