Editorial - A NAP Thank You

Editorial – A NAP Thank You

By Ronald T. Schuler, Project Leader, National AgrAbility Project

After eight years, the chapter of the Easter Seals-University of Wisconsin-Extension partnership hosting and managing the National AgrAbility Project comes to a close. The members of this partnership have enjoyed working to meet the programmatic needs of SRAPs, the specific needs of staff members within the projects, and also the needs of farmers in non-AgrAbility funded states. We greatly appreciate the support and feedback of SRAP staff through numerous provided forums. This feedback and support was very important in fulfilling the National AgrAbility Project’s purpose and assisting SRAPs in successfully meeting their goals.

Special thanks go to people who served on workgroups such as the National Training Workshop, Evaluation, Cultural Diversity, OT/PT Training, peer support, and marketing to name a few. SRAP staff who served as hosts to the National Training Workshop during the past eight years provided a very valuable commitment that supported the growth of workshop attendance from about seventy-five to nearly 200, providing timely and extremely beneficial training. The Evaluation workgroup provided leadership in initiating the development of a pilot survey to evaluate the impact of assistance AgrAbility staff provide to farmers and ranchers with disabilities. The goal of this evaluation was to determine the impact AgrAbility had on the ‘quality of life’ of farmers and ranchers served. The OT/PT Training workgroup played a key role in developing an OT/PT curriculum that SRAP staff used to conduct training in their geographic area and was used to obtain ‘approved provider’ status for continuing education from the American Occupational Therapy Association.

State and Regional AgrAbility Project staff also provided valuable feedback through numerous surveys and evaluations that were conducted. Evaluations of the National Training Workshop by participants each year provided important information for the workshop workgroup in planning the following year’s workshop. Participants in the annual agricultural assessment training conducted each spring in Wisconsin suggested changes that improved the training to better meet SRAP staff needs.

Another important contribution by SRAPs was providing the demographic data so that a report of all farmers and ranchers served by the AgrAbility Program could be compiled and provided to the USDA-CSREES. State and Regional AgrAbility Project staff reported serving 3,802 new farmers and ranchers with disabilities from 2001 to 2008.

All of this data is very important when the USDA-CSREES administrators make budget decisions and visit with legislative staff in Washington, D.C. We have appreciated SRAP staff providing the demographic data and recognize they often have many other responsibilities to their organizations.

Of course, much additional support and feedback was obtained informally during visits in the hallways during the National Training Workshop and Agricultural Assessment Training and through individual phone calls. As partners in the National AgrAbility Project, our staff was very interested in and dedicated to identifying and understanding issues and concerns of SRAP staff in order to insure improved support of our mission.

As many of the members of this NAP staff go in different directions, we will always recall the friendships and accomplishments that made our experience satisfying and rewarding while working on the National Project. Some members of the staff will still be involved with AgrAbility of Wisconsin while others will be seeking opportunities elsewhere. I wish you all well!

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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