Our community has been celebrating a victory lately: the battle to get the federal ABLE bill passed took almost a decade. Parents and advocates from the Ds community fought in the trenches with people from many other disability groups. That kind of teamwork and dedication is necessary to accomplish the big tasks. The National Down Syndrome Society was among the leaders of that charge, and they have a well thought out plan for what comes next. During the 321 eConference, Ginny Sessions Siller, and Heather Sachs talked about the NDSS agenda for 2015. The NDSS National Policy Center is heavily involved in passing and tracking the progress of ABLE bills at the state level. Both the NDSS and the NDSC have a system where you can sign up for alerts when support is needed from the community.
It's Too Much!
But we can either become jaded and hide our heads, or we can acknowledge the fact that change comes at an incredibly slow pace and keep pluggin’ along.
First Things First
This month we’ve given you some information about what’s going on that we’re aware of:
- NDSS – federal and state legislation
- NDSAN – adoption
- 321 eLearning – community education
- NDSC – national conference
- IMDSA – awareness
- Ruby’s Rainbow – post secondary ed
- GDSF – research
- IDSC – connections
- NCCJD – justice
- Special Olympics - health
- Arc, DSAIA , and D.A.D.S. - local issues
We invite everyone to join with us as we try to give a larger, organized voice to some of these issues.
There's a phrase we've borrowed from a friend that sums up how we have to look at the "work" of advocacy
Forward with Hope!