Amy Gunty, MA

Evaluation Coordinator of the PROMISE Technical Assistance Center
Research at the Institute on Community Integration (ICI) at the University of Minnesota

contact now

Amy Gunty, MA, is the PROMISE TA Center evaluation coordinator and a researcher in the Institute on Community Integration at the University of Minnesota. Her current work focuses primarily on supporting meaningful, competitive, integrated employment for people with disabilities. This work aims to recognize the talents, strengths, and interests of people with disabilities and to develop avenues through which people with disabilities can use those talents, strengths, and interests to meaningfully contribute to their communities through valued social roles.

Amy has worked in research for eight years, focusing on a variety of topics that all center around recognizing and enhancing the strengths and resilience that are inherent in all people. This has included work around the relationship between family dynamics and the development of different thinking styles, the experience of post-traumatic growth (wherein people report having grown as the result of a trauma), the unique experiences and context of military families, and supporting people with disabilities to be fully and meaningfully integrated into their communities.

Amy has also worked in direct service with children and families for almost 20 years, 13 of which she has spent supporting children with developmental disabilities or emotional and behavioral disorders and their families. During this time, she has fulfilled many roles, including: preschool teacher, direct support professional, case manager, individual and family therapist, and day treatment clinician.