Friday, October 20, 2006

Partners in Policymaking Fall 2006


Great news! Voices That Count graduates have been added to our database and will be included in all of our future advocacy efforts and trainings. Voices that Count is a training program geared toward the issues for self advocates and has about 100 graduates. Combining the two will give us access to over 500 trained advocates across the state. Voices and Partners are both sponsored by the Georgia Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities. With that in mind, what is your suggestion on what to call this monthly newsletter that would include everyone?

A series of workshops entitled “Conversations that Matter” have been organized across the state by Partners alumni. Forums were held in Athens, Suwannee, and Augusta in October with huge success! All events were attended by legislators and have been well attended by the public. The events were held in key legislative districts, and were centered on informing families about the new MRWP waiver. The series will continue through February. Please volunteer and attend if you live near the events. For more information, go to www.unlockthewaitinglists.com/townhalls.html

To contact the leaders, click on their names below.

December 5 Roswell Jennifer Carroll
January 16 Albany Rosalyn Horne
January 23 Macon Nalini Isaac
February 20 Savannah Mary Poncy

February 7th 2007, we will hold a separate legislative training at the Capitol for a smaller group of advocates. This effort will be held on a different day than Disability Day, which will be February 23rd. If you would like to be a part of this unique training experience, please contact Sarah Pike. Sarah is a PIP graduate and is recruiting participants for us. The training centers around pre-set, one-on-one meetings with legislators to discuss specific issues regarding Unlock the Waiting list and funding for waivers.

ACTION ALERT: Please send your letters to the Governor regarding Unlock. We need 2000 letters to get to him by the end of the year. We are at 69% of that goal.

We have made it very easy at http://www.unlockthewaitinglists.com/actionalert.html