By AHRC New York City | September 19, 2025

Written by: Sarah Baier, Associate Vice President, Performance Improvement & Innovation
AHRC New York City

This past winter, AHRC NYC was excited to wrap up its first pilot with a newly developed Health & Wellness Curriculum in the Bronx. The curriculum aims to provide people with disabilities with accessible information, exploring a wide range of topics to make informed health choices. Based on the feedback and experiences in our first group, we made updates and edits to the curriculum to make it even better. With a revised curriculum in hand, we were excited to launch a second group , this time in Manhattan at our Norfolk Day Services location.

In June, the Norfolk group successfully completed all 12 group sessions and marked the milestone with a joyful celebration. Throughout the process, valuable feedback and thoughtful edits continued to enhance the curriculum.

We are now in a new phase of curriculum development, one that centers diverse perspectives and firsthand knowledge. This includes review and input from three members of AHRC NYC’s nursing team, as well as three people with disabilities. We are especially excited and honored to incorporate the voices of people with disabilities, whose firsthand experiences are essential to shaping a curriculum that is not only clinically informed but also grounded in lived experiences.

We also hosted a deep dive into our Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) session which brought together subject matter experts from both our health & wellness committee and rights & advocacy committees. People not only experienced the session as is but also reflected on their own experiences, past and present, when it comes to SRH. A major takeaway from the feedback was to have at least two sessions in the series cover the topic of SRH.

Our curriculum session topics include:

Session 1: Welcome
Session 2: Health & What it Means to Me
Session 3: Types of Health
Session 4: Healthy Choices
Session 5: Health Choices and Nutrition
Session 5: Visuals
Session 6: Mental Health
Session 7: Personal Hygiene
Session 8: Dental Hygiene
Session 9: Sexual and Reproductive Health Part 1
Session 10: Sexual and Reproductive Health Part 2
Session 11: Common Health Conditions and Preventions
Session 12: Doctor’s Offices and Advocating for Yourself Part 1
Session 13: Doctor’s Offices and Advocating for Yourself Part 2 & Celebration

We’re excited to finish the full curriculum soon! We’re especially proud that people with disabilities and professionals worked closely together to make sure it’s not only high-quality, but also helpful and meaningful.