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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
April 22, 2013
  CONTACT: Melanie Mowry Etters
Communication Director
850-414-7551

Community Resource Directory to Debut

TALLAHASSEE—The Agency for Persons with Disabilities (APD) will unveil its newly enhanced community resource directory on Saturday, April 27, as part of a Disability Resource Fair being hosted by the Suncoast Family Care Councils. The event will be held at the University Community Development Center, 14013 North 22nd Street, Tampa, from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.

The APD resource directory has more than 6,000 different community resources that will help meet the needs of citizens with disabilities. The agency has been working for more than a year to develop the enhanced resource directory to identify community organizations that provide services to people in need. Individuals with developmental disabilities on the APD Medicaid waiver waiting list have limited access to state-paid community services. The resource directory will also be able to help any person with a disability find help in his or her community.

A variety of searches can be conducted with the resource directory. People can search by zip code, county, type of service needed, or other preferred criteria. The goal of the directory is to match a person’s needs with a community resource that will be able to meet that need.

On April 27, the public can begin searching the resource directory for community resources to meet their needs at APDcares.org. Next month, the agency will develop a resource directory tutorial to assist users in learning how to navigate the directory. It will be posted on APDcares.org.

In the future, the agency plans to add on new features to the resource directory to continually make it more useful to the public.

APD annually serves more than 50,000 Floridians with the developmental disabilities of autism, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, intellectual disabilities, spina bifida, and Prader-Willi syndrome. To learn more about the agency, call 1-866-APD-CARES (1-866-273-2273) or visit APDcares.org.