ADVOCACY & COMMUNITY ORGANIZING Justice & Equity

Leaders from the Black/African American, Hispanic and Chinese ethnic communities met last Thursday evening in Oakland, California. Issues of racial disparity in the services received by children and adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and their families were discussed.  The recently passed legislation, Assembly Bill 959 by Assemblyman Chris Holden, now requires the Department of Developmental Services (DDS) to create an on-line list and description of all available services in a culturally and linguistically appropriate manner. Hopefully families will be able to go to local regional center websites and read the list of services in their own languages. But will that solve the disparity problem?

The group shared that the challenge is much more complex. You have educational, language and cultural barriers that all need to be addressed. Mary Lim Lampe, the lead community organizer for Genesis* representing 12 organizations in the Oakland area, explained how she is trying to be part of the solution, not the problem. She has written a ‘Request for Proposal’ for DDS funding through the Regional Center of the East Bay. Her goal is to provide community outreach to families and individuals of color by families of color. You need to have people from the community who can build trust relationships with these other families and explain the services that are available from DDS. The Arc is one of those 12 organizations that will be working with Genesis to be part of the solution.

The Arc in Seattle, Washington had the same problem with racial disparities until they created an Ethnic Outreach Program. They had families from the minority communities meet with other families to build trust and share the information and supports available to their children and adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.

As one of the attendees at the meeting mentioned, we don’t want any “Smoke and Mirror Government Solutions! Our families are simply not getting what they should be getting!” More accountability and transparency is needed, but most importantly outreach.

Some who represented faith communities emphasized that this is all about Social Justice and is everyone’s problem. They all committed to being part of the solution, along with Genesis and The Arc. Each person will be asking other individuals and organizations to attend the next meeting in January. Representatives from DDS and regional center of the East Bay will be invited to speak at future meetings. They agreed to be called The Justice and Equity Coalition.  They will address the same racial disparity in services being addressed by other advocates and community organizers around the state!

*Genesis is a Faith & Community based coalition that engages in issue campaigns, including one that is focused on “Justice for People with Disabilities”.  The Arc of Alameda County is the first disability service organization that has had the vision to join with a group like Genesis as we want to use community organizing to protect our services.