What's New

ICI's Director, William Kiernan, was invited to attend the 20th Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act celebration at the White House on July 26th. At the event, President Obama renewed the country's "commitment to ensuring that everyone with disabilities can live free from the weight of discrimination and pursue the American dream." He also announced the release of two new rules on the ADA and signed an Executive Order that will make the government a model employer for people with disabilities.

Dr. Kiernan is pictured with the Director of Human Services in the District of Columbia, Laura Nuss, in front of the White House.

The ICI was recently awarded a three-year cooperative agreement to establish the National Center for Community-Based Services. Its purpose is to make community-based services, such as neighborhood health centers, easy to use for families of children and youth with special health care needs. The center will disseminate products to a wide range of individuals, including Title V directors, service providers, and families. Project partners include Children’s Hospital Boston, the Parent Advocacy Coalition for Educational Rights, the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs, and the American Academy of Pediatrics. The agreement is funded by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau/Health Resources and Services Administration. For more information, please contact Susan Foley.

To honor his lifetime achievement and advocacy, Dr. Ludwik Szymanski, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Director Emeritus of Psychiatry for the Institute for Community Inclusion, the University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (ICI/UCEDD) at the Children’s Hospital Boston, was selected as the first recipient of the Leon Eisenberg Award.

This award was established on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the founding of the Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities (MHDD) Program in the Division of Developmental Medicine at the Children’s Hospital Boston, to annually celebrate the life and work of Dr. Leon Eisenberg (Maude and Lillian Presley Professor of Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School), and his extraordinary support to the inception of a research education program in developmental psychiatry.

Dr. Szymanski was the first Director of Psychiatry for what is now known as ICI, having been hired in 1967. He is the recipient of many awards and citations through his long and productive career. The award was presented by Dr. Kerim Munir, Director of the MHDD and of Psychiatry for ICI and Dr. Carola Eisenberg, widow of Leon.