Hawai‘i Visitable Housing Coalition
A major CDS study found that many people with disabilities in Hawai‘i are unable to find housing that is both affordable and accessible. In 2017, CDS established and coordinated the Hawai‘i Visitable Housing Coalition to address this problem. Housing with basic accessibility features (such as zero-step entrances for wheelchair users) is called “visitable” because it reduces social isolation by enabling people with mobility challenges to visit friends and neighbors. A website was created (https://cds.coe.hawaii.edu/hvc/) to provide comprehensive information about visitable housing along with an email listserv to help coordinate activities.
CDS worked with a range of other advocates to promote visitable housing at both the county and state levels. Notably, for the 2018 Hawaii State Legislature several bills were develop in collaboration with the Legislature’s Kupuna Caucus. The Kupuna Caucus included these bills in its legislative package based on the great value of visitable housing to enable Hawaii’s seniors to age-in-place if they develop mobility challenges. A bill to require that all housing built with Hawai‘i state financial support be visitable passed through the Senate but died in the House when the final required committee failed to hold a hearing on it. CDS’s efforts have helped raise awareness about the need for visitable housing across the state and created a network of advocates, increasing the likelihood of substantial progress in the near future.
Learn more about the Hawaii Visitable Housing Coalition
Pono Choices Project
Pono Choices: A Culturally Responsive Teen Pregnancy and STI Prevention Program is a scripted, 10-module, 9.5-hour curriculum that provides middle school youth with the knowledge and skills necessary to reduce their risk of unintended pregnancy and STIs by providing medically accurate information within a Native Hawaiian place-based framework.
Developed 2010-2015 under a federal grant award and still in use statewide, Pono Choices:
- Was reviewed for medical accuracy by the federal Office of Adolescent Health,
- Aligns with Hawai‘i Revised Statute 321-11.1 regarding medically accurate sexuality health education,
- Is on the Hawai‘i State Department of Education approved list of sexual health curricula for grades 6-8, and
- Meets Hawai‘i State Board of Education Sexual Health Education Policy 103.5
2017-2018 CDS support for the program included the following:
- Co-authored Pono Choices: Lessons for School Leaders from the Evaluation of a Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, a Journal of School Health article accepted for publication and expected to be available in 2019
- Participated in a Mathematica Policy Research (MPR) teen pregnancy prevention (TPP) sustainability study
- Monitored the Pono Choices project Gmail account and collaborated with curriculum co-developers to address requests to training, technical assistance, and curriculum materials.
- Assisted the Hawai‘i Department of Health with implementation and reporting of a federal Administration for Children & Families Abstinence Education Grant
- Maintained the Pono Choices website where information about program development, curriculum components, and facilitator training can be found.
- Maintained an online Pono Choices facilitator training which allows individuals interested in delivering Pono Choices to receive a certificate of completion and full access to the curriculum materials. The training was built using Canvas LMS, which includes features to increase usability and performance, and meets requirements of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The training includes functional text that may be used with assistive technology, downloads of the training script, as well as closed captioning for narration, audio stories, and videos. Button/option and audio option are available throughout this training.
- Maintained curriculum resources for trained facilitators. After successful completion of the online training, individuals are able to log-in to the online “Facilitator Resources” page of the Pono Choices website and access audio, video, and printable curriculum materials. In addition, CDS curriculum kits are available to trained facilitators who are preparing to implement Pono Choices.
Please contact us at ponochoices12@gmail.com or visit the Pono Choices website for more information.
Project Ho‘oku‘i
Project Ho‘oku‘i’s, (U.S. DOE, Award no. S362A140067), over-arching goal was to increase enrollment of Native Hawaiian, at-risk, and students with disabilities in postsecondary education leading to employment. During the three-year funding period, Project Ho‘oku‘i served a total of 714 students in 28 schools across the State of Hawaii (Oahu, Hawaii, Lanai, Molokai, and Maui high schools, charter schools, and alternative programs). Project Ho‘oku‘i’s unique program which incorporated cultural mentoring and tutoring, accelerated computerized learning, and financial aid assistance, scaled up students resulting in 843 cases where students attended early college through dual enrollment programs such as Running Start, Early College High School, or Early Admission classes.
In some individual cases, students gained a full semester of college credit prior to graduating from high school, or earned a special certificate from a community college prior to graduating from high school. The majority of the participants who engaged in Project Ho‘oku‘i reported that they gained more skills, confidence in their abilities, and had more clarity in their future academic goals and career path because of the project.