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Dear SABE members and advisors and friends,
Here is my monthly update. I’m going to tell you what’s going on
with Self-Advocates Becoming Empowered (SABE) and myself the past couple
of months. I’m dictating this to Janet Hunt-Hawkins to send to listserves
because Janet got elected as one of our new national advisors. First things
first. We met in Colorado Springs last month. The meeting went well and great.
We had an opportunity to work on a lot of stuff through the Grassroots Committee,
Legislative Committee, Public Relations Committee, Finance and By-Laws
Committees.
We met with folks from Georgia for the National Service Corporation (Everyone
Can Serve) Grant. The grant is going to help the southern region by encouraging
national offices like Americorp and Vista to hire more people with cognitive
disabilities on their projects - such as local food banks and other community
focused projects.
We also met with people from Center For Housing and New Community Economics
(CHANCE). CHANCE and ADAPT are working together for affordable and accessible
housing. The board was very excited to hear about these organizations. The
board approved to be partners with CHANCE The Legislative Committee was able
to meet with people in Washington, D.C. to learn how to do an educational
briefing. Some of the members of the Legislative Committee had the opportunity
to meet with ADAPT and the National Center for Independent Living (NCIL).
This felt real good with what the Legislative Committee did - a big step
to get ourselves involved in Washington - because some of the new members
had the opportunity to sit in the HUD meeting to talk about the Olmstead
decision. With ADAPT, NCIL and SABE working together, a research report will
be pursued to find out how states are doing in implementing the Olmstead
decision.
The week before the SABE meeting, I had the opportunity to go to Wyoming.
I had the chance to hear what self-advocates want as far as local and state
needs. They talked about membership being key. They have major barriers for
members to attend meetings. We had a wonderful opportunity to talk with the
state’s developmental disabilities Commissioner and I facilitated the
discussion about the Wyoming barriers that were identified by self-advocates.
The Commissioner agreed to work with People First of Wyoming to address the
barriers.
With the information I’m learning from Wyoming, and next with North
Dakota, and Georgia - I want to share this with the full SABE board and also
with the Grassroots Committee. The Grassroots Committee can then give support
to those states. In addition, I want to be able to take what I learn in each
state and do follow-up letters with the state directors and with the National
Association of State Directors of Developmental Disabilities Services (NASDDDS)
to see how the statewide self-advocacy organizations and the state Developmental
Disabilities systems are doing. The main reason I have this vision for the
Grassroots Committee is that we never have a real chance to hear what
self-advocates are having problems with and that’s why we have formed
the Grassroots Committee - to hear what the issues are and help, locally
and statewide.
We have an opportunity to be involved on an advisory board for the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). We are going to select two people
to represent SABE on this advisory board - they meet once a year to look
at employment issues: discrimination for folks with disabilities, especially
people with cognitive disabilities.
We elected three new National Advisors: Leanne Boyce from Tennessee, Janet
Hunt-Hawkins from New Hampshire, and Debbie Prockner from Louisiana. Leanne
has been involved with self-advocacy for eight years and works with the board
of People First of Tennessee. Leanne has been involved with SABE for about
three years now. Janet has been a local and state advisor to self-advocates
in NH for eighteen years and has been involved with SABE since 1994. Debbie
was an advisor for the Louisiana Self-Advocacy Project and has been involved
with SABE for three years. I want to thank Bonnie Shoultz, Jean Bowen and
Mary Hayden for their dedication to service to the board and the Executive
Committee for so many years. I went to a meeting this past week in D.C. and
got selected to serve on a committee for the Freedom Initiatives. One of
the first things President Bush did in his Executive Orders was in response
to Olmstead - he asked states to apply for grants to make their community
services better - to plan how to fix problems in their own states.
I want to challenge people to tell me how you’re doing. I want to hear
from you. I really want to hear from you about what’s going on in your
state...states that I may not be able to come to visit. What’s going
on in your state? What are your strengths? How are you doing for funding?
If you need a letter of support - give us time to respond. I want to really
hear from the members. We also have 3 new national advisors who can help
all the advisors, too. Please use us - since we have the DD Act, we can help
you work at getting funding. We have a wonderful opportunity to make things
better for everyone. Please send me an email with a copy to Janet, too. My
email address is jetsttr31@aol.com .
Janet’s email address is
jhhpfnh@lr.net This is your national
board and I want to hear from you!
Sincerely,
James R. Meadours,
Chair of Self-Advocates Becoming Empowered |
