OT Faculty Honored with Community Partner Award
Occupational Therapy Professors Ellen Cohn, Wendy Coster, and Gael Orsmond received the Community Partner Award from MAB Community Services/Ivy Street School.
Beverly Brown, a member of the Ivy Street School board of directors and the director of development, industry at Boston University School of Public Health, presented the award. In her introduction, Brown praised the faculty’s contributions noting “the Occupational Therapy Department at Sargent College is one of the true gems of Boston University.”
The honor recognizes Sargent’s long-standing collaboration with Brooke Howard (’05), director of transition services at Ivy Street School. Based on consultation and collaboration with BU OT faculty and students, Howard developed an innovative transition program, “Skills for Life,” which helps teens and young adults learn the necessary skills to successfully transition to adult life.
About MAB Community Services and the Ivy Street School
Founded as the Massachusetts Association for the Blind in 1903, MAB is the oldest social service agency in the country providing services to individuals who are blind or visually impaired. MAB’s mission is to work with individuals with disabilities to eliminate barriers and create opportunities. Helen Keller served on MAB’s first advisory board.
In the 1970s, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Foundation helped MAB create some of Massachusetts’ first community-based residential and vocational programs for adults with developmental disabilities. And in 1993, The Ivy Street School was founded to fill a need for therapeutic and educational services for adolescents with brain injuries. The school specializes in individualized rehabilitation and family-focused strategies that help individuals with disabilities live full lives in the community.