Brandon Toohey

Disability Health Access Coordinator
803-779-5121 ext. 130
[email protected]
Columbia Office

Brandon is the Disability Health Access Coordinator at Able SC, and he is driven to use his lived experience and passion as a person living with multiple psychiatric disabilities to work towards improving the accessibility of healthcare here in South Carolina through education, peer support, advocacy, and collaboration with other organizations.

Brandon became connected with Able when he began receiving independent living services from Able after developing multiple psychiatric disabilities, including Depression, Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, Anxiety, and more, in the years following a head injury that occurred while in training to join the military. After connecting with Able and receiving services, Brandon became more connected to the disability community and started to develop an understanding of the concept of disability pride. This led Brandon to become very interested in pursuing work in the peer support and mental health advocacy fields. Brandon became an AmeriCorps member at Able and later accepted a position as an Independent Living Specialist. He is now using that experience from working one-on-one with members of the disability community, as well as his own lived experiences and passion for wanting to improve the mental health systems, as a basis for working towards improving the accessibility of healthcare in South Carolina for all individuals.

When not at work, Brandon enjoys supporting his favorite sports team, Chelsea Football Club. He also loves listening to broad range of music and taking time to seek music from cultures and communities unfamiliar to him to help him feel more connected to the global community and learn about other cultures which has led to a strong appreciation of music in genres and languages he may not have been exposed to otherwise such as Kazakh hip hop, West African influenced French pop music and Korean indie/shoegaze which have become some of his favorite genres. Brandon also enjoys seeking connection to the disability community he is a part of by writing and reading poetry from different cultures, often with a focus on topics related to mental health.