A Time to Thrive - Building Pathways to Empowerment

March 11th, 2010 by John Dickerson

The response to the announcement of our Building Pathways to Empowerment campaign has been so reinforcing.  The offers of help, both personal and financial, are tremendous.  Families and self-advocates have called and their excitement is contagious!  

A parent who serves on our board shared with me that it is so important for us to get the message out that we are not simply trying to survive this crisis -  we are finding and working towards new ways to thrive. 

A mother shared with me that she certainly could do with less and would be glad to - but wants to make sure there is less bureaucracy in the system as well.  

Provider response is also positive - providers are ready for change.  At a meeting of  the Indiana Conference of Executive Directors of Arcs, (ICEArc) Directors said that they clearly see the need for change and the value of redefining outcomes to focus on relationships and happiness.  They also see the need to not wait for the state to begin saving money.  One of our chapters has identified that just within their agency over $4 million dollars a year of savings can be made.   

In an interview with a Fort Wayne newspaper yesterday I laid out critical areas where savings can be captured - housemates, sensible approaches to serving people with high costs, and administrative reform to reduce bureaucracy.  We will link you to this article when it runs in the Fort Wayne paper. 

Our goal is get the word out to the general public through at least 100 interviews with newspapers, radio, and television between now and November.  Sally Morris, The Arc’s Assistant Director of Public Relations, is coordinating a new effort with communication staff at our local Arcs.  If you have ideas or want to help, please contact Sally at smorris@arcind.org. Mark Kevitt, The Arc’s Director of Program Services, is serving as our “Campaign Manager.”  Please contact Mark with any ideas or offers to help at mkevitt@arcind.org.

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Building Pathways to Empowerment

March 5th, 2010 by John Dickerson

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.

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What are Your Goals for 2010

December 23rd, 2009 by Betty Williams

Do you have any goals of your own for 2010?

How important are your goals to you?

Who can help you reach your goals?

I will try and answer these questions with my blog entry!

With the beginning of a New Year I always try and set goals for myself for the New Year. We should always have dreams and goals for our lives. And it is important that we own them or we will have a hard time reaching them.  

It is important that goals are what we want for our lives and not what others want for us. If they are not important to us than we are spinning our wheels and getting no where. We should set goals for every area of our lives - such as work, play, health and money.  

Some times because we have disabilities we don’t think about setting our own goals and reaching them because we are waiting on someone to give us permission to set goals and achieve them.  

There are some people we can talk to so that we can set goals and achieve them, such as our parents, other family members, case managers, direct support workers, other professionals, our co-workers, and people who we know and trust. 

In some of these areas I have not done so well, but 2010 is another year to set goals again and achieve them.

With work I am going to write more blogs and set goals so that I can help more people than this year.  

I hope you too set some goals, and wish you the best in achieving them! 
Wishing you a very Happy New Year!

Betty Williams
The Arc of Indiana, Consumer Education and Training Coordinator
President, Self-Advocates of Indiana

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Ground-breaking conference set for October 1st

August 24th, 2009 by John Dickerson

The news is filled with town hall meetings where the dialogue is hot and at times a bit frightening for people.  It is clear that health care reform has touched a nerve with those who both want it and those that are against it.  Few topics have generated such intensity in recent times.  Many more feel that finding common ground on many of the challenges facing us is getting more difficult.

 

Many feel this intensity reflects the great uncertainty many people are feeling every day.  Jobs are gone, retirement accounts have been devastated, and people caught in the middle worry about their aging parents, their children and their own security.

 

Rather than raising our voices, The Arc believes we can use technology to help us find what really is important.   

 

On October 1, 2009, The Arc is going to do something we have never done before.  We are going to ask people to use the state-of-the-art technology to ask families, self-advocates, and professionals the 60 most critical questions that we could fashion.  Covering every area from these critical questions will be answered by every attendee, breaking out the responses and sharing with everyone who attends, how people really feel about the critical choices people need to make.

 

Topics will include early childhood, education, health care, employment, family support, living in the community, future planning and guardianship, cultural competency, post-secondary education and training all will be covered.  We have had a group of families professionals, and self advocates working all summer to ask the right questions.

 

Nothing has ever been done to ask so many, such critical questions and provide near instant feedback.  And its affordable.

 

The registration for this ground-breaking event is just $15 for self-advocates, $19 for families, and $35 for professionals and that includes free parking at The Indianapolis Zoo with shuttle service.   That also includes lunch with special guest Tom Pomeranz!

 

Make your voice heard.  We hope to have the largest gathering of consumers, families and professional together for this incredible event. For more information go to www.arcind.org.  

 

Be there for something unlike anything we have ever done.  This is not the time for yelling at each other, but forging some common ground on what is important and where we need to go  I hope to see you October 1st.

 

 

 

 

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Retirement does not mean gone - Nanette Whighsel transitioning

June 19th, 2009 by John Dickerson

It was a little over 10 years ago when Kathy Davis, then Secretary of FSSA and I traveled to New Castle State Developmental Center to announce Governor Obannon’s decision to close the facility in the wake of a hidden camera expose of abuse of persons who lived at the facility.   We walked into a crowd of over 250 parents, consumers and staff all angry as the news was broken by the media. We left some five hours later; after listening to everyone who wanted to stay and talk to Kathy and I.

 One of the mom’s that met us that day was Nanette Whightsel.  She knew we were crazy. Her daughter Suzette had been kicked out of every program she had ever been in. Kathy immediately recognized a spark there and asked Nanette to help her figure this out and put her on a committee. 

Nanette jumped right in to prove us wrong.  Instead she became a true believer.  Four years later she joined the staff of The Arc of Indiana, traveling the state to help other families with loved ones in state developmental centers. Her impact has been amazing. 

She is now retiring from The Arc, and moving into a new role taking her commitment to building community to states around the country as part of The Arc Resource Team.  

Nanette, we are eternally grateful for your determination, dedication and passion.  Indiana is better for your work, and people across the state have lives that are amazing because of you.  Thank you.

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Indiana Special Olympics 40th Anniversary — Just Amazing

June 8th, 2009 by John Dickerson

It was a great weekend in Terre Haute, joining 2,400 athletes and 1,000 coaches gun2and volunteers in celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Indiana Special Olympics. And if you wanted to experience pure joy that helped you refocus your energies you could not have picked a better place to be than Friday night in Hulman Arena.

It was 1969 and The Arc of Indiana hosted the first games at Bush Field in Indianapolis. 500 athletes, coaches and volunteers registered – over 1,000 showed up. Thankfully Fort Harrison and others provided cots so that everyone had a bed to sleep in at the old Marott Hotel on North Meridian.

These and other stories were shared between Ilene Younger Qualkenbush who was at the first games and Mike Furnish, CEO and President of Indiana Special Olympics at the start of the Torch Run Friday morning at Victory Field. Ilene was amazed at the nearly 200 members of the law enforcement community who were there for the Torch Run to Terre Haute – an effort that this year hoped to raise over $500,000 for Special Olympics.

It was great fun and a great reminder of how far we have come. The Arc was proud to have been around at the beginning and even more proud today to support Indiana Special Olympics – what I believe is the best, most inclusive and innovative program in the country. Congratulations to the Athletes, Coaches and Volunteers not for what you have done, but for what lies ahead.

With the upcoming Special Session of the Indiana General Assembly, participating in this event, made it ever more real to understand why we do what we do, every day for Hoosiers with developmental disabilities.

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