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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: on Mass Health.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Oh, shoot.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: on MassHealth for stakeholders and partners.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: So with that, I will hand it over to Elizabeth.
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Kaitlin Stober: share with all attendees afterwards. I just want to encourage folks to
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Kaitlin Stober: take the time to absorb, the information, go through the slides, and that the MDDC policy team is here to talk with you about it as you process that information. We will also kind of be thinking of additional questions we have to ask Elizabeth.
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Kaitlin Stober: So as you review the information in the slides, or if you have additional questions that you think of, please feel free to communicate those with us.
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Kaitlin Stober: And we will make sure there's a direct line of communication to Elizabeth so we can get all our questions answered. We know it was, kind of a quick turnaround, and maybe
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Kaitlin Stober: some folks might think of questions after the fact. So, yes, please stay in touch with us about this presentation. We might even have time at the end if, folks think of questions that they wanted to learn or know more about. And that's… that's what I have.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Well, thank you, Caitlin. So now we'll go back to our regular programming. Next is state legislative updates, and I'll pass it on to Jennifer to update us on state legislative activities.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Thanks, Jossie.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Okay, so where are we at in the state legislative process? We've had… we have about 3 months to finalize bills, but right now, the state budget is really a key focus, now through the end of June. The formal session closes on July 31st, 2026.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Alright, let's go to the next slide.
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Jennifer Bertrand: At this point, all of our MDDC priority-endorsed bills have had a hearing. We'll drop a link to our website. I want to throw out some thanks to my colleague.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Jackson Crilley, who updated the bill status on our website, so you can go to our website to view all of our endorsed and priority bills.
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Jennifer Bertrand: So, some bills, bill reporting dates have been extended. The last time we met, they had been extended in March, into mid to late March, and then now we have,
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Jennifer Bertrand: bills being extended to June 15th. And we will also be posting this slide deck, the MDDC Public Policy Committee meeting slide deck, on our website, and the links to the information on the slide are in the slide, and you'll be able to access it there.
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Jennifer Bertrand: There are two policies that have been… that have become law. There was an education access
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Jennifer Bertrand: Policy, and then the historical records, policy as well.
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Jennifer Bertrand: So, you know, there's still time, and things are moving through. There are many bills in Ways and Means right now. I do want to highlight a couple of bills that have been moving since we last met. Next slide.
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Jennifer Bertrand: So the first bill I want to talk about is one of our priority bills. It's the bill that would enhance the standards of care for those with autism and intellectual and developmental disabilities. This bill is about, creating an integrated state plan to develop training and education for health care providers.
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Jennifer Bertrand: As well as establish, some appropriate standards of care as well. We have Representatives Garbley and Barber, and also Senator Lewis, who are bringing this bill forward. And you'll notice downstairs, down at the bottom of this
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Jennifer Bertrand: table on the slide, the Senate version of this bill was reported favorably by the Joint Committee on Healthcare Financing, and it was referred to the Senate Committee on Ways and Means. And this happened back on April 2nd.
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Jennifer Bertrand: If you wanted to go back and watch the public legislative hearing for this particular, priority bill, you can do that in that box, the orange box to the right. It'll take you to the General Court website page
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Jennifer Bertrand: Where the recording of the hearing is there, if you wanted to, you know, revisit that hearing.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Who testified and, what they had to say.
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Jennifer Bertrand: So this is definitely a positive, development. And the fact that most of our bills are still active within the legislative process is certainly very promising.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Let's go to the next slide. So, there are a couple of priority bills that have been sent to study.
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Jennifer Bertrand: The first one that I want to talk about is…
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Jennifer Bertrand: the Act to Protect Medically Fragile Children. Now, I want to note, while the Senate bill was sent to study, the House bill, House 1366, that reporting date was extended to Monday, June 15th.
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Jennifer Bertrand: As you might remember.
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Jennifer Bertrand: I'm just going to my note here.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Yes.
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Jennifer Bertrand: As you might remember, this particular bill aims to ensure kids and adults with complex medical needs that they receive continuous skilled nursing services, as authorized by MassHealth, as medically necessary.
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Jennifer Bertrand: So this is a really important bill. We know that there's been a shortage of, highly skilled
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Jennifer Bertrand: Workforce to be able to support the care and needs, of individuals, with,
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Jennifer Bertrand: medically fragile conditions. We know that low reimbursement rates are one of the barriers, to
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Jennifer Bertrand: Provide access to these services in the community. And we know that there are some pretty high staff turnover rates, so this bill is really important to help ensure that those individuals can receive the care that they need.
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Jennifer Bertrand: So, as I said, and if you go on our website, you'll notice that that reporting date was extended to Monday, June 15th.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Now, the next bill I want to talk about
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Jennifer Bertrand: An act should prohibit discrimination against adults with disabilities in family and juvenile court proceedings.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Both the House bill and the Senate Companion Bill were both sent to study.
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Jennifer Bertrand: This is not the first time that this has been a priority bill of the Massachusetts Developmental Disabilities Council.
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Jennifer Bertrand: In my time here, this is the second session that we have been working to educate and inform lawmakers about this policy.
