Tag Archive for legislation

Tallahassee – Disability Day

Thomas and I will be attending the annual Disability Day at the Capital on Monday and Tuesday of this week.  DD Day will be on Tuesday; however we will be up a day early so that we can meet with as many legislators as possible while we are in town.

As advocates and a self-advocates it is important to stay connected with our state legislators.  It is also important to be active on the national level.  However, I have found that as advocates we can be more effective at the state level.  The laws and budgets passed by the State of Florida directly and significantly impact the lives of persons living with disabilities here in our state.

I have been advocating in Tallahassee since Jeb Bush was governor.  I like to think that my efforts have had some level of success and have helped to make the lives of many Florida citizens better.

The issues have remained the same for as long as I have been doing this.  We need better employment opportunities and better transportation services.  These two often go hand in hand.  It is hard to find employment if you can not get to and from work.  Persons with disabilities have a high rate of unemployment.  Only 18% of people with disabilities are employed.

Every year we fight to keep the Early Steps program funded.  This is administered by Children’s Medical Services and is the Part C of the IDEA – Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.  They provide early intervention services for 0 to 3 and serve over 40,000 children in Florida.  History has shown that early intervention works.

The Med Waiver has been under funded for a decade or more.  We currently have over 20,000 people on the Med Waiver waiting list.  Every year we work to increase funding in an attempt to reduce the waiting list and continue to provide community services for those who so desperately need them.

Last session we saw and increase in funding and were able to remove over 1,000 individuals from the waiting list.  However, we still have a long way to go.

Every year the treatment of children with disabilities in our public schools is discussed.  In 2010 we had the first significant legislation protecting children from the abuse of seclusion and restraint in our public schools.  This year there is no legislation proposed so our children will remain vulnerable to abuse for another year.

Each year we fight the same battles.  Some years we make small steps and we celebrate our successes.  It is sad that advocates for the most vulnerable members of our society have to settle for small incremental successes.  However, that is the reality that over 20% of our citizens live with. That is the percent of people who have a disability.

This Tuesday, March 18 you should hear the squeaking of wheels in Tallahassee.  I hope that our legislators listen and appreciate how difficult it is for so many of our disabled citizens to make the trip to the Capital.  We want to be listened to, we want to be heard and we want to be taken seriously.

We will continue to keep squeaking our wheels for as long as it takes.

SB 144: Seclusion and Restraint on Students With Disabilities in Public Schools

Child In Florida School Being Restrained

Again this year we try to enact legislation that will help reduce the harmful and often abusive seclusion and restraint of our children with disabilities in our public schools.

Senator Anitere Flores is sponsoring SB 144.  Seclusion and Restraint on Students with Disabilities in Public Shools.

In a nutshell the legislation will do the following:

Seclusion and Restraint on Students With Disabilities in Public Schools; Requiring that manual physical restraint be used only in an emergency when there is an imminent risk of serious injury or death to the student or others; providing restrictions on the use of manual physical restraint; prohibiting the use of manual physical restraint by school personnel who are not certified to use district-approved methods for applying restraint techniques; requiring that each school medically evaluate a student after the student is manually physically restrained; prohibiting school personnel from placing a student in seclusion; providing requirements for the use of time-out; requiring that a school district report its training and certification procedures to the Department of Education, etc.

In the 2010 – 2011 School year we had over 10,000 incidents of restraint reported in our public schools.

Thank you Sen Flores for sponsoring this legislation.  We need to protect our children.

Remember School Is Not Supposed To Hurt.

Keep squeaking those wheels.  Ask your legislator to support or co-sponsor this legislation.