S.T.A.R.S.: Skills Training for Assertiveness, Relationship-Building, and Sexual Awareness

Susan M. Heighway, MS, PNP-BC, APNP is a clinical professor and nurse practitioner with the University Center for Excellence in Disabilities, Waisman Center, and a Faculty Associate with the School of Nursing, University of Wisconsin-Madison. At the Waisman Center, she works as a nurse practitioner in two outpatient clinics serving people ranging in age from birth to adulthood who have developmental disabilities or genetic/metabolic disorders, along with those individuals' families. She is also the Nursing Discipline Coordinator for a federally funded Maternal and Child Health interdisciplinary leadership training program for graduate students. Susan Kidd Webster, MSSW, LCSW is on the faculty of the School of Social Work, University of Wisconsin-Madison. For many years, she worked on capacity-building projects to support people with developmental disabilities in the community as an outreach specialist with the Waisman Center. Currently she teaches courses and coordinates training opportunities for undergraduate and graduate social work students focusing on people with developmental disabilities. She is also the parent of an adult son with cognitive disabilities. Both Ms. Heighway and Ms. Webster have more than twenty years of experience in the area of sexual abuse prevention and sexuality education for people with developmental disabilities. They both served on a task force that was convened by the Wisconsin Council on Developmental Disabilities that addressed issues of sexual abuse of people with developmental disabilities. For several years, they worked together at the Waisman Center. They have provided consultation to community agencies, presented at conferences, gave guest lectures on campus, and conducted workshops on the local, state, and national levels regarding the areas of sexuality and sexual abuse.