Building a Community of Belonging 2012
Posted by Allison Hammond on Tuesday, February 21, 2012
The Arcadia Institute is excited to be organizing the third annual Building a Community of Belonging Forum to Kalamazoo. Together, with our partners, The Kalamazoo Nature Center, the Southwest Michigan Council of Boy Scouts, the YMCA of Greater Kalamazoo, The Boys and Girls Club of Greater Kalamazoo, and the Portage District Library, we are welcoming John McKnight to facilitate our event.
John McKnight is the co-author of “The Abundant Community: Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods” and co-director of the Asset-Based Community Development Institute as well as a well-known community organizer who has worked for many years on issues of social service delivery systems, health policy, the inclusion of marginalized people and institutionalized racism.
You can see more information about the Building a Community of Belonging March 15, 2012 Event here.
If you are interested you can also read about our Forum in 2010 here and our Forum 2011 here.
The Scouts’ Journey to Inclusion
Posted by Allison Hammond on Tuesday, February 14, 2012
The blog this week is by Daniel Busby, Scout Executive for the Southwest Michigan Council of Boy Scouts of America, a partner of the Arcadia Institute
In March of 2009, parents of Scouts and professionals representing several agencies that assist families were brought together to improve the Scouting program opportunities for our youth. Scouting recognized a dramatic increase in the special requests received from scouts and families that feared attending camp due to a variety of challenges, such as food allergies, autism, or mental and physical impairments. We wanted to put these fears to rest and open a door of opportunity and fun for all our Scouts while making sure parents are comfortable and secure that their Scout is in capable hands. This recognition has positively changed the way that our staff and our organization address our Scouting community. The commitment of these parents and organizations have allowed us training opportunities for staff, capital improvements in program sites at camp that use to be prohibitive to the elderly or wheelchair bound due to the trail system, and allowed us the opportunity to share our learning experience with others.
Our mission has always been about providing opportunities to youth so that they can reach their full potential. The Arcadia Institute and its network of likeminded youth advocacy organizations have continued to assist us in delivering our mission on a broadened scale.
Class Doesn’t Start Until She Arrives
Posted by Allison Hammond on Tuesday, February 7, 2012
One of our former colleagues at The Arcadia Institute, Sara Burhans, now an enthusiastic Zumba instructor shared this story.
Class can’t start without Rey. The music is cued, the Zumba participants are in rows, but the class can’t start until Rey arrives and takes her place in the front row. In fact, the other students won’t let Sara start class without being sure that Rey will be in class.
Rey is a young woman with Down Syndrome. She is quiet and shy. Rarely does she speak to the others in the Zumba class, but when the music starts Rey transforms into a confident woman. She knows the moves and does her best. While the rest of the students vie for the back row because they are self-conscious, Rey claims her place in the front proudly shaking her sparkly coin skirt.
Rey’s mother Lynda started taking her to Zumba classes at Curves where Sara taught. When Sara started teaching for Portage Community Education, Lynda and Rey followed her to those classes as well. Now Lynda doesn’t always attend because Zumba is Rey’s thing and the people in the class are part of Rey’s community.
Growing up with a brother with disabilities taught Lynda that community inclusion is important. It probably never occurred to her not to find ways for her daughter to be included in the community.
This is a story of community participation that is really not anything special. No one questioned whether or not Rey would be successful, or asked if she should be in a special class. Her mom took her, Sara taught her and now she has found a way to express herself and be a role model for the others in her Zumba class.
(What is Zumba? Visit http://www.zumba.com/about/ for more information.)
Involve the People Who Matter
Posted by Allison Hammond on Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Our Blog last week by George Martin, titled “About Person Centered Planning” included a phrase that stuck with me, “ . . . involve the people who matter . . .”