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Jennifer Bertrand: And I'm just gonna bring up my note for that one. This bill…
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Jennifer Bertrand: was aiming to ensure that the court was using evidence and not making assumptions about individuals with disabilities when making decisions in the family and juvenile court proceedings. So.
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Jennifer Bertrand: You know, oftentimes, lawmakers might have some concerns, they might feel like, you know, this bill's not quite ready for prime time yet.
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Jennifer Bertrand: So, it doesn't mean that they don't recognize that This needs some attention.
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Jennifer Bertrand: And I am just guessing here, but oftentimes in this type of a situation, based on my professional experiences, you know, policymakers are feeling like it's not quite right yet, and it's not quite ready for prime time.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Alright, any questions so far on those?
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Jennifer Bertrand: Bills?
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Jennifer Bertrand: The next bill that I wanted to talk about was the Act expanding wheelchair warranty protections for consumers with disabilities.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Liz, do you know if Destiny Maxim was able to pop into the meeting yet?
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Destiny Maxam: I'm here! Yep!
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Jennifer Bertrand: We're a little ahead of schedule, Destiny.
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Destiny Maxam: Well.
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Jennifer Bertrand: I'm really grateful that Destiny Maxim is here. Destiny, what's your official title at Disability Policy Consortium?
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Destiny Maxam: the community organizer.
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Jennifer Bertrand: community organizer. I met
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Jennifer Bertrand: through the Generational Leadership Summit. Not only is she a graduate and alumni from the GLS Summit, but she also has been a presenter, and she's helping to plan the alumni reunion for, the summit as well.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Destiny has been a very important face to this issue, and she's done some very exciting work to help educate and inform policymakers, so we're so happy you were able to join us today. She's going to share some good news about this particular policy that happens to be an MDDC policy… priority policy as well.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Thank you, Destiny.
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Destiny Maxam: Thanks, Jennifer. Hi, everyone. I'm Destiny. As Jennifer said, I'm the community organizer over at DPC, and my main priority is getting this wheelchair bill passed.
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Destiny Maxam: So, going off of a similar way that Jennifer did, this bill did start out as H1278 and S210.
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Destiny Maxam: And they had two very different, they were very different from each other, the House version versus the Senate bill.
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Destiny Maxam: At the time, the House bill is the one that was mirroring what happened in Connecticut, so it was aiming to not only define, but also enforce a repair timeline of 10 business days.
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Destiny Maxam: for the repair to be complete, and then 3 days for parts to be ordered. And sadly, what's actually in the bill language is also mandating that they call you back within one day to let you know that that's how much of an issue this is. We had an early hearing at the end of April that had
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Destiny Maxam: a remarkable turnout, of people. We had over two and a half hours
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Destiny Maxam: of testimony just on the wheelchair repair, and testimony's only 3 minutes long, so I can tell you how many people we had, in support of this bill.
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Destiny Maxam: After that hearing, we actually heard from, the Senate chair, Senator Payano.
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Destiny Maxam: that they thought it might be best if we thought about consolidating the bill into one bill. So that's what you see on the screen here, the change, from H43… or from S210 to S2662. We actually completely changed that language, and made it mirror the House bill. So instead of it being the wheelchair warranty bill that most people are familiar with.
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Destiny Maxam: It's now the same as the House bill. So again, it's defining and enforcing a repair timeline of 10 days.
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Destiny Maxam: Both these bills advanced out of committee, and we were very shocked and happy to see that it went out of,
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Destiny Maxam: A second committee, it didn't go straight to healthcare financing or anything, it went directly to Ways and Means on both sides. So what we're doing now is, we've got a meeting with the chair and the Senate, Vice Chair for S2662 to talk a little bit about what we hope to see, it get through, and we're very lucky that we have a very strong
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Destiny Maxam: support in the Senate. In the Senate side, it has passed twice, already, so our main focus is on the House, and we're also lucky that we've got Repo Day as our lead sponsor behind, the House bill. And a little bit of an update there is we're actually, putting out
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Destiny Maxam: The repo day is putting an outside section to the budget, so it's an amendment number.
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Destiny Maxam: That's going to give an opportunity for the bill to be heard in front of the House. It's a possibility that it may not be voted on at that time with the outside section, but at the very least, it gets everybody's attention on that bill.
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Destiny Maxam: number, so, those begin coming out, those bill numbers get assigned beginning tomorrow, or not the bill numbers, the amendment numbers get assigned beginning tomorrow, so we're excited to be able to get that information out, and we are looking for co-sponsors, on that amendment as well, so that's where people can be of a big help.
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Destiny Maxam: And be able to, ask their individual House reps, and their Senators to be able to sign on as that outside section amendment. But we're on a pretty good track for the wheelchair bill. We're further than we've been in years past, so we're hoping for a good… a good, outcome this year. Thank you.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Thank you, Destiny, and if you have the link and can drop it in the chat.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Destiny recently shared a link with Caitlin and I. She had met with some legislative leaders, and they worked on a special social media post to help bring more awareness about the issues of chair repair to the public.
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Jennifer Bertrand: If you have that link and want to drop it in the chat.
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Jennifer Bertrand: I'm sure people would appreciate seeing that. We really appreciate the creative approach you've taken to help make lawmakers more aware, of this important piece of legislation.
