Building Capacity for Disability Justice in Nursing

A collaborative project aimed at transforming nursing education and practice to center disability justice. Using a multimodal approach grounded in frameworks like Butterfield’s Upstream Model, design justice, and the structural determinants of health, the project seeks to challenge ableism within nursing. Key partners include the Elaine Marieb College of Nursing at UMass Amherst, local clinical agencies, and professional organizations. An advisory board and focus groups will help identify barriers and priorities in nursing education and practice. Outcomes will include a professional development curriculum for nursing educators, a train-the-trainer model, and a toolkit of resources to support implementation across clinical and classroom settings. The project’s methods and deliverables are designed to be scalable and applicable to other health professions. Policy interventions will also be developed to promote broader adoption of disability justice principles in health professions education at institutional, state, and national levels.