History
Founded in 1991, RIPIN is a statewide, 501(c)(3), charitable, nonprofit organization with a collective programmatic reach that extends to every Rhode Island community, the state's major family-serving systems, schools, associations, and agencies. Our goal is to inform, support, and empower parents, families, individuals, and family-serving professionals who seek to become effective advocates for their families, children, themselves, and their communities. We serve more than 65,000 Rhode Islanders each year.
Specialties
Our mission is to assist individuals, parents, families and children to achieve their goals for health, educational, and socio-economic well being by providing information, education, training, support and advocacy for person/family-centered care and systems change. Our vision is that individuals, parents, and families will advocate for themselves, ensuring that their needs for health, educational, and socio-economic supports are met. Our objective is to influence society's view and value of families, diversity, and disabilities, reducing stigma, advocating for full inclusion and shifting societal perceptions toward acceptance of individual differences. RIPIN will work directly with organizations, institutions, and communities to address gaps and deficiencies so that, individuals, parents and families are better served and viewed as equal partners. We envision systems that produce better outcomes for the individual, family, child and community.