Padres Abriendo Puertas, Inc. (Parents Opening Doors) (PAP) is a community based organization within the city of Hartford initially created to and continuously devoted to improving and upholding human, civil, and educational rights and to fostering total community inclusion for children with intellectual, learning, and behavioral disabilities. Most of all, PAP is an organization that strives to empower parents who are the most effective long-term advocates for their own children.

In 2017 PAP moved to a new location in Hartford, developed new program opportunities for the community and created a new mission "To empower all individuals with disabilities and their families to advocate for their right to create a good life in the Greater Hartford community."

 

The organization emerged in 1991 as a result of growing concerns of a group of Latino parents who felt the educational system was failing to provide their children with an adequate curriculum and was not offering quality educational services consistent with their children’s needs and with the criteria established by federal laws.

 

PAP was duly recognized as a 501(c)(3) organization by the Internal Revenue Service in 1991. Our current mission is to provide empowerment tools such as training, advocacy skills, and community mobilization in order to lift any social, structural, and systemic barriers that hinder the ability of all children, including those with significant disabilities, to gain equal access to established educational, adult programming and mental health care initiatives. In addition to the Hartford location, the organization has been a model for other chapters in lower Greenwich who now operate independently and a new chapter in Danbury and Wethersfield.

 

During the past twenty-six years, PAP has evolved from a small parent organization that taught Latino parents effective ways to advocate on behalf of their children who lacked full access to the Hartford Public Schools educational system because of learning and language barriers. Now it has grown into a multi-program association that continues to teach self-advocacy skills to interested families of all ethnic backgrounds and additionally provides them with a myriad of training opportunities and offers some case management assistance and oversight. Presently PAP operates nine very helpful programs that implement the ongoing mission of the organization.

 

They include,

1.  After-School Extended Day Culinary Program - 2. Hispanic Forum Education Project -  3.  Information and Referral  – 4.  Peer Advocate - 5.  PPT Support Program- 6.  Service Dog Training Initiative – 7. Sibling Support Program  – 8. Summer Recreation and Enrichment Programs - 9.  Support Groups - 

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These programs place us in a unique position that allows us to actively assist the residents of Hartford and the surrounding towns. These nine programs are capable of operating with much greater efficiency thus helping greater numbers of people more fully if we had more funds with which to implement each initiative.

   

 Since the inception of Padres Abriendo Puertas as a grassroots organization we have been lucky enough to touch many lives and to have enjoyed the privilege of working in conjunction with a vast array of stellar fellow community agencies to provide the most beneficial services to our families. Since 1991 PAP has provided a spectrum of services to close to 12,000 children with disabilities and their families. Approximately 1,750 children have benefited from our self-advocacy activities which have in turn allowed our parents to better understand their children’s education and have created some positive school reforms. Our personnel have conducted approximately 22,000 information referrals and intakes during this time period. An estimated 3,800 parents have participated in training sessions that we offer free of charge. We currently serve over 450 families as part of our system of care initiative linking them with much needed assistance that is available in Connecticut but not always readily known in the surrounding area. 

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As we move forward my hopes for PAP is to grow and expand our programming initiatives and services throughout the PAP community.

 

Respectfully Yours,

Maryann Guerra

Executive Director

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