24 May 2023

The PROUD Project team has almost completed the interviews of our 5 country international study – we are finishing up conversations in the UK this month. We have been speaking to both employees/entrepreneurs living in disabling contexts and employers of people living in disabling contexts in Canada, the UK, the US, France and Belgium. We have learned a great deal from the lived experiences of these individuals during the past 3 years and look forward to sharing our analysis and insights within the next few months.

We are also producing a second season of the podcast, Broadcastability, which focuses on interviews about employment and disability in the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Belgium. (As a reminder, the first season focused on Canada.) We anticipate releasing the second season’s episodes this summer.

Dr. Chloe Atkins has presented preliminary findings at 2 Canadian conferences during the past winter. She will also be presenting during Canada’s National Access Awareness Week at the University of Toronto Scarborough: Addressing Ableism, Disability and Accessibility: Progress and Continued Action Plans, 30 May 2023.

Isabelle Avakumovic-Pointon will be in Europe this summer presenting some her own work on the history of disability in Eastern Europe.

The PROUD Project team will be writing articles in French and English providing an overview of the research thus far. We continue to write and publish articles on critical disability studies, ableism, employment and health equity — please see the “Impact” page for further details.

We would like to thank all of the individuals who participated (and continue to participate) in our research. Your knowledge and expertise is absolutely essential to understanding how to better integrate our communities and to counter ableist presumptions which limit both the potential of disabled individuals as well as the overall well-being of our societies.

We would also like to thank both the private and public funders of The PROUD Project’s work. Your financial backing allows us to undertake this important research. It means that we continue to hire highly qualified and highly performing “disabled” academics and professionals as members of our team. More importantly, it means that any recommendations or advocacy we undertake is based in well-carried-out research and substantive analysis.