About Us
MAB Community Services has been creating opportunities for people with disabilities since 1903. Helen Keller served on our first advisory board, along with other notable Bostonians who developed some of the first community services for blind individuals. Today we specialize in individualized rehabilitation and family-focused strategies that help individuals with a range of disabilities live full lives in the community.
Our Mission:
MAB Community Services, Inc. (MAB) is committed to creating opportunities and transforming the lives of individuals with disabilities. Our goal is to empower and support individuals so that they can live healthy, independent, and engaged lives. Since 1903 MAB has provided an array of services that enable individuals, regardless of their disabilities, to be active participants in their communities and in their own lives. By doing so, our larger communities are enriched. We approach this work with a commitment to creating and sustaining a diverse, equitable, inclusive, and accessible environment for all staff and participants.
MAB’s commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and access is a critical driver in all that we do. MAB is actively working to become and sustain an anti-racist organization. We are dedicated to deepening cultural competency, so staff and participants feel welcomed, valued, affirmed, and safe to contribute, regardless of their race, ethnicity, religion, spiritual beliefs, gender, gender identity, gender expression, ability, and sexual orientation, or socioeconomic status. MAB recognizes the current hardships, history, and systemic oppression that people experience daily. We are committed to evaluating and reflecting on systems and structures to accommodate differences, eliminate unnecessary barriers, and provide everyone with the opportunity to succeed. To do this work effectively, we must strive to have the organization’s staff at all levels reflect the diversity of the people we aim to serve.
Our divisions:
The Massachusetts Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired provides vision rehabilitation and support services throughout Massachusetts to more than 1,200 adults, primarily older adults, who are blind or visually impaired. Programs include access to low vision clinics, peer empowerment support groups, one-to-one volunteer assistance, in-home vision rehabilitation, adjustment counseling/mental health support, and access/assistive technology training. Our unique blend of programs and services enables individuals to learn to live confidently with vision loss.
MAB Adult Disability Services provides residential supports, community living supports, transitional assistance, occupational therapy, and vocational services for individuals with developmental disabilities, brain injury, and other disabilities in Greater Boston, Southeast Boston, and Central Massachusetts. The department operates more than 25 community residential homes, and a community-based day activity center and supports over 300 people to live as independently as possible in their communities each year.
The Ivy Street School is a special education residential and day high school for neurodivergent youth. We work with students to prepare them for adulthood with the tools they need to achieve their greatest independence. Using a lens of disability justice, we support the whole child through a student-first model driven by a commitment to knowing our students well. Additionally, our Skills for Life program supports in-home skill development for young adults.