At The Cromwell Center for Disabilities Awareness, our mission is to promote safe, respectful, and inclusive schools and communities.
Our classroom programs and curriculum for grades 1-6 build sensitivity and understanding, reduce bullying and help create more inclusive schools and communities. Click on the player button to the left to watch a short video.
We are now offering a new option for Maine schools outside our service area that includes the same content as the programs we deliver ourselves in classrooms – a free, ready-to-use, complete, and comprehensive disabilities awareness and inclusion curriculum called Respecting ABILITIES. The curriculum package includes all supplies and materials that school counselors or teachers need to deliver the program within their own classrooms, including a comprehensive lesson plan/script for easy program delivery, video read-alouds and activities, and books for each participating school that fills out our online evaluation.
Thanks to a grant from The Bingham Trust, we now offer programs for parents/families in elementary schools in southern and central Maine. These interactive sessions can be hosted by the PTO/PTA or directly by the school.
Our free follow-up lesson plans and activities are available to teachers and school counselors at schools that have hosted our programs.
These resources reinforce key messages of sensitivity, respect and inclusion and allow students to further explore specific topics related to what they learned in our classroom sessions. We also offer book recommendations and discussion guides/activities to all schools and families.
We are grateful to the generous individuals, foundations and businesses that make our school and community programs possible.
Special thanks to our $5,000+ contributors and to the foundations that help fund our sessions in Maine classrooms: Atlantic National Trust; Joe & Debbie Bornstein; Boston Bruins Foundation; Margaret E. Burnham Charitable Trust; Sam L. Cohen Foundation; Fisher Charitable Foundation; Glickman Family Foundation; Jamie Kaplan & Suzanne Meeker; Libra Foundation; Maine Community Foundation; Maine Marathon; MainStreet Foundation; MEMIC; Leslie B. Otten; Rines Thompson Fund; Ronald McDonald House Charities of Maine; Bill & Peggy Ryan; Alfred M. Senter Fund; Elmina B. Sewall Foundation; Simmons Foundation; Speedway Children’s Charities; TD Bank Charitable Foundation; TEGNA Foundation; The Law Offices of Joe Bornstein; Unum; and Wescustogo Foundation