SearchThe Golden Gate Regional Center held a Purchase of Service (POS) Disparity Public Meeting last week. Kudos for having the meeting in the evening when working parents could attend, and at the Support for Families with Children with Disabilities center in San Francisco instead of the Regional Center offices. Some families, especially Latino, are justifiably afraid of attending meetings in government agency buildings due to the pervasive ICE raids.
Regional Center Managers and Staff attended along with parents and family members. Translations and childcare were provided upon request. The purpose was to discuss the differences and gaps in regional center funded services for people with developmental disabilities in San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin Counties. But even more important, the Regional Center wanted to hear the communities’ opinions, feelings, and feedback.
As you have read in my columns, I have been rather vocal about Racial Disparities in Services. So, I was honored to be personally invited by the meeting’s presenter and facilitator, Hannah Said, Cultural and Diversity Specialist for GGRC. She gave a very good power point overview of why we were meeting, a breakdown of the system, terminology, disparity data breakdown, GGRC efforts to reduce disparities and then an open forum for community feedback.
I was impressed to hear Hannah address the disparity head-on, by referencing the differences in receiving and using services between people of white decent and other racial groups, that is indeed “White Privilege.” White families in attendance were the first to admit that they were ardent advocates using every power and knowledge of the system to get services for their loved one. They didn’t have the incredible language, education, and cultural barriers to overcome as other racial groups.
But one of the biggest barriers that the Regional Centers need to address is a five letter word that was emphasized by Hannah Said and mentioned in the last two Monday Morning Memos: TRUST! The DDS and Regional Center speakers at The Arc CA/UCP Public Policy Conference also emphasized the need for trust. A family can’t develop trust with people who are not from their community or don’t speak their language. A family can’t share the shame they feel culturally for having a child with disabilities if they haven’t built a trusting relationship with a case manager.
How can building trust happen if the Regional Center has 30 case manager vacancies, and especially with the medium recommended salary statewide of $35,000 annually. Add to that problem an incredible staff turnover, which makes relationship building even more impossible. In the meantime, Direct Support Professionals (support care givers) are stuck at minimum wage until DDS finally completes their rate study in 2019, with a recommendation for legislators to take action by maybe 2020-21!
We have a broken system that can’t wait until 2021 to be fixed. A solution was mentioned at the meeting. We need to ‘community organize’! We need more people from different groups, organizations, churches, synagogues, temples, young and old, et al, to know about this broken inequitable system. We can then build a powerful coalition to address nothing less than the Human and Civil Rights of people with disabilities that are being ignored and trampled!
Save the date for an incredible Community Organizing Workshop on April 28th, 9AM-3PM, Saturday in Pleasanton, CA. Building A New Narrative by Lead Community Organizers of the Gamaliel Foundation. Scholarships available. (see Flyer Below)
Tim Hornbecker,
Community Advocacy Coordinator, The Arc of California