Tuesday, October 22, 2019

UPDATE ON DISABILITY ADVOCACY IN D.C.


I wrote recently (https://www.ddinwdc.com/2019/10/put-november-21-onto-your-calendar.html) about various advocacy meetings taking place this month with respect to the Department on Disability Services (DDS), as well as a broader visioning effort that the Developmental Disabilities Council (DDC) will be organizing later in the year.

Project ACTION! was rightly in the forefront of the meeting on October 10 concerning follow-up on cancellation of the Georgetown contract and ensuring advocacy groups are not blindsided about future such decisions.  While I had characterized this as a meeting to plan a protest, in fact the meeting (at which I was not present) covered many other options, and there will be other upcoming discussions to narrow and prioritize the choices. 

In response to criticisms leveled at DDS over recent months about inadequate consultation and communication, last Friday DDS director Andy Reese convened a meeting of the heads of several organizations including Project Action!, the Georgetown University Center, ULS/Disability Rights DC, Quality Trust, the State Rehabilitation Council and the DDC.  This was a wide-ranging discussion, touching on such issues as why the many meetings DDS now holds are not leading to productive two-way communication, what specific challenges DDS is facing with respect to the structure and cost of the current home and community-based (HCBS) waiver, and how to begin structuring better consultation mechanisms.  DDS is doing some internal work on these issues after which Andy says he’ll be following up on this session.

The two meetings described above represent efforts toward reaching across the current divide that became so apparent over the summer.  However, in my last blog post I also mentioned DD Council plans to convene the first of a more far-reaching series of visioning meetings – focused on getting a better picture of the entire D.C. disability community in all its diversity and reimagining what true community integration should look like.  At the DD Council public meeting on NOVEMBER 21 – KEEP THAT DATE ON YOUR CALENDAR – you’ll hear something about our plans for this series of meetings, but for now we’ve decided we need slightly more time for planning -  so the first visioning meeting will not take place that day.  While planning continues, and with a view toward starting to reach beyond the usual participants, you could be helpful by sending Alison Whyte, the DDC executive director, contact information for any local cultural and linguistic groups that may not normally get represented in our disability meetings, so that we can build the best contact list possible:  that email is alison.whyte@dc.gov.  (The DD Council is a federally-funded and federally-mandated board that is housed in the D.C. Office of Disability Rights but is not part of the D.C. government:  see more information by going to “Acronyms and Organizations You Should Know” under Pages, to the right of this post, or here: https://www.ddinwdc.com/p/blog-page.html.)

And now a word about the DSP salary legislation, B23-214, that received a hearing in the D.C. council’s human services committee in June:  https://www.ddinwdc.com/2019/06/a-fair-deal-for-direct-support.html.  If you’ve been alert you will have noticed articles on this topic in the Northwest Courier (https://nwc.news/) and Street Sense (https://www.streetsensemedia.org/) lately.  My understanding is that this bill will be progressing through the D.C. council in the coming weeks, so weigh in with your council members – see https://www.ddinwdc.com/p/members-of-d.html or click on the “Contacting the D.C. Council” page over to the right to get contact information.  And incidentally, if you get a chance to see the film “Invaluable” about the role of direct support professionals (DSPs), as I did with other friends at the Arc national convention last Saturday (https://www.ddinwdc.com/2019/10/film-saluting-direct-support.html), make sure you grab the opportunity next time!

Friday, October 11, 2019

PUT NOVEMBER 21 ONTO YOUR CALENDAR


As the Georgetown contract issue was building, in early July I wrote a post called, “Andy, You Need a Plan” (https://www.ddinwdc.com/2019/07/andy-you-need-plan.html), followed by another, “Dialogue and Advocacy” (https://www.ddinwdc.com/2019/07/dialogue-and-advocacy.html), about the roles of the D.C. government and the advocacy community in building a better future.  I hope you’ll go back and re-read those as background to what I write here.

Although the Georgetown contract expired five weeks ago, the interactions between DDS and the advocacy community continue to reverberate, with, on the one hand, some groups meeting yesterday to plan a protest, and on the other, Andy Reese having reached out to the heads of key advocacy groups (myself included, as DD Council chair) for a confab late next week.

However, the past few months have demonstrated a need for a much broader dialogue, originating not with DDS but within the advocacy community, about the direction in which we need to move to ensure a more inclusive future in our city.  THE DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES COUNCIL PLANS TO KICK OF THIS IMPORTANT DIALOGUE ON NOVEMBER 21, in conjunction with the Council’s regular meeting scheduled for that day.  PLEASE PUT THIS DATE ONTO YOUR CALENDAR AND SPREAD THE WORD FAR AND WIDE – there will be more information to come here in my blog and on the DD Council’s website:  https://ddc.dc.gov/ with respect to time, venue, agenda and so forth. 

This will not be a one-shot deal.  We foresee a visioning exercise that will hopefully attract more attention and ensure outreach to all ages and to cultural communities that have not yet been reached effectively in efforts up to now.  The hallmark of this effort is to make it community-driven: by people and their families who live in D.C. and have a true stake in the outcomes.  Please do what you can to spread the word, and plan to participate yourself as you’re able.

FILM SALUTING DIRECT SUPPORT PROFESSIONALS: TOMORROW NIGHT!


Repeating my message about tomorrow night’s FREE film saluting DSPs:

I’ve written a lot recently about direct support professionals, and among other things I mentioned a film called “Invaluable,” created at the University of Minnesota, which I saw this summer at the NACDD conference of councils on developmental disabilities in New Orleans .  I’m thrilled to say that there is going to be a free local screening of this movie by the national Arc on October 12, 4-6:30 P.M., and you can RSVP to attend it here:  https://tinyurl.com/y5qr73dk.  It will be happening at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, 1000 H St NW, where the Arc’s national conference is also taking place – but you don’t need to register for the conference in order to attend the film (and free reception), so sign up today for this very timely show!

And stay tuned to my blog for another post on important new local developments!