Focus - AgrAbility Partnerships

Focus – AgrAbility Partnerships

University of Wisconsin and Easter Seals: Eight Years of AgrAbility’s History
For the past eight years, National AgrAbility Project (NAP) has been administered by the University of Wisconsin-Extension and Easter Seals Headquarters in Washington, D.C. This summer not only marks the end of the current NAP grant cycle, but also the end of this NAP partnership. Fortunately, the National AgrAbility Project will be in the hands of another competent partnership, and many of the relationships and ideologies that AgrAbility staff have built upon will continue.

National AgrAbility has had the privilege of working with numerous state project staff members, organizational partners, and clients who have greatly impacted the project. From networking with hosts of national and regional health organizations, securing tens of thousands of dollars of donated print and radio advertisement space each year and obtaining grants for farm families in need of assistance, to hosting workshops and trainings for farmers, AgrAbility staff, and health care providers, NAP has been successful in meeting and going beyond its objective of assisting State and Regional AgrAbility Projects (SRAPs) in increasing quality of life for farmers with disabilities.

A color Photo of a group of Occupational and Physical Therapy Students at an AgrAbility OT/PT Training in Nebraska.
Occupational therapy students at an AgrAbility OT/PT training in Nebraska.

Resources and Partnerships
The University of Wisconsin/Easter Seals partnership has had many accomplishments. One of the biggest is the dramatic growth of National AgrAbility’s web presence. The National AgrAbility website, http://www.agrabilityproject.org, has gone from a nearly non-existent resource bank in 2001, to a fully-accessible and constantly growing site that receives more than 25,000 unique visitors a month and averages about 500MB of information downloaded per day! The most visited place on the website is the Assistive Technology Database, which contains over 1,000 assistive technology products and features a search function that allows users to find products by keyword(s), company name, product name, or limitation. According to annual surveys of SRAP staff has also found many downloadable resources such as tip sheets, product comparison guides, articles from various sources, liability resources, OT/PT training resources, and numerous others have been rated as very useful. To ensure that individuals working with farmers or ranchers with disabilities will have access to this wealth of information, the website will continue to be maintained.

Strong organizational relationships and collaborations built and maintained over time are essential to the success of AgrAbility, as are combined efforts of many dedicated individuals possessing a wide variety of skills and a common dedication to the mission.

AgrAbility Partnerships: The Building Blocks
UW-Extension and Easter Seals have worked with a variety of public and private organizations while hosting the National AgrAbility Project. National AgrAbility Project would like to give a special thanks to the following organizations and affiliates who have provided invaluable support and commitment to AgrAbility over the years:

Cenex Harvest States Foundation and National Farmers Union, for granting thousands of dollars in funds each year to provide farmers scholarships to attend the National Training Workshop.
The American Chronic Pain Association, for their dedication to bettering the lives of all people living with chronic pain, and for sponsoring pain management seminars for clients in twelve AgrAbility states.
Hoard’s Dairyman Magazine, Successful Farming Radio, AgriTalk Radio, and KGWA, for their generosity in consistently publishing AgrAbility PSAs that have reached many thousands of agricultural producers.
Health and agriculture-related magazines such as Out Here Magazine, Rural Roads, and Farm Journal, for publishing client stories in their magazines that reach thousands of readers across the United States.
SRAP staff involved with the National Training workshop, service delivery, evaluation, diverse cultures, OT/PT training, self-employment/SSA work incentives, and marketing workgroups.

Many AgrAbility staff members have roots in production agriculture. The importance of these rural backgrounds becomes very evident when working with farmers and ranchers with disabilities. Building relationships with clients and caring for individual needs of every farmer involved in the program has made AgrAbility the unique program it is today.

One individual in particular, National AgrAbility Project Leader, Ron Schuler, has contributed much of his time and effort into making National AgrAbility a success.

A color photo of state and regional AgrAbility project staff engaging in a discussion on a hosts farm during the 2007 NTW in Sacramento, California.
State and Regional AgrAbility Project staff engage in discussion during a farm site assessment activity at the 2007 NTW in Sacramento, CA.

Eight years with Dr. Ronald T. Schuler

After fifteen years with the AgrAbility of Wisconsin Program, and eight years with the National AgrAbility Project, Dr. Ronald T. Schuler is retiring.

A black and white photo of Dr. Ronald T. Schuler speaking to a group during a farm assessment training.
Dr. Schuler at work

Schuler’s involvement with AgrAbility began in 1990, when Easter Seals Wisconsin expressed interest in a partnership with the University of Wisconsin-Extension to help farmers with disabilities continue farming. Dr. Schuler had the ideal combination of safety specialist skills: a background in agriculture, with machinery and modifications expertise. Since he joined the partnership, Ron has been a key player in the creation and growth of AgrAbility of Wisconsin. Around this time, the USDA was developing the first funding program to help farmers with disabilities. In the fall of 1990, an official announcement was made that funding would be available to qualifying states. Schuler took this opportunity to ask Cheryl Skjolaas, the current UWEX safety specialist and National AgrAbility program manager, to write the first grant proposal for funding of this new program in Wisconsin. With the grant’s approval, AgrAbility of Wisconsin became one of the first five states to receive funding. Today Wisconsin is the only remaining state of those original five to have received funding approval continuously since 1991. Under Schuler’s leadership, the program has expanded from one rehabilitation specialist and twenty clients to five rehabilitation specialists and more than 400 clients. According to Schuler, “The success of the program is due to hiring good people and getting out of their way.”

In the past eight years, Ron Schuler has put the same amount of passion and dedication into his work with the National AgrAbility Project. In 2000 Schuler led the University of Wisconsin-Extension in submitting a proposal for the National AgrAbility Grant. The USDA approved this proposal, which gave Schuler an opportunity to organize a staff to coordinate the AgrAbility program nationwide and increased his responsibility as a Project Leader for the National AgrAbility Project.

Dr. Schuler says that he has always enjoyed coming to work each morning, and we all have certainly enjoyed working with him. His passion is evident to all those who work with him and see how he takes pride in every farmer who has successfully continued to farm after their involvement with AgrAbility.

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In This Issue
Section 1: Feature Story – The Roots of AgrAbility Section 2: Editorial – Advocacy for Farmers with Disabilities Section 3: Focus – AgrAbility Partnerships	Section 4: Editorial – A NAP Thank You Section 5: Contacts