I have been a member, a volunteer Mom and the program coordinator of FFDY, Foundation for Disabled Youths for fourteen years and became a board member in the last five years. I am passionate about the services, needs and voices of our special needs population. Our members are diagnosed with developmental delay either mentally or physically or both. Our children’s voices cannot be heard unless we speak for them, advocate for them and make them known.

Our group FFDY is a platform for social interaction which is, otherwise, very limited in our community. It is also a venue for resource exchange among the parents. Within the social/recreation model, I also believe that adaptive recreational sports should be accessible to all abilities, not only to the abled within the disabled participants. Moving forward, my goal as a board member is to represent our group to gain greater public awareness of our needs as well as to join forces with other partners in making disability recreational sports/activities to be enjoyed by all participants with different levels of disabilities.

I am a Ph.D. student in the School of Nursing at UCLA and a psych-mental health nurse practitioner. My research interest lies in the adulthood of individuals with Down Syndrome in their mental health, Alzheimer’s disease, and quality of life.