The Arc of Indiana Blog

Building pathways to Empowerment

While listening to a news show this morning I had the chance to listen to someone I consider one of the really smart people in the world dealing with our economy, Thomas Freidman, of the New York Times.  He was saying that whether or not health care reform passes, this is the last chance for a very long time for the American people to get a new slice of the pie.  After this debate is over, virtually everything we do is all about building a bigger pie tin that builds our economy.

I think he is absolutely right, and it is something that is at the center of the new effort launched today by The Arc of Indiana.

This economy and the resulting impact it is having on education/special education, health care and programs for people with disabilities, is at a critical crossroads.   We can rail against the cuts and play defense and work to lessen the cuts – which might be successful to a degree – but in the end we are fighting a losing battle and in many ways abandoning people waiting for services who are desperate. 

The Arc is starting out on a new path, one that starts from the premise that we can reinvent what it is we want as a product and what it is that addresses the new realities of today’s economy, while also focusing on the essential and fundamental values of personal choice, individual empowerment and seeking meaningful relationships. Indiana’s service system for adults spends $1 Billion dollars a year – much of it for things people do not feel add value and fall into the category of bureaucracy and paperwork.  We need to streamline, remove barriers and needless buearucracy and allow people to get back to what is best for people.

This change will need to involve what consumers – families and self-advocates- want and need, providers in what they provide, and government in how they deliver, pay for and administer these services.

It is a critical time for Indiana. Perhaps no other time in my career has been so challenging.  But in talking with families, self-advocates and providers in recent weeks, this also can be liberating.  We have always been the visionarys who sought a better way, there is no more better time to do that again than right now, and if not us, who. 

We hope you will join with us. Keep informed through all the electronic ways available on our website.  Join us at meetings we will be organizing around the state. Watch and listen to us on radio shows and television news programs. Read about this campaign in local newspapers.  We will be reaching out and speaking everywhere we can to share this new message.  Thank you for all you do every day.  We look forward to you joining us on this new pathway.