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Destiny Maxam: Thank you.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Excellent. I think we can go to the next slide, and let's… before we move on, does anybody have questions for Destiny?
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Liz Fancher: I don't have a question, but I have a comment, or maybe I should ask this question. Destiny can answer. You know, when you say you're looking for co-sponsors, what do you advise people in this meeting to do?
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Destiny Maxam: Yeah, the big thing, I can put another link in the chat. First, it would be great if you signed up for our wheelchair repair,
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Destiny Maxam: email list, so that we can get, so you can get the updates as we send them. I'll put that in the chat, too, because then we'll send out a blast email. And I see Barbara is going to come in and explain what can be probably helpful on this as well. She's one of our coalition members, too.
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Destiny Maxam: But, when we get the actual amendment number, it would be really helpful if you called, spoke to your individual house rep in particular, and asked them to sign on to amendment number, and explain why it's important to you. Are you a wheelchair user yourself? Does a family member use a wheelchair? Like, why does this issue matter? I do have templates and things that you can use, but we are asking people who have capacity to
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Destiny Maxam: kind of make their own story or make their own phone calls. Those tend to go a lot faster, rather, or a lot better received versus, like, calls to actions where it's repetitive. So we do ask that each person tries to customize that the best that they can. And Barbara, do you have any other information on that, too?
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: I really don't. You did a great job on that. I was just going to say that, once the budget comes out, and then the amendment processes happen and they're filed, even though the legislator that's filing the amendment has to do so by the end of the day on Friday.
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: People can still co-sponsor, can still sign on to the bill.
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: Into next week, right? Next week is school vacation week, and that is when Ways and Means will be looking at all the amendments. But people can certainly… you know, it's not… there's no Friday deadline for asking other people to sign on to Gemo Day's amendment.
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Destiny Maxam: Thank you, Barbara.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Thanks to both. So…
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: Jennifer, I had my hand up for something different, actually.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Okay.
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: Yeah, if you don't mind.
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Jennifer Bertrand: I'll close out, and then I'll pass it on to you, Barbara. So, yeah, if folks want to let their legislators know that there's going to be this opportunity, and share your stories about why this matters, and how this would help remove barriers to people with developmental and other disabilities, that would be fantastic. Barbara?
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: Could you go back to Senate 866 in your slides?
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: Okay.
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: So this Medically Fragile Children is really the continuous skilled nursing program. And I just wanted people to know that, if they are having difficulty, accessing the program, or if they are, having difficulty
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: Not just with obtaining hours, but with, you know, the result that's given to them by filling out the form. We are actively taking continuous skilled nursing cases.
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: So, that can extend to, the number of hours in the home that people are being approved for. It can extend to… also to education and whether anyone is being, finding it difficult to
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: be included in their school, their public school, you know, so anything that relates to folks that qualify for this continuous skilled nursing program.
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: can feel free to check in with the Disability Law Center through the intake department. I can't guarantee it's going to be subject to some, you know, financial qualifications, but
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: But we are… we are actively working on continuous skilled nursing cases for those, family members who might be on this call who… for whom this is a concern.
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: So we're doing the legislative, but we're also doing legal services for… these families.
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Jennifer Bertrand: All right, thank you so much, Barbara. I just dropped a link to the Disability Law Center in the chat, and I'm gonna drop another little note here to say, if you're… if you have difficulty accessing continuous skilled nursing services, contact the DLC. Is that okay?
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: Yes, that is okay. Thank you.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Alright, glad that you're here, and you let everybody know.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Well, thanks. I guess we'll go right into a state budget update.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Jennifer.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Sure, next slide.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Let's talk a little bit about the state budget.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Back in January, the governor, introduced or submitted her initial state budget proposal for fiscal year 27, and then in April, the House Ways and Means
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Jennifer Bertrand: Takes it up, and there's some House debate, and the House ultimately ends up
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Jennifer Bertrand: proposing their budget. In May, the Senate has their turn,
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Jennifer Bertrand: in the Senate Ways and Means Committee, and also, Senate Debate.
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Jennifer Bertrand: And then they create a proposal for their version of the budget. In June, there's this thing called the Committee of Conference, where the different… they work out differences in each version of the budget for the House and the Senate.
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Jennifer Bertrand: And thinking also about what the governor has initially proposed.
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Jennifer Bertrand: They come together, and they present a budget proposal to the governor. And hopefully, in July, the governor, agrees with the House and Senate version of the budget, and signs off, and we have a new state budget starting in July.
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Jennifer Bertrand: So, right now, there's a lot of focus on the state budget, but now you know, generally, in January, it's when the governor does her budget proposal.
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Jennifer Bertrand: April, the House is focused on it primarily, and then in May, the Senate has their turn at a budget proposal. June, they're working out differences, and they're going to submit a proposal back to the governor, and, hopefully she will sign it. She has several options.
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Jennifer Bertrand: At the box at the bottom center, it says click here to learn more about the state budget process. If you want more details on that, you can click that there.
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Jennifer Bertrand: All right.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Next slide.
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Jennifer Bertrand: So now we know, that the… the bill, if you were to go on the general court website.
