Purpose of the KUCDD

University Centers on Developmental Disabilities (UCDDs) are funded by the US Department of Health and Human Services to provide training, technical assistance, exemplary client services, and to develop and disseminate information to local, state, regional, and national agencies that provide services to persons with developmental disabilities.

The UCDD acts as a resource and catalyst for the improvement of services provided by government and private agencies. The Kansas University Center on Developmental Disabilities (KUCDD), established in 1969, is a componentof the Schiefelbusch Institute for Life Span Studies at the University of Kansas. The KUCDD maintains facilities on the University's main campus in Lawrence, at the KU Medical Center in Kansas City, and in Parsons, a rural community in southeastern Kansas. In addition to these primary sites, the KUCDD supports affiliated projects in many Kansas communities and provides training and other types of support to all regions of the state.

Values of the KUCDD

The primary consumers of UCDD services and products are persons with developmental disabilities and their families. Secondary consumers include service providers, agency administrators, policy makers and others in an important role in the life of the consumer. The provision of exemplary services to persons with developmental disabilities and their families should facilitate the achievement of their own personal goals and enhance the quality of their lives as defined by them. Primary consumers, regardless of the extent and degree of severity of their disabilities, should be served in accordance with policies and options that provide accessible and fully inclusive, community-based services that facilitate their increasing independence and capability of exercising choices and options. Because society is significantly enhanced by diversity in the populace, the full participation and contributions of people with disabilities, people of color, and members of other traditionally under-represented populations should be acknowledged, supported, and valued. Family members of people with developmental disabilities play major support roles as caregivers, teachers, consumers, and advocates, and their direct participation in the determination of research, training, technical assistance, and service priorities should be solicited and facilitated. Research and development, as well as training, should be focused on the identification of new ways to solve problems facing consumers in the attainment of full inclusion in all aspects of society and should ensure the effectiveness and quality of new innovations.

Mission of the UCDD

The mission of the UCDD at the University of Kansas is to optimize the quality of life and extend the concept of independence, productivity, integration and inclusion of individuals with disabilities in all aspects of life over the life span. This is to be accomplished by providing new options, meaningful choices, independence, self-reliance, dignity of risk, and the means to achieve enhanced personal productivity.