Michelle S. Ballan, Ph.D., MSW | 2024 National Crime Victims' Service Awards

MICHELLE BALLAN: I was sensitized at an early age to the level of exclusion for people with disabilities. And that didn't sit right with me. 

SHARI MILLER: Michelle is a practitioner, a researcher and a scholar focusing on the needs of people with disabilities, and particularly the barriers that contribute to significantly different levels of risk for them. 

MICHELLE BALLAN: The reason that this is novel is several professions don't have any training in intimate partner violence. 

SHARI MILLER: Part of her objective is the systematic education of highly expert practitioners in areas that are completely new to them. 

MICHELLE BALLAN: … But we know that people with disabilities are victimized at rates of 2-1/2 to 3 times greater than the non-disabled population. We can't conduct research about people with disabilities without people with disabilities. 

At Barrier Free Living, we undertook the largest study to date to create a demographic profile of women with disabilities who experienced intimate partner violence, and we've created interventions for each different disability group. 

CYNTHIA AMODEO: She can help people understand why data gathering is so important and how, as a staff member, how you can contribute. 

MICHELLE BALLAN: Another program is focused on spinal cord injury and intimate partner violence. 

VALERIE GOLDSTEIN: These women need people to advocate for them and also have to know different strategies like how to get out of a situation and also, I think, ultimately be empowered. 

WILLIAM WERTHEIM: There's really an inequity across the country for many people with disabilities and their opportunities to get good health care. And so the physician training program, which Dr. Ballan introduced to the Renaissance School of Medicine, has become a model across the country. 

ANGELA ROCKWOOD: I think it's phenomenal that Michelle is shedding light on a serious silent issue that not a lot of people are aware of.

MICHELLE BALLAN: These projects are just a step in a direction so that other individuals with disabilities can be leading the way and non-disabled people can continue to learn from them.