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Jennifer Bertrand: for Massachusetts, you will notice that, the little…
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Jennifer Bertrand: Oh, I'm… I'm… I don't think you can see my pointer, but you see the orange writing in the left-hand column, House Ways and Means Budget. So I wanted to share a few things about this particular step in the state budget process.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Can we go back? There we go.
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Jennifer Bertrand: So the House Committee on Ways and Means, they're going to study the governor's budget proposal.
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Jennifer Bertrand: And then this committee will release recommendations for the House of Representatives to consider.
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Jennifer Bertrand: The House Ways and Means Committee holds budget hearings across the state, and then the House Ways and Means Budget is released. So that's some more information about this particular step in the process. There is a link in the slide that you can go to to also get more information.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Thinking back to…
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Jennifer Bertrand: the governor's proposal, you may recall that there were some positive, aspects, regarding funding for developmental disability programs. There are a couple of areas of concern as well. The
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Jennifer Bertrand: Governor, the slides from last… from the last Public Policy Committee… committee meeting are on our website, and there's a breakdown in the slides about the positive, funding
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Jennifer Bertrand: aspects for developmental services, and then also some of the areas that might be of concern if you want to take a look and go back. You can also access the governor's full budget on the Massachusetts General Court website as well in the link that's on this slide.
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Jennifer Bertrand: It's still, early-ish in the, budget process, and, we'll let you know more as the process unfolds.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Next slide.
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Jennifer Bertrand: you might be wondering, like, so what is the MDDC doing? You know, we're still continuing to collect and share stories, and there's a link there, next to the number 1, where you can go and you can share your story. Obviously, Medicaid is something that we're watching very closely.
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Jennifer Bertrand: with that reduction, that huge reduction that Elizabeth Lamontagne talked about during her presentation, the reduction in federal funding.
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Jennifer Bertrand: due to OB3, or the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, that's going to impact our state budget, and our lawmakers, are going to have to make some decisions about how to use resources.
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Jennifer Bertrand: And it's important for them to know why Medicaid services are important to you and your family. We'll continue to distribute some policy resources that highlight the importance of Medicaid-funded long-term supports and services and home and community-based services, also known as HCBS.
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Jennifer Bertrand: And, of course, the workforce rates. And we'll continue to meet and collaborate with state leaders.
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Jennifer Bertrand: lawmakers and administrators to help ensure they understand the importance of these services and programs in Massachusetts.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Next slide.
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Jennifer Bertrand: What can you do? Well, it's always a, it's always important to maintain contact with your legislator.
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Jennifer Bertrand: If you don't know who your legislator is yet, that's okay. The link underneath number 1 will take you to the Massachusetts General Court website, where you can put in your address, and you can find out who they are.
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Jennifer Bertrand: you can contact them. They have these in-district events, and sometimes meetings. You could schedule a meeting in their district. You could maybe make a
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Jennifer Bertrand: an appointment to meet with them at the State House to build a relationship. So, knowing who your state legislators are are really important, and we can help support you to do that. Caitlin, Liz, and I, we're here to help support your advocacy and help you to be empowered.
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Jennifer Bertrand: attend… oh, huh, this… I must not have updated this last bullet. In March, we had our, 48th annual legislative reception. That was back on March 10th, and certainly, we do this annual event each year in celebration of Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month.
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Jennifer Bertrand: And, we'll be sharing out information as we approach March in 2027. Wow, can you believe that? 2027, for you to attend then.
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Jennifer Bertrand: But reach out to us if you're interested in, you know, meeting your legislator, if you need some help or support to do that, or help to share a story. We're happy to share it with lawmakers and provide you some guidance.
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Jennifer Bertrand: To empower your advocacy.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Next slide.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Okay, now for, coalition updates. Let me go to the next slide.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: So that's, Tamara.
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: Hi, everyone.
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: I just paid for the PCA Workforce Council meeting, so I've got information hot off the presses.
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: So I wanted to make you aware there's a public hearing on May 4th.
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: And it's from 9 to 12… 9 a.m. to 12 noon.
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: about the PCA regulations.
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: And you can find out the information on the Bass.gov website.
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: And… I just have a quick update.
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: I'm asked how this created a working group.
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: Excuse me.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Camera?
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: Yes.
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Jennifer Bertrand: I don't know if it's just me, or if other folks, your, audio is a little bit choppy.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: And,
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: Oh, I'm sorry.
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: Is it better?
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Jennifer Bertrand: Feel a little choppy.
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: Is that better?
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Jennifer Bertrand: It's still a little choppy, but maybe speak a little more slowly, and if folks have questions, or if you missed something, you can raise a hand, and Tamara will be happy to
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Jennifer Bertrand: Follow up.
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: Okay, so did you hear me about the public hearing on May 4th?
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Yes.
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Liz Fancher: Emma, maybe if you turn off your video, sometimes that will help.
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: Is that better?
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Jennifer Bertrand: That's better.
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: Okay.
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: So, as I was saying, there's a public hearing on May 4th.
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: about the PCA regulations that are coming up in July… on July 3rd, and I'll have more information on that, but you can find the, public hearing information on masks.gov.
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: And again, it's from 9am to noon.
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: On May 4th.
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: Now, for other news, MassHub has created a working group. This working group will make the paperworker website more user-friendly and accessible for individuals that use the program.
