In 2013, I worked with Dafna Krouk-Gordon, the Founder and President of Toward Independent Living and Learning (TILL),* to develop the Living Legacy Project, an oral history-based initiative to document, preserve and share the life histories of individuals with disabilities living in community-based residences managed by TILL.

TILL's Living Legacy Project was developed as a response to both the challenges faced in creating enriching training opportunities for Human Service Professionals and to family concerns about preserving the histories and knowledge of their loved ones.

I worked with four families to document their stories through oral history interviews and photos from personal archives. From these sources, I produced a 50-minute video and discussion guide, challenging Human Service Professionals to view the world from a different historical perspective through the stories and experiences of the families and residents they serve.

This training is now provided to staff throughout TILL, and has also been presented widely elsewhere, including to students in the Massachusetts Urban Youth Collaborative Program, and Department of Developmental Services executives, service providers and family members.

The Living Legacy Project received the 2015 Providers' Council lnnovator of the Year Award from the Massachusetts Council of Human Service Providers at their 40th Annual Convention on October 19, 2015.

As a direct response to the impact this project had on TILL staff members, individuals and families, I worked with Dafna to develop a Do-It-Yourself version, designed to provide residential teams with tools and training to teach the value of preserving their families' and residents' stories, training TILL staff to conduct oral history interviews with the families they work with and producing short films to be shared with the families, current staff, and new staff when they join the team.

*Toward Independent Living and Learning's mission is to create community-based residential, vocational and support services to help people reach their full potential and attain an optimal quality of life.