Press Release  MDDC Welcomes Three New Citizen Members

Boston — Governor Maura T. Healey has appointed Austin Carr, Amber Pettell and Tatiana Thomas as citizen members of the Massachusetts Developmental Disabilities Council.

Austin Carr of Winthrop is currently pursuing certificates in Child Youth Advocacy and Developmental Disabilities within the Human Services field at North Shore Community College.  With years of active involvement in the disability community, Austin has worked with various organizations to advocate for and support individuals with disabilities. He currently serves as an Adult Ally on The Federation for Children with Special Needs Young Adult Board (YAB) and has contributed to outreach and transitioning projects.

Additionally, he is a founding member of Easter Seals, Massachusetts’ #TeachDisabilityHistory campaign. Recognizing a significant gap in inclusive social opportunities for young adults with disabilities after the age of 22, Austin is excited to be part of the founding team of Access 2 Community and Friendship. Their mission is to create more inclusive and accessible social events.

Amber Pettell of Westfield is a passionate disability rights advocate with both professional and lived experience with disability. She is deeply committed to ending systematic inequality.

Amber describes her advocacy as being part of her sense of self. "For me my disability is a major part of my identity. Disability is my culture, and the only community that has ever made me feel truly accepted. I have so much pride in my community, and I have always felt frustrated by how much misunderstanding and discrimination we face. Around the age of 13, I resolved to change it however I could. Over the last 20 years I have remained steadfast in that goal."

In her role as a Self-Advocacy Peer Coordinator at The Western Massachusetts Training Consortium Consortium in Holyoke, MA she has spent nearly a decade supporting individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities to advocate for themselves and others.

Amber holds a Master of Arts in Mass Communication with a Specialization in Public Interest Communication from the University of Florida. Outside of work, she enjoys watching movies and going to parks.

Tatiana Thomas of Somerville is a second-year Transition Scholars student at Mass Bay Community College. She works part-time as a lunch attendant in the Somerville public schools and as a Customer Service Representative at CVS Pharmacy. She is passionate about working within the disability community.

Tatiana is one of the co-founders of Access 2 Community and Friendship, a social group for adults with and without disabilities aged 22 and up. Her goal is to help create events of interest to the young adult community and design activities around principles of inclusion and accessibility for everyone from all communities. She is a leader at Easter Seals’ #TeachDisabilityHistory Campaign where she is working on trying to make disability history a mandatory part of the curriculum in K-12 Boston Public Schools.

She is also a member of the Young Adult Advisory Council at the Federation for Children with Special Needs, and at the Massachusetts’ Department of Public Health Division for Children & Youth with Special Health Needs. Tatiana was a Service Leader at Empowering People for Inclusive Communities (EPIC) and peer leader at Young Leaders Rising. She has been a panelist for the MassAbility Conference and was invited to participate at the annual mentoring conference in Washington. Tatiana has been featured on NESN’s Mass Mentoring Night at Fenway Park and on WGBH for #TeachDisabilityHistory. She loves taking on challenging opportunities. She enjoys spending time with her friends and her support dog, Romeo.

“Our new members have already displayed their leadership skills and positive qualities to current members, staff and their peers. All three have participated in the Paul W. Spooner Generational Leadership Summit and returned to mentor new members this year,” said Craig Hall, MDDC Executive Director. “I have no doubt that they will continue to do great work and will make excellent contributions to our Council.”

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