This document provides an overview of Catalyst for Creative Achievement, an organization that provides mentoring services to support creative achievement for individuals with intellectual disabilities. The services include personal, family, and professional mentoring to challenge limiting definitions of intelligence and capacity. The mentoring process helps individuals discover their strengths and explore creative mediums to achieve meaningful goals. The organization also provides training and presentations to professionals on rethinking disabilities and focusing on individuals' creative capacities.

1. A Prospectus for
Douglas R. Trout, Ed.M.

2. The Catalyst for
Catalyst for Creative Achievement
‘We pass through this world but once. Few tragedies can be more extensive than the
stunting of life, few injustices deeper than the denial of an opportunity to strive or even
to hope, by a limit imposed from without but falsely identified as lying within.’
Stephen Jay Gould
The development of effective practice regarding how best to support people with
intellectual disabilities has been hindered by the prevailing notions about the nature of intelligence
and achievement. In spite of the absence of scientific agreement on what intelligence actually is, there
are pervasive and enduring practices on how to measure and define intelligence. The assignment of an
intelligence quotient (IQ), based on only a few of the many aspects of intellectual activity and
erroneously interpreted as a measure of general intelligence, serves not only to qualify (or disqualify) a
person for publicly-funded services but to define the person’s capacity and potential for achievement,
to themselves and to others. Likewise, failure of academic achievement within a deficit-focused
educational system (also based on the same few aspects of intellectual activity) serves to further define
the person’s capacity for achievement as defective & limited.
This pervasive ‘conventional wisdom’ and the internalization of its limiting definition of a
person’s capacity to achieve is, in itself, profoundly disabling. New perspectives on the nature of
intelligence and the capacity for achievement are needed to challenge this ‘limit imposed from without
but falsely identified as lying within.’ It is time to learn from the creative intelligence of children and
adults who have been saddled with the label of disability, from the courageous parents who have
always believed in their child’s creative potential for achievement, and from the dedicated
professionals who have ignored the conventional wisdom to see the complex and capable person they
support.

3. The Services of
Catalyst for Creative Achievement
‘To move forward we need a fresh understanding of intelligence, of human capacity and
the nature of creativity. Real creativity comes from finding your medium, from being in
your element. When people find their medium, they discover their real creative strengths
and come into their own.’ Sir Ken Robinson
Evidence that the nature of human intelligence is more diverse, complex and dynamic in
its characteristics than we ever imagined is indisputable and compelling. The old paradigm of
‘intelligence quotients’ and narrow academic standards is already crumbling under the weight of its
own inadequacies. We need to build a new paradigm based on ‘a fresh understanding of intelligence,
of human capacity and the nature of creativity.’
Catalyst for Creative Achievement seeks to be an innovative leader in providing new
perspectives and approaches to supporting the creative achievement of individuals with intellectual
disabilities. CCA provides services designed to provide a catalyst at every level of influence:
Personal Mentoring services provide a catalyst for the individual to identify and achieve inspired
and meaningful (self-determined) outcomes that reflect new perspectives on their intellectual and
creative capacity.
Family Mentoring services assist family members and other caregivers in their efforts to support
the creative achievements of their family member/client with developmental disabilities.
Professional Mentoring services provide support to professionals and organizations who seek
new perspectives and innovative approaches in their work with persons with intellectual disabilities,
including staff training topics and public presentations.

4. The Mentoring Process of
Catalyst for Creative Achievement
Catalyst for Creative Achievement provides innovative support services to individuals
and families designed to reevaluate the ‘social narrative’ of disability as a means of discovering hidden
strengths and creative mediums that support the individual’s optimal development. Based on new
perspectives regarding the nature of intelligence and the role of creative expression in achieving inspired
and meaningful outcomes, the mentoring process provides a catalyst for the practical exploration of such
fundamental questions of identity as:
Who am I? That is, how do I define myself, my strengths and challenges, my unique gifts, and
how do I express my ‘self’ to others?
Where am I? That is, how do others define me? What is the ‘social narrative” about my
disability? Where am I in my development, and the development of relationships with others?
Where do I want to go? That is, what inspired and meaningful outcomes do I want to achieve?
What creative mediums do I want to explore? And what relationships do I want to have?
Strategies for defining and achieving outcomes are inspired by an evolving social narrative that
reflects new perspectives on the nature of the person’s intellectual disability and creative capacity. The
mentoring process provides support for the development of appreciable (and measureable) goals and the
practical strategies that will help the person to achieve their most inspired and meaningful outcomes. The
mentoring process for family members and other caregivers is designed to help them realign their support
in response to the person’s changing social narrative and goals. The resulting shared perspectives on the
person’s capacity for creative achievement facilitates the person’s optimal development and self-esteem.

5. Presentations & Training by
Catalyst for Creative Achievement
Public Presentations
Developmental Disability:
From Intelligence Quotients to Creative Mediums
Staff Training Topics
Rethinking Disability: The Search for Creative Mediums
Redefining the Support Staff Role: Setting the Table for Achievement
Engaging the Family System: From Us & Them to We
Behavior Management: Creative Mediums as Behavioral Intervention
Organizational Integrity: Who’s Being Served?

6. Catalyst for Creative Achievement
About Douglas Trout
For more than 25 years, Doug Trout has provided leadership and
innovation in the field of developmental disabilities, as an educator,
community organizer and executive director. His passionate pursuit of
social equality for persons with intellectual disabilities has defined his
current role as mentor, as a catalyst for creative achievement.
Doug earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Human Services from
Antioch University and a Master of Education degree in
Psychoeducational Processes from Temple University. He received
post-graduate training in structural family therapy at the Philadelphia
Child Guidance Center, and has earned more than 90 post-Masters
course credits in related coursework.
Home is in Havertown, Pennsylvania with his spouse Kimberly, a
certified nurse-midwife and assistant professor of Nursing at Villanova
University. They are proud parents of a daughter and a son, and
happy grandparents to two young grandsons.