Webinar: How to Support Caregivers and Families of Adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (I/DD)

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Less than half of the 2.25 million adults in the US who live with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) were part of government programs that helped people receive assistance, such as Medicaid and Medicare.  

To make sure caregivers and families can connect to much-needed services, join UT Health San Antonio’s webinar, “How to Support Caregivers and Families of Adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (I/DD),” at 6 p.m. Central on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026. 

Webinar host Dr. Amelie Ramirez, leader of Salud America! and the Institute for Health Promotion Research at UT Health San Antonio, will join experts from the National Hispanic Health Foundation (NHHF), a representative from Genentech, and organizations working to improve quality of life for individuals with I/DD, their families, and caregivers.   

Together they will explore how to navigate the changing climate of government-assisted healthcare, build literacy and competency around Medicaid and Medicare for I/DD populations, and improve access to care through policy and system changes.   

This webinar is sponsored by the National Hispanic Health Foundation and Genentech.  

REGISTER FOR THE WEBINAR & fill out a pre-event survey!

Logistics for this Webinar on Care for Adults with I/DD

This webinar will be presented in English with an option to activate closed captioning in several different languages, including English and Spanish. Instructions to activate this feature will be provided vocally and in the chat. If you can’t access this feature, we will have a designated co-host to assist.  

Webinar accessibility accommodation requests can be sent to saludamerica1@gmail.com.  

Prior to the webinar, we are inviting attendees to fill out a quick pre-webinar survey.  

Your survey responses can help us gauge the effectiveness of this webinar to communicate this topic and influence future webinars. 

A copy of this webinar will be provided after the event has concluded. Registrants who aren’t able to attend live will receive a copy of this recording in a follow-up e-mail. 

REGISTER FOR THE WEBINAR & fill out a pre-event survey!

Learn about the Speakers for this Webinar on Care for Adults with I/DD  

Here are the panelists for the webinar.  

Panelist presentations and discussion will be moderated by Dr. Amelie Ramirez. 

Amelie G. Ramirez, DrPH (moderator), an internationally recognized researcher in health promotion and behavioral change, is director of Salud America! and leader of the Institute for Health Promotion Research in the Department of Population Health Sciences at UT Health San Antonio. She has spent over 30 years directing research on human and organizational communication to reduce chronic disease and cancer among all people, including cancer risk factors, clinical trial recruitment, tobacco prevention, and obesity prevention. She also is associate director of cancer outreach and engagement at the NCI-designated Mays Cancer Center at UT Health San Antonio. 

Elena Rios, MD, MSPH, MACP, is the founder and president of the National Hispanic Health Foundation (NHHF) and is on the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, Better Medicare Alliance, Natural Resources Defense Council, and others. 

Vanessa Ochoa is the Special Advisor for DRC’s Strategic Partnerships and Community Engagement (SPACE) Unit. Currently, Vanessa is an active member of DIJC which includes Spanish speaking individuals with various disabilities. Vanessa is a host for Community Solutions Program (CPS) and Professional Fellowship Program (PFP) which works with international disability leaders to provide input on fairness for individuals in other countries with disabilities. Through the CSP and PFP Vanessa has hosted several fellows from Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Tanzania and Fiji. Vanessa provided integrated leadership curriculum and individualized coaching throughout the fellowship. Fellows returned home to apply their new skills through a community action project.

Vanessa has worked extensively throughout the state with various communities providing training and empowers families to advocate on their own. As the daughter of parents from Mexico, a person with a mental health disability and as a mother of children with disabilities, Vanessa is passionate about connecting with overlooked groups especially Latino monolingual Spanish speaking families and cooperating with community members to ensure the needs and concerns of the group are addressed in a background-tailored and linguistically competent manner. Her lived experience is her driving force to connect and uplift communities to ensure people with disabilities from overlooked and language distinct communities know about their rights and receive fair services and support.

Maria Paula Hernandez is the Founder & Executive Director of VELA, a nonprofit organization based in Austin Texas. Maria Paula started the organization in 2011 to provide English and Spanish-speaking parents with hands-on courses, support, and community so that all families could create the very best outcomes for their child with disabilities. Before creating VELA, Maria Paula worked as a bilingual speech and language pathologist across the school and clinical settings providing services to children with disabilities ages 0-21. Her incredible papa has multiple sclerosis and her brilliant brother has dyslexia- different has been her normal. In 2006, Maria Paula completed a MA in Communications Sciences in Disorders at UT Austin and has a BA in Hearing and Speech Sciences from the University of Maryland at College Park. She sits on multiple local and national advisory committees and is a Pahara Aspen NextGen Fellow. Maria is originally from Bogota, Colombia.

More panelists to be announced soon!

REGISTER FOR THE WEBINAR & fill out a pre-event survey!

Behind the Webinar Series on I/DD 

“How to Support Caregivers and Families of Adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (I/DD),” is part two in a two-part series of webinars on I/DD and Medicaid/Medicare access. 

Sponsored by the National Hispanic Health Foundation (NHHF) and Genentech, this pair of webinars are being produced in response to the health insurance crisis because of recent changes to government-assisted health care access.   

The changes, which include significant cuts to programs, increased hurdles to program participation and renewal, and there are more deterrents for expansion of eligibility, are slated to cut the health care coverage of 14 million Americans.  

Many of these people are Latinos and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.   

Read more on this issue. 

The first webinar in this series, “From Healthcare to Policy—Exploring Medicaid and Medicare Access for Adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (I/DD),” was conducted on Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026. 

This webinar featured experts from the NHHF, the University of New Mexico, the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities, and Disability Rights California, and was centered around how healthcare workers, social workers, and advocates could address Medicaid/Medicare changes for those they serve.  

REGISTER FOR THE WEBINAR & fill out a pre-event survey!