A new website has come online that uses the faces and voices of people with spinal cord injuries (SCI) to answer questions about their life’s adjustments to SCI in short video segments. The site has stories on more than 100 people featured in on-camera interviews for FacingDisability.com, a multimedia-rich website launched in 2011 by nine-time Emmy Award-winning Chicago broadcast producer Thea Flaum. In addition to personal stories, the site has experts in the field of SCI answering a number of questions about living with SCI.
Flaum and her assistants created a list of 48 questions and then conducted on-camera interviews, not just with people who suffered SCI, but also their mothers, fathers, siblings, spouses, children and experts in the field.
The creation of FacingDisability.com is rooted in a personal tragedy in Flaum’s family — in 1986, her stepdaughter, Vicki Hill, fractured her spinal column after diving into a swimming pool in Naperville.
A full account on the creation of FacingDisability.com can be read here at the Spinal Cord Injury Zone.