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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