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Bridgette Schram’s entry into disability work began with a chance encounter at the New Orleans swim school she managed in 2009. “A mom and a 5-year-old boy asked about swim lessons,” she said. “They’d just moved to town, and the boy had cerebral palsy and used a stroller to move around. The mom said her son loved the water. I told her I’d never worked with a child with cerebral palsy, but that I would love to try.”
Teaching that student showed Schram the value of inclusion and accessibility, particularly in physical activity. At the time, most swim schools recommended that young people with disabilities attend private lessons, but Shram’s philosophy was to be inclusive, regardless of the intellectual or physical ability level of the child. Her experience led her to found a swim school in Colorado Springs called Pike’s Peak Athletics, which is still in operation today.
Schram is originally from Nebraska, where her mother and two brothers still live with her niece and nephews. Since moving to Chicago from Atlanta in May, she has enjoyed walking around the city with her two dogs to explore all that the city has to offer, especially the food scene. This is the kind of independence she recognizes many people with disabilities don’t have.
“We live in a country that values autonomy,” she said. “But a large percentage of our citizens don’t have autonomy in their lives. Ultimately, our work is trying to provide people with the autonomy they deserve.”
Schram’s interest in how people with disabilities are included or excluded in physical activity led her to pursue a master’s degree in the kinesiology adapted physical activity program at Oregon State University. She was intrigued by a trend she noticed in the marketing of physical trainers focused on accommodating injuries, but not disabilities. Since both can cause people to move their bodies differently, they should be treated in similar ways, she thought. But Schram found that people with disabilities didn’t have the same access to physical trainers as non-injured and non-disabled people do.
“I started looking at how lack of inclusion in multiple spaces leads to poor outcomes in health for people with disabilities,” Schram said. “These disparities shouldn’t be there, but they are, because we create spaces that are not inclusive. That is beyond the built environment. That’s social attitudes.” After earning her master’s degree, she earned a PhD in public health from Georgia State University in May 2022.
Just a few months later, Schram brought her philosophy of inclusion with her when she was hired on as a research associate in the Rehabilitation and Research Training Center (RRTC) on Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) in the Center for Rehabilitation Outcomes Research (CROR) at Shirley Ryan 汤头条app. She was promoted to project manager in January 2023.
She said the accessibility of data and research findings to the general public, including people with disabilities is important to her, and believes that anyone should have the opportunity to learn about the research at CROR in a way that is accessible. The RRTC’s newsletter, HCBS Quality Matters, goes a long way towards this goal. The quarterly newsletter goes out to approximately 4,000 subscribers. Articles are written for a general audience and include research updates, profiles and interviews with leaders in the HCBS field. A new podcast, INside the OUTcomes: A Rehabilitation Research Podcast, which CROR launched in March 2023, further facilitates the transfer of knowledge from the lab to the general public. Episodes on HCBS are expected to come out regularly.
Inclusivity in research is also important to Schram. She wants to ensure that researchers serve and include all the different groups of people involved in HCBS at every stage of research: practitioners, policy-makers, and people with disabilities.
She said the biggest challenge she has faced has been understanding the complexity of HCBS, especially the differences in how person-centered services are provided and measured across states and populations.
“The idea of measuring person-centered outcomes in a standardized way is a challenge,” Schram said. “Those are conflicting concepts. There are no easy, straightforward answers.”
Schram’s favorite parts of the job are the impact of the work she will do at Shirley Ryan 汤头条app and the fact that she can continue to learn in the project manager position. “The work we’re doing is very needed,” she said. “It will have an obvious impact on the field, and therefore, people’s lives, people who are often under-supported.”