Advisory Board Member:Don Dawkins

I am a T-3 forty-year spinal cord injury survivor. I am currently the Advocacy Coordinator for the Florida Independent Living Council and work throughout our state; this experience covers the nineteen years I have been in Florida. I have also been a wheelchair athlete for twenty years as a Wheelchair Basketball player, Road racer, Scuba diver, Snow skier and Coach and manager of a Quad Rugby team.
My professional experience includes working in the medical model as a Certified Therapeutic Recreation Therapist, Department Manager, Rehabilitation and Peer Counselor, Case Manager and Spinal Cord Injury Program Manager at the Rehabilitation Institute of Sarasota and HEALTHSOUTH Rehabilitation Hospital of Sarasota. I was also the Executive Director and Director of Outreach Services for the Florida Spinal Cord Injury Resource Center at Tampa General Hospital.

I received ADA training through the Department of Justice in Washington D.C., Florida’s Americans with Disabilities Working Group and the National Council for Independent Living in Tallahassee and Tampa, Florida. I have been involved in numerous ADA evaluations for the Florida and Michigan Independent Living Councils, Adaptive Rehabilitative Consulting Services and various businesses, municipalities and private homeowners in Florida and Michigan. I have given extensive training on the ADA and disability etiquette to numerous groups nationally and internationally. I have extensive experience working with SCI survivors and families facilitating SCI education, recreation opportunities, and adjustment to catastrophic injury, activities of daily living. I facilitate SCI support groups and SCI resource information referrals, and I have worked with many disabled populations including but not limited to MS, Cerebral Palsy, closed head injury, Developmental disabilities and Muscular Dystrophy.



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