April 5 – 6 in Austin: Make a Difference!
“BrainStorm”, the 31st Annual CTD Convention will be focused more than ever on advocacy for critical issues impacting people with disabilities, families, friends and advocates. The location and timing are right, at the AT&T Executive Conference Center just blocks from the Capitol and in the last 60 days of the Texas legislative session. You will be trained, armed and energized to make a difference in the Texas State Capitol. (Just like the disability activists in the picture below!)
Sunday afternoon, April 5, will prepare you with political speakers and training in advocacy techniques and major issues by Bob Kafka of ADAPT, Colleen Horton of the UT Center for Disability Studies and CTD’s Dennis Borel. Plus a series of briefings on special legislative topics. You’ll enjoy networking at our casual reception in the early evening.
Monday morning, April 6, we’ll have a quick breakfast set up for you, then on to the historic Capitol for a rally and press conference. Next, into the halls of power—YOUR POWER—where you will visit senators and representatives and make your voice heard! Go to www.cotwd.org click on Raise Your Voice! and find out how to contact your legislators to set up an appointment. Figure between 10 am and noon on Monday April 6. Remember, they want to hear from you! Then it’s back to the AT&T Center for a well-deserved luncheon with speakers Mark Zupan of “Murderball” fame and gold medal Paralympian and Susan Connors, President of the Brain Injury Association of America.
Deadline for the group rate at the hotel is March 23, 2009!
Registration and hotel info, agendas, and more atwww.cotwd.org/convention.html
- Advocate at the Capitol!
- Reduce the Medicaid Community Services Waiting Lists!
- Protect your voting rights!
- Livable Wages for Community Care Attendants!
- Reform of the State School System and Rebalance Long Term Services and Supports from Institutions to the Community!
- Are you from San Angelo, Galveston, Bryan/College Station, Collin County or the Texoma region? From those five priority areas, three new centers for independent living would be established.
- Are you offended that Texas claims sovereign immunity from the ADA and its protections against discrimination based on disability? Then support the ADA bill filed by Rep. Strama and Sen. Hinojosa!
- Plus many more key issues!
CTD Spotlight on Legislative Issues: Reform of the State School System and Rebalance Long Term Services and Supports from Institutions to the Community
This is a blazing hot issue, filled with emotion. Two major Texas newspapers have already come out with negative editorials based on misinformation. The major reform bills are HB1589 by Rep. Patrick Rose and SB1060 by Sen. Rodney Ellis. State school advocates say the bills will throw their family members out on the street and take away their choice of institutional services. This is simply not true.
The Ellis-Rose bill would expand a choice that currently does not exist. Families of persons with disabilities can put their loved one in an institution immediately or wait over eight years for community services. Those families waiting would sharply disagree with any assessment that they have real choice. The Ellis-Rose bill takes a cautious, measured approach to responsible reform, calling for an eight-year plan involving a wide group of stakeholders, including state school families. Ellis and Rose deserve credit for not ducking the documented institutional bias of Texas, a state ranked #1 nationally in three categories: the number of state institutions, the number of people institutionalized and the number of people on the waiting list. It is time we faced the fact that a network of 13 institutions that housed over 7,000 people in 1992 is not the right size for a projected population of 3,000 in four years. Yes, an honest plan must address consolidation of this system, but it is important to note that, under the legislation, no one desiring a state school placement would be denied it.
Come to Austin in April and set the record straight.