JFAAN Organizing Call TOMORROW!

JFAAN Organizer's Forum: Reaching Out to Newly Elected Officials
Tuesday, November 16, 1:00-2:00 pm Eastern Time (10:00-11:00 Pacific)

Speakers:

• Mike Oxford, Executive Director of Topeka Independent Living Resource Center, Co-Founder of Kansas ADAPT, National ADAPT Organizer: Mike has been an active member and organizer in the disability rights movement for the past 25 years. He served on the Board of the National Council on Independent Living (NCIL) for nine years; he is the immediate past president of NCIL. Mike served on the Board of the Disability Rights Center (DRC) of Kansas, the state's Protection and Advocacy organization, and is the Board President of the Atlantis Community in Denver, CO. Mike also served on the Kansas Association of Centers of Independent Living (KACIL) Board of Directors and the Statewide Independent Living Counsel of Kansas (SILCK). Mike is involved in national efforts to promote choice, independence and freedom for people with disabilities through his work with the University of California/San Francisco Personal Assistance Services (PAS) project and by helping to draft language for national personal supports legislation such as the Community Choice Act, formally known as MiCASSA, and the CLASS Act. Recently Mike became involved with the University of Montana Nursing Home Emancipation grant. Mike writes and presents all around the country, offering technical assistance for consumers who are organizing, state agencies that are seeking to support people with disabilities in the community, and community partners who are finding new ways to promote choice, independence and freedom for all people.

• Heidi Siegfried, Esq., Health Policy Director, Center for Independence of the Disabled, New York: Heidi is Project Director of New Yorkers for Accessible Health Coverage; a coalition of organizations serving people with serious illnesses and disabilities and a project of CIDNY. She has served as NYFAHC’s project director for two years monitoring and analyzing trends in federal, state, and city health policy affecting access to care and coverage; writing and presenting testimony, bill memos, and action alerts; and organizing and leading monthly roundtables. She has twenty years of experience in policy analysis, lobbying, and advocacy on behalf of women, children, older adults, and people with disabilities on a wide variety of issues such as: hunger and poverty, rural transportation, work programs, privacy, civil liberties, housing and homelessness, and access to health care. She is a graduate of the State University College of New York at Oneonta and has a Master of Social Work from University of Nebraska and a Juris Doctorate from SUNY at Buffalo School of Law.
  

Questions to be addressed include:

• How do we establish relationships with newly elected officials?
• How can we bring in community members with disabilities to meetings with elected officials?
• How can we use the process of educating new elected officials to organize more people with disabilities?

Call in number: 712-432-0080 code: 193134#.

CART: The call will have real-time captioning (CART)! The website for where you will be able to view the captioning is: http://www.2020captioning.com/livefeed.php?event=AAPD . Thank you to the Center for Disability Rights,Inc. of Rochester, NY for sponsoring the captioning of this call.

Background:

The Justice For All Action Network (JFAAN) Organizing Workgroup hosts these calls the third Tuesday of every month as a resource for disability organizers, in an effort toward building the organizing capacity of the disability community across the country. They generally follow the format of a Welcome followed by 2-3 experts in a given area speaking for 10-20 minutes on their experiences, advice and challenges. The calls conclude with a 20-30 minute question and answer period.

To ask questions via CART: Sign-in to the Chat function on the right side of the transcript and type your question. One of the call facilitators will read out any questions posted there.

Because we want to maximize the generously donated CART services, we will be beginning the call promptly at 1pm and ending the call promptly at 2pm (Eastern). A few other reminders about call etiquette:

• Say your name before each time you speak
• Speak one at a time
• Speak slowly and as clearly as possible

So you can mark your calendars now, Organizer’s Forums are held on the 3rd Tuesday of every month.