The lectures and case studies showed how it really does take a village to care for youths with disabilities, Karan said, but that the results can be life-changing for all involved.<\/p>\n
\u201cYoung people who receive appropriate treatment and support from their families, professional caregivers and the community can experience amazing turnarounds and live rich, happy, productive lives as active members of their communities,\u201d Karan said. \u201cBut it\u2019s not one single fix that makes this kind of support available. It\u2019s many fixes, in many areas, that create a totally new ecology and culture for how people with disabilities are viewed and cared for. Hospitals, schools, community leaders and parents are among the many aspects of society that all play a part.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although Karan has traveled throughout much of Turkey\u2014roughly the same size as Texas\u2014to meet as many people as possible, most of his interactions have taken place in or near the major cities of Istanbul and Ankara. To give all Turks access to Karan\u2019s expertise, Turkish leaders have distributed subtitled videotapes, as well as translated copies of Karan\u2019s lectures, to interested parents and caregivers across the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo many things the United States does on behalf of children with disabilities and their families are still not even close to being a reality in other countries,\u201d Karan explained. \u201cTurkey is one of the most modern countries in the Middle East, yet for people with disabilities, there are few educational and healthcare services, and even fewer opportunities to become a part of their communities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Karan said it\u2019s a professional passion to help people \u201cin a real and lasting way\u201d that led him to accept the Turkish government\u2019s request to act as a consultant\u2014and conduit\u2014for disability care change. However, it was a personal interest that caused him to first get involved.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbout 13 years ago, I began working with a Turkish girl with extreme intellectual, emotional and behavioral disabilities,\u201d Karan explained. \u201cIn Turkey, her family exhausted all available services seeking a solution, and it appeared an institution was the only option. But her parents had connections to Yale and could afford to bring her here, so they came to Connecticut for treatment, and that\u2019s when I became involved. She now lives in her own home with support and enjoys a high quality of life. But it got me thinking. \u2018What happens to the children of Turkish families who can\u2019t afford to fly to the U.S. for treatment?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
To find the answer, he decided to spend three weeks of his Spring 2011 sabbatical in Turkey.<\/p>\n
\u201cI visited programs serving children and youth with a wide variety of disabilities,\u201d Karan said. \u201cOne of the things I stressed to the professionals and families I met was \u2018As you may know, it wasn\u2019t that awfully long ago that the U.S. believed institutionalization was the best way to care for adults and kids with developmental disabilities.\u2019 But we\u2019ve done much to change that in a relatively short time, and those in Turkey committed to making the same change can do it, too.\u201d<\/p>\n Today, as a consultant, Karan talks with Turkish professionals via Skype roughly once a week. Conversations tackle everything from how Turkey can best enforce special education laws and dispel myths about disabilities, to how educators should integrate children with intellectual and emotional disabilities into public school classrooms.<\/p>\n \u201cThis work? It\u2019s my passion,\u201d Karan said simply. \u201cToo often, people are held back because others don\u2019t see their possibilities. But I look at people from a very different perspective. Often, my heart says \u2018Try!\u2019 when my brain says \u2018It won\u2019t work.\u2019 Thankfully, I\u2019ve proven my brain wrong on more than one occasion. I\u2019m also thankful to UConn and so proud the school wants to share our expertise to make a difference in the lives of people thousands of miles away. That\u2019s pretty incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Neag School of Education Professor Orv Karan, PhD, is using his more than 40 years of experience as a rehabilitation psychology and special education specialist to help medical, educational and social service providers![\"Dr.](\"https:\/\/media.education.uconn.edu\/aurora\/neag\/2013\/09\/turkey-400x300.jpg\")
<\/a>
\nin Turkey successfully transition youths with intellectual and developmental disabilities into the community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":205074,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2424,1855],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2455],"class_list":["post-205073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-neag-community-engagement","category-neag"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-11 06:24:28","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205073"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":205075,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205073\/revisions\/205075"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/205074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205073"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=205073"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=205073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}