Stories Archive
Montana Voices Amplified provides a microphone and broad audience so the stories, lessons, causes, and advice of individuals with disabilities and their families are heard. No one tells your story better than you can. But life is busy, and time is precious. If you take the time to articulate your experience, we will share your message with people who will benefit from your wisdom, or influence change.
The Montana Voices Amplified project offers people of all ages and abilities a stage to speak for themselves. The series is hosted by the Montana Family to Family Health Information Center (MT F2F), a program of the Rural Institute for Inclusive Communities (RIIC) at the University of Montana.
Montana Voices Amplified welcomes submissions of five-minute videos or 600-700-word essays on any topic related to your lived experience as a person with a disability or caring for someone with a disability. Authors of chosen submissions receive $100. Videos will be posted on the MT F2F web site and shared on social media. Essays will be posted on the web site and ScholarWorks, shared on social media, and printed in a professionally designed publication to distribute to families, schools, agencies, and legislators as appropriate.
Let us amplify YOUR voice!
Do you have a story, a lesson, advice or a message to share about life with a disability or diagnosis? Your experience can positively impact other Montanans.
Send your idea for an article or brief video to stacey.bliss@mso.umt.edu or shawna.hanson@mso.umt.edu.
If you prefer to talk through your idea, you can call Stacey at (406) 243-5760 or Shawna at (406) 243-4531.
Featured Content
My Perspective: Rediscovering Museums with Tactile Tours
By Sara Streeter
Sara Streeter spent her career as an accounting and finance professional. Now retired, she loves to be outdoors, travel and volunteer as an animal advocate. She uses assistive technology to deal with her vision loss from degenerative myopia and is passionate about making the...
A Parent’s Perspective: plexiglass Butterflies - Lessons Learned at the Children’s Hospital
By Elizabeth Hill
Elizabeth Hill is a freelance writer, encourager, and humorist who resides with her husband and four children in central Montana. You can read more of her musings, eureka moments, and the hilarious events that mark her days with joy at elizabeth-hill.medium.com or find The Part...
My Perspective: Help Me Pick Up What You’re Putting Down (Accessible Communication for The Blind/Low Vision Community)
By Ed Worrell
Ed Worrell is co-founder of OverHere Consulting. Based in Great Falls, OverHere Consulting carries assistive technologies for vision impairment and provides training to individuals, schools, and government agencies. Ed is blind, diabetic, and loves helping the visually impaired...
A Parent’s Perspective: Take It From Your New Bestie, You Can’t Do Everything
By Elizabeth Hill:
Elizabeth Hill is a freelance writer, encourager, and humorist who resides with her husband and four children in central Montana. You can read more of her musings, eureka moments, and the hilarious events that mark her days with joy at elizabeth-hill.medium.com or find The Part...
Our Perspectives: You Can’t Pour from an Empty Cup
In these times of stay-at-home orders, physical distancing, and remote teaching and learning, we need to nurture ourselves. In this issue of Montana Voices Amplified, members of the Rural Institute Consumer Advisory Council* share the strategies they use to reinvigorate and replenish themselves....
A Parent’s Perspective: How I Am Successfully Homeschooling My Child
The COVID-19 pandemic has people considering homeschooling, which can be overwhelming and daunting. Many parents are not, by trade, teachers. Lots of us have tried (and failed!) to emulate traditional school. Others do well, setting up classrooms in their homes and planning and following a set...
A Parent Teacher’s Perspective: Exploring Disability and Navigating a New World
I found myself unexpectedly entering the world of disability 13 years ago when my oldest son, Charlie, was born with complex health and developmental challenges. Later diagnosed with autism and a genetic disorder, Charlie led me through the new worlds of early intervention, case management,...
A Parent’s Perspective: How to Advocate without Alienating Team Members
Years ago, I was an inexperienced special education teacher with one-part overconfidence, one-part under-experience, sprinkled with a heaping scoop of cluelessness. I sometimes observed children who would be transferring from pre-school to my K-3 special education classroom for the next...
Parent’s Perspective: Navigating Face Coverings
Everyone is talking about masks. As the research on their effectiveness as a tool to battle the COVID-19 pandemic grows, so does the list of places requiring them. Montana recently joined the states with a mask mandate, perhaps raising questions for many families with an individual with a...