Some professionals in our community who provide direct support to people with disabilities do a good job of involving the broader community. However, as I work with adults and youth to determine what they are interested in doing and then how to connect them to those activities, it often feels like there is something missing. Maybe it is time to stretch further in our efforts with the Community Participation Initiative to involve more people outside of the specialized services sector.
In the Community Participation Initiative, we find out what the person is interested in pursuing and then connect them to programs and activities. People in community agenices are available to help the person participate in the activities we connect them to – but then what? How do we take the situation to the next level? Once the person with a disability participates in new activities, how do we bring the new people from the community into the rest of their lives?
Several assumptions may prevent us from trying to involve people outside of the specialized services sector. We assume people are too busy. They don’t really understand disabilities. They might not know the answers.
Let’s break down these assumptions. When we people get to know a person with disabilities and realize that they have numerous gifts they will be glad to make time. They begin to understand that the person with the disabilities has contributions to make to the community. Frankly, if they know that they could be of help and haven’t been asked they might feel disappointed.
So in our work at The Arcadia Institute, don’t be surprised if you hear us continuing to ask people with disabilities to name all the People who Matter to them(especially those not paid to support them) and suggest we get them involved.
About Person-Centered Planning
Posted by Allison Hammond on Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Back in the mid-‘90’s, when they were making a major revision of Michigan’s Mental Health Code, some people in a position to do so inserted language that made Person-Centered Planning mandatory. Some people at the time hailed that move as a great step forward in the march to improve conditions for people with developmental disabilities in this state. Others were not so sure.
Today anyone would be hard put to make the case that the amendment has brought about all that it promised. It caused some changes that were beneficial, but it did not bring about the wide-spread use of a dynamic process that person-centered planning had been prior to the amendment. Nor have the ‘Revised Practice Guidelines ‘ issued in October 2002, with its long list of guidelines, elements, strategies and references—12 pages in all—all sounding good—introduced the kind of action that has radically changed lives.
Today Mental Health professionals responsible for person-centered planning have made it a rather routine step necessary to complete the required Individual Plan of Service.
Despite this somewhat grim analysis, there is hope for a better outcome. The answer, I think, lies in reverting back to the true intent of the process. In an interview in Conversations on Citizenship & Person-Centered Work Michael Smull talks about ‘person-centered thinking’ and says that the core skill is ‘sorting out what is Important To and Important For a person and finding a balance between the two.
Smull is suggesting that people using the process have two primary responsibilities. The first is figuring out what the individual with a disability wants for himself/herself, and the second is making judgments about what a person needs. Person-centered planning is an organized way to keep the focus on what the individual wants and to develop a process for providing the support necessary to attain it.
In order to re-capture the true intent of person-centered planning we have to go beyond routine and use a process that keeps the focus on the person and not the system’s needs, involve people who matter outside the service delivery system, and uses common sense ways to mobilize these people and paid professionals in an ongoing support network for each person.
I am reminded of an article by that Rebecca Shuman wrote back in 1997 for the Institute publication, POLICY PERSPECTIVES. Rebecca said:
“Some of the world’s greatest ideas, art, poetry, literature, inventions, deal-making and political intrigue have occurred in restaurants when people come together over a good meal or a cup of coffee. Many times the germ of greatness has been sketched out on a napkin or a place mat. Every day, ordinary people heal relationships, plan vacations, make-over their kitchens, choose a car, select a stock, agonize over which college to go to, figure out how to change things at work, etc., while sitting at a booth in a restaurant with a friend, child, lover, husband, wife, co-worker or some combination thereof.” (See Rebecca Shuman, “Person-centered Planning”, Policy Perspectives On Person-Centered Planning A Publication of The Arcadia Institute, September 1997.)
Doing person-centered planning requires that we grasp the spirit behind the idea of writing a plan on a napkin. No, we do not need a new set of guidelines on how to choose a restaurant or what color napkin to use. We need to get back to the heart of the idea—figuring out what people really need, as they see it and as we learn to see it by working hard to get to know each person.
George Martin