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: The purpose of this camera?
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Jennifer Bertrand: Do you want Caitlin to advance the slide?
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: Oh, yes.
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: I'm sorry.
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: So, As I was saying, they were wanting to make them appear
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: paperwork or website more. It got more accessible for individuals that use the program.
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: The purpose of the program
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: The website is to replace most of the physical paperwork, and it moves all the required documentation online.
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: this prog… This project aims to help more people benefit from the system by making it easier and
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: Easier and simpler to understand.
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: And this website handles paperwork, taxes, payroll, and employment forms, so the consumer employer doesn't have to.
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: And it just makes the process faster and easier.
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: to obtain.
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: And it's usually run by the fiscal intermediary, and the fiscal intermediary is Tempus Unlimited.
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: So… That's… Oh, I have for… the update, and…
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: Be sure to stay tuned in May, as I'll have a more detailed update.
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: Thank you.
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Jennifer Bertrand: And I think there's one more slide with some contacts, and I can drop those links in the chat if that's helpful, Tamara.
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: Yeah.
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Tamara Huntley MDDC: I also… you can also reach out to me if you have any questions at any time.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Does anybody have any questions for Tamara?
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Hmm?
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Okay, I think that's you, Liz.
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Liz Fancher: Okay, so, first of all, I have to say, something you may have noticed, I'm a little slower getting stuff in the chat, so if I'm dropping duplicate information.
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Liz Fancher: My apologies.
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Liz Fancher: Okay, so, RevUp MA is one of the coalitions that the MDDC is a member of, and it's based at the Disability Law Center.
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Liz Fancher: And it's a statewide coalition, of organizations and individuals about voting rights. There's also a national rev-up, chapter.
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Liz Fancher: So, the coalition focuses on educating people with disabilities about voting rights, advocating for accessible voting, helping people to register, and encouraging civic engagement of people with disabilities. And REVUP actually stands for Register, Educate, Vote, Use Your Power.
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Liz Fancher: Next slide, please.
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Liz Fancher: So, they've been meeting monthly, for the past few months, but, they're not going to meet in April. They're going to have a webinar on May 14th. I don't have the time yet, I think it's going to be in the afternoon, but I will add that information in the minutes, when the minutes go out.
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Liz Fancher: And the webinar is gonna focus on the voting rights for people with disabilities and other useful information on accessible voting in Massachusetts.
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Liz Fancher: And they're, very enthusiastic about growing the coalition, so if you want to receive their emails and come to their meetings and come to their webinars, I'm going to drop this link in the chat, so that you can sign up.
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Liz Fancher: And, yeah, I know there are other people in this meeting who know much more about RevUp than I do, and they're free to chime in or not, but…
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Liz Fancher: That's all the information I'm sharing for now.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Barbara, do you want to add anything?
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: Well, thank you for doing this, first of all, Liz. The RevUp, webinar is going to be at 1 o'clock.
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Liz Fancher: Oh, great.
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: It's gonna go for an hour and a half.
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: There will be CART and ASL.
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: Because we're trying to, you know, deal with every possible accommodation that might be needed.
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: And the idea behind this is to do a number of things. It's really to begin to allow individuals and volunteers to feel empowered, to learn about how they can help.
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: So first and foremost really would be getting themselves registered and having a plan to go vote. But we're also trying to… because we have one full-time voting advocate, and there is a whole big state. So the idea behind this webinar is to kind of train people
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: About how to register, and whether or not they would like to register other people in their, you know, daily work that they're doing, or as a volunteer.
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: It will also talk about accessibility once you've registered, if you are going to a poll. So, what that looks like in terms of physical accessibility outside a polling place with parking and
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: You know, the grade of the sidewalk, and the heaviness of the door, and then once you get in the door, if you need to use the
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: Automark machine.
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: We'll talk a bit about that. But we're also going to talk about our state. You can register through the Secretary of State to vote at home, if you meet certain criteria.
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: If your fine motor doesn't enable you to fill out the little circles, if your physical state would make it very difficult to get out to a polling place, if you are blind or low vision and need a screen reader. So many people can actually vote
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: from the comfort of their own home on their computer, if they apply for that. So we'll talk a little bit about that as well.
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: And then we're also going to talk about how we're trying to reach out to people being in institutional settings, so that could be nursing homes, could be hospitals, could even be jails. It could be
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: In, group living environments, like if people are, you know, in group homes, or in day programs. So we're really trying to cast the net as wide as we possibly can.
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: And I will say that we… we… I was on an Institute for Community Inclusion meeting earlier today. I feel like
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: On RevOp, we have a very high number of people that come from our independent living centers, but not so many people that come from this community. So, I just want to be sure that people know they're welcome to join.
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: To be a part of this, and to whatever degree they're interested, be it getting themselves educated and registered, or coming up with a plan to vote.
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: or helping others in the circles that they are in. So, that's really the intent of all of this. There'll be other webinars getting closer to the fall elections, but that's the idea here, is to kind of educate and empower
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: the people that join RevOps to go out and do some things to make sure that we have
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: You know, as many folks with disabilities registered and able to vote as possible.
