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How do we expect equity of services without building relationships. How do you build communication and trust with individuals with I/DD of color and their families?
I heard good responses at our Public Policy Conference from the panel on A Path Forward on Racial Disparities. Both Rapone Anderson of DDS and Carlos Hernandez of Valley Mountain Regional Center hit the nail on the head when emphasizing that you need to build trust. But how do you build trust when you only meet with families once a year for an IPP? Oh, and how can it happen when regional centers are unable to fill service coordinator vacancies (some regional centers have as many as 17 unfilled positions)?
Not only are service providers unable to find direct support professionals because of the abysmal reimbursement rates versus mandated and unfunded minimum wage increases in larger cities, but regional centers face the same challenge.
We’ll never make headway against racial disparity in services. Both regional centers and service providers should be really annoyed with the Governor, Legislators, and their inadequate funding. But the other panelists also hit the nail on the head. “Structural Racism is a system in which public policies, institutional practices, cultural representations, and other norms work in various, often reinforcing ways to perpetuate racial group inequity,” according to the Aspen Institute. I share this definition with you as we attempt to dismantle structural racism and promote racial equity in the services provided to people of color with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families.
We have a statewide system with the Department of Developmental Services and 21 Regional Centers where the disparity in services hasn’t changed except for increase in population since 2012. Why 2012, because that is when legislators first passed a bill to require Regional Centers to publish their total annual expenditures and authorized services by ethnicity and race.
The state of California is investing $50 million at the problem, via grants from DDS with recommendations from Regional Centers. We need to ensure this money actually makes a difference. Because translating brochures and lists of services in different languages isn’t enough, nor cultural sensitivity sessions for staff. One or two days a year for an awareness event in Spanish won’t make a dent in the problem.
I will attend some of the evening meetings to discuss this inequity with other families of color and non-English speaking, unlike the disparity committees formed to meet in the day when parents need to work.
But as I emphasized in my message last week, no changes will happen in our complicated structural system to receive funding until a relationship of trust is built in our communities. Black families don’t want another program thrown at them with countless strings attached. Latino families don’t want you to assume that just because they take care of each other, they don’t want jobs, housing, and an inclusive life in the community for their loved ones. Other non-English speaking families don’t just want a translation or translator once a year at their IPP, they need a relationship with a case manager and direct support professionals. When your culture has taught that you have a child with special needs because you did something wrong, only a person with whom you’ve developed a relationship and trust can change your mind or old beliefs.
In all these grants in the $50 million dollar plan, I sure hope somebody is listening and putting money into developing teams of ethnic outreach workers who are already part of their communities, trusted by their communities, and speak the language of their communities. Structural racism will only be dismantled when equity in funding is indeed achieved.
Tim Hornbecker,
Community Advocacy Coordinator, The Arc of California, tim@thearcca.org