I recently came across a letter, which you can read below (click on the images to make them larger and more legible), from a large group of interested parties offering one potential solution to this crisis. The letter is addressed to key leaders at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
I’m not sharing this letter as an official endorsement by Imagine!, however, we can endorse the conversation. Imagine! has always been at its best when we have listened to parents and the people we serve offering new ideas and ways of delivering services. We owe it to ourselves as a community to think about our approach to housing individuals with I/DD and explore if there may be ways we can do it better.
I welcome your thoughts and comments.
Interesting topic. My preference in reading a critical response on anything would be to have a link to the original petition referenced in the letter if this is indeed to be a discussion.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this information and recognizing that there needs to be a fuller discussion of exactly who gets to decide how members of the IDD community live and thrive. Too many strident, and maybe well intentioned, advocates claim to know what is best for our families, but treat all members of the IDD community as a monolithic one size fits all group and in the process refuse to respect the rights and needs of the individuals comprising that community. True integration will never occur unless each individual can make the same choices about residence, work, and play that those in the larger community already take for granted.
ReplyDeleteSteve Miller, Boulder CO