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Liz Fancher: And I actually want to add, so at the last RevUp meeting, there was a conversation about the Automark machines, and for those who don't know, these are machines that when you go to vote in your local voting place, every voting place in Massachusetts should have one, and they make, voting accessible, perhaps for people who, you know, have low vision or,
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Liz Fancher: other disabilities, so I had a local election in my town recently, and I used the voting machine, and
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Liz Fancher: It was a good experience, and a good conversation with the polling people, and, something that not everybody knows about, but that's… anybody can do that. You don't have to have a disability to use that machine.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Okay, I think that's it.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: So, oh, is Lee here to talk about this?
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Jennifer Bertrand: Yeah, I… Lee, I think you're here. I'll start off by saying, for our Guardianship Alternatives Innovation Network, this is a coalition that's led by the MDDC, and the focus is on guardianship alternatives.
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Jennifer Bertrand: We have a doodle poll out there among our members, and we're almost ready to set our May coalition meeting date. That's to be determined. I'm so grateful that my colleague Lee LaRue could be here today.
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Jennifer Bertrand: She has some exciting information to share about something that's being planned for May as well. Lee?
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Lee Larriu: Yes, thank you so much, Jennifer. So, the MDDC is proud to support a panel discussion, called Mysteries of Guardianship Alternatives.
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Lee Larriu: So, the GAIN training team subgroup is putting this all together, and they're in the process of finding both experts and people that are going to be talking from lived experience. So, we just recently put together a post that will be officially released tomorrow.
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Lee Larriu: This is going to be about a community conversation about people who live it, you know, who live alternatives, who live all different ways, with support.
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Lee Larriu: This panel introduces essential terms, it's going to explain alternatives to guardianship, and we'll explore how we can support self-determination at every stage of life. So, again, we're going to have lived experience advocates, we're going to share clear, accessible explanations.
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Lee Larriu: And we're going to provide a supported, space for learning. So, our date is going to be May 20th, and I can put this in the date, so you can… I'm sorry, in the chat, so you can say the date. So, May 20th.
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Lee Larriu: At 6 o'clock until 7 o'clock, and then there'll be a Q&A from 7 to 7.30, and again, we'll have all of the registration, links, and we're sending that out to our partners as well, so they will be spreading the word.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Thank you so much, Lee. We appreciate you coming today and giving us an update on this. Really excited to have this panel and help to educate and inform the greater disability community, and…
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Jennifer Bertrand: other people, and… Beyond our community.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Alright, next slide.
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Jennifer Bertrand: I am so excited, to…
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Jennifer Bertrand: Also, welcome another Generational Leadership Summit graduate today.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Benji Kemper, has also been a Summit presenter, and is a very important, powerful, force around housing, Advocacy.
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Jennifer Bertrand: And he agreed to pop in today to share some really good news about something that happened with the Qualified Allocation Planner, what's also known as the QAP. I'm sure Benji will explain a little bit more about what this is, and what happened.
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Jennifer Bertrand: And what celebration, is being planned?
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Benji Kemper (He/Him): Hi, Jennifer! Thank you so much for that introduction. So…
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Benji Kemper (He/Him): I'm just so excited to be here,
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Benji Kemper (He/Him): we've had around, like, a 2-year campaign, and, you know, you hear all these campaigns, and you're like, why do we do this? Why do we do all these? It's because sometimes you win, and it really makes a big difference.
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Benji Kemper (He/Him): And so, working with these generational leaders from the Spooner Summit, we were able to get,
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Benji Kemper (He/Him): it so that, we realized that accessibility is a big issue, and accessible, affordable housing is a big issue. So we got,
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Benji Kemper (He/Him): For, there's this thing called…
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Benji Kemper (He/Him): Low-income housing tax credits. And it creates the most amount of affordable housing in the country.
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Benji Kemper (He/Him): And we got this… each state can decide how to allocate the plans, how to divvy up… how to divvy up their… the funds, who gets the money, who doesn't. And…
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Benji Kemper (He/Him): We got them… we got the state to say in that plan.
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Benji Kemper (He/Him): That if the unit… if the project is 10 units or bigger and has an elevator, it has to be 10% accessible.
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Benji Kemper (He/Him): And that is a huge up… it's a huge leap in accessibility.
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Benji Kemper (He/Him): And not only that, but it alters a bunch of other funds, including the State Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
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Benji Kemper (He/Him): To, that same… if there's 10 or more units, and an elevator, it has to be 10%, and there's hundreds of millions of dollars.
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Benji Kemper (He/Him): in, the Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
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Benji Kemper (He/Him): So, this is a huge win. We're planning a celebration. We don't know the date yet, but we'll get it out to you as soon as possible, and we really hope to see you there, so we can celebrate together.
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Jennifer Bertrand: And Benji, is there a link maybe we could drop in the chat? I was just going to put a little plain language definition about
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Jennifer Bertrand: what a QAP is. It was from the CHAPA website, but…
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Jennifer Bertrand: I put that in there just for folks who might be learning about a QAP for the very first time, and I don't know, is there a link you think we should share in the chat?
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Benji Kemper (He/Him): I have a definition that I can share with you.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Sure.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Does anyone have questions for Benji about this exciting development around housing?
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Jennifer Bertrand: And the Qualified Allocation Plan.
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Liz Fancher: I guess I'll just ask, I'm so curious, I know accessible housing is often for physical disabilities. Does that include accessible for, like, people who are deaf, hard of hearing, sometimes they have special lights and that kind of thing?
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Benji Kemper (He/Him): No, this is just for, physical disabilities.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Alright.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Alright, well, thank you.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: So now we'll go to the federal update. Back to you, Jennifer.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Alright, next slide.
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Jennifer Bertrand: So, as you might have heard in the news, President Trump has issued his federal fiscal year 27 budget request to Congress. It would start in October, or the new federal
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Jennifer Bertrand: fiscal year 27 budget is supposed to start in October, you know that we've had continuing resolutions because, Congress, you know, has taken a longer time to be able to agree to a federal budget.
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Jennifer Bertrand: I will say that, the budget has some very large increases in military spend… spending.
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Jennifer Bertrand: It also has some pretty deep cuts to what are known as, domestic programs, things like Medicaid and Medicare.
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Jennifer Bertrand: I want to emphasize that while this might be alarming to the developmental disability community.
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Jennifer Bertrand: The president's budget really is a wish list for things that his administration would like to see in the budget. If we think back to last year at this time, the President's budget request was much different than the
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Jennifer Bertrand: Federal appropriations that were finally signed into law.
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Jennifer Bertrand: And Congress last year at this time, there were some proposed
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Jennifer Bertrand: Cuts or eliminations of programs that are important to people with developmental disabilities, and if you recall.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Congress said, no, we don't want to do that. We're going to do this. So it's very early in the process. The federal budget process starts with the president's budget request, which he has just submitted in early April. I think it was, like, on the 1st or 2nd.
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Jennifer Bertrand: And so there's a lot that will happen between now and then. Congress is going to take up the budget next, and it will create a proposal
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Jennifer Bertrand: There is a link at the bottom of this slide, to a Disability Scoop article. Their articles are very readable, and I thought that this would be a good resource for people who are looking for more information.
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Jennifer Bertrand: The big question will be, can Congress and the President agree on a budget, or will we end up in another continuing resolution like we have the last couple of years?
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Jennifer Bertrand: And I have a definition, a simple plain language definition there on the left.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Basically, a continuing resolution is a temporary funding measure that's used by our government, our U.S. government, to avoid government shutdown.
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Jennifer Bertrand: when the regular appropriation bills are not, agreed on by the start of a fiscal year. So I don't know if that will happen. Again, we're at the very beginning of the process. The president
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Jennifer Bertrand: The beginning of April has just issued his budget request. There are some…
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Jennifer Bertrand: changes. He would like to see big increases in military spending and make some deeper cuts to the domestic programs. Remember, it's just a wish list. Let's go to the next slide.
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Jennifer Bertrand: A couple of things I thought I would point out about the President's budget proposal that he just submitted to Congress, his wish list.
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Jennifer Bertrand: This proposal would eliminate developmental disabilities projects of national significance, would eliminate university centers for excellence on developmental disabilities, the UCEDDs, we have two here in Massachusetts.
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Jennifer Bertrand: And voting access for individuals with disabilities. Program.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Again, this is just the president's wish list for where he thinks our priorities should be. What we do know is in the last… the development of this last fiscal
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Jennifer Bertrand: the last federal fiscal budget, Congress had different priorities.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Initially, the President's request to Congress
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Jennifer Bertrand: last year at this time wanted to eliminate UCEDDs, and we know that Congress said no, and UCEDDs did get funded. I don't have a crystal ball, but given
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Jennifer Bertrand: what we know about Congress's priorities, I… anticipate that…
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Jennifer Bertrand: the final federal budget appropriations will look somewhat different than the President's wish list or the President's request to Congress.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Any questions about this?
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Kaitlin Stober: Jennifer, if I could just add one thing?
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Jennifer Bertrand: Sure.
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Kaitlin Stober: If there's anyone on the call who's interested in learning about these different projects, or organizations.
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Kaitlin Stober: Let us know, because sometimes I think people don't know what affects them and maybe their organization, their lives, or their advocacy work. But for example, you know, our DD Council, of course, works very closely with our DD network, the University Centers for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities. We also regularly use data and evidence that comes from developmental disabilities, projects of national significance.
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Kaitlin Stober: So sometimes when we think, oh, if we lose one thing, it's just one thing. But actually, when we lose some of these fun… if these things were, I'm not saying they are, of course, as Jennifer pointed out, if these entities were to lose funding, it also makes it harder for us to do our job. So it is kind of,
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Kaitlin Stober: Something that affects
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Kaitlin Stober: most folks in our developmental disabilities, community, even if it's, you know, not DD Councils on the… on the…
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Kaitlin Stober: Chopping block or protection and advocacy agencies.
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Kaitlin Stober: These are, entities that we work very closely with and help us be more effective and efficient at, you know, meeting our mission for the community. So I just want to put that out there, Jennifer, and if people have any questions, again, about examples of projects of national significance.
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Kaitlin Stober: or examples of our UCEDDs, like what ICI is up to, you know, we'll have our partner updates, but please feel free to ask us questions about that.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Absolutely, and I wanted to point out, the link at the bottom of this slide will take you to a Disability Scoop article that was a follow-up after Congress, did pass federal appropriations for, developmental pro… developmental disability programs.
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Jennifer Bertrand: And this one was about how Congress is like, no, we're not going to cut that, we're going to support these disability programs. So I didn't want anyone to feel too alarmed or too panicked. This is a process, it's the very beginning of the process. I will say that the National Association of Councils on Developmental Disabilities
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Jennifer Bertrand: is doing, intensive and intentional work to educate and inform, members of Congress about the importance of DD programs and the UCEDDs and, our other DD Net partners… DD Network partner work. In fact.
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Jennifer Bertrand: They had sent around a house
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Jennifer Bertrand: a Dear Budinski House letter around, appropriations for support of these programs, and, we had record number of signers this year, and this is something that they've done, NACDD has done, in many,
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Jennifer Bertrand: Many… for many years.
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Jennifer Bertrand: there's a Senate letter that, will also go out, and, we're really hopeful that,
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Jennifer Bertrand: there'll be a lot of Senate signers as well. So there's a lot of work on the national level, not just on the part of NACDD, which is that umbrella association for all of us DD councils, but other leading organizations, too.
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Jennifer Bertrand: To educate and inform members of Congress about the importance of these programs, and I'm so glad that you added that, Caitlin.
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Jennifer Bertrand: The president's proposal does a lot of other things, but I'm just going to leave it at that for now, and… because we've had so much information today, and we'll keep you informed as the process plays out. Next slide.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Okay, whoop. Can I go back one?
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Kaitlin Stober: Sorry, Jesse?
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: That's alright. Council and community events, and we got a little preview.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Of, the Disability Policy Seminar, so you can go to the next slide.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Caitlin, do you want me to speak to this, or do you want to speak to this?
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Kaitlin Stober: I can speak to this. I also know Tatiana's on the call, and she was interested in sharing a little bit as well. So, Tatiana, I will just introduce what this event is, and then we'd love for you to share out, your experience, too. I don't know that Austin's on the call.
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Tatiana Thomas: No, he had to leave.
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Kaitlin Stober: Okay, that makes sense with timing. So, Tatiana, I'll do a quick introduction, then I'll hand it over to you. Does that sound okay?
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Kaitlin Stober: We've got lots of pictures that Jennifer put together for us.
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Kaitlin Stober: So, 2 weeks ago, or 3 weeks ago, Jennifer and myself, Tatiana, and Austin, attended the Disability Policy Seminar in Washington, D.C. This included a seminar where we got to learn about some of the
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Kaitlin Stober: biggest and emerging policy issues affecting the DD community.
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Kaitlin Stober: And we also had the opportunity to do Hill visits to kind of amplify and educate from our DD Council perspective, educate and inform about how some of these policy issues were affecting us in our lives, as well as our community.
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Kaitlin Stober: Tatiana, why don't I click to a picture page, and then do you want to share a little bit about.
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Tatiana Thomas: Also, in fact, we, us, me and Austin and Caitlin and Jennifer, we had 11 meetings on the Hill.
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Kaitlin Stober: That's true. So, these photos, I guess, are from our first seminar day. It was.
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Kaitlin Stober: On the left is a photo of us with folks from other DD councils all over the United States.
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Tatiana Thomas: That's also in the newsletter that one of the fabulous organizations that Jennifer mentioned
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Tatiana Thomas: Got… it's in the fat photos out there.
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Kaitlin Stober: Yeah, so we're featured in their newsletter, which, which Tatiana, I think, is well-deserved, given all the work you did. So, this is some photos from our hill visits. Tatiana, why don't you talk a little bit about your experience with the 11 hill visits that we did.
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Tatiana Thomas: So it was que… so, as you can see, me and
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Tatiana Thomas: Jennifer actually got to meet Congresswoman Ayanna Presley, who is actually my congresswoman. So she… we actually learned that she supported the bills for, like, Medicaid, all those healths, and she actually… I actually met her a couple days ago, and she said that she's gonna use our stories.
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Tatiana Thomas: Most of them, Senator Elizabeth Warren has the education feedback in her… when she became Senator, so they're gonna use our stories and reach out to us for them, they can actually use us.
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Kaitlin Stober: Yeah, Tatiana, so why don't you share a little bit about what happened in.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Mmm.
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Kaitlin Stober: So we would go, would meet with a representative or someone from their staff team, and what did you share with them?
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Tatiana Thomas: So, me and Austin got to show our passion why we're here. We actually got to share our Medicaid stories, our PCAs, our education, our workforce. And actually, on the bottom, we got to meet with the Congressman McGovern. We got to go out on his hill.
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Tatiana Thomas: backyard and meet with someone that we met with for the Medicaid story.
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Tatiana Thomas: And he actually asked us, are we doing his job that he asked us? And we said, keep on fighting, they will all continue fighting for us.
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Kaitlin Stober: Yeah, that's a great point. So we got to… you mentioned meeting with Representative McGovern, and I can say, as someone who attended, that Tatiana and Austin really did such a wonderful job sharing their personal stories and communicating about how their personal stories
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Kaitlin Stober: Related to different policy opportunities, that the representatives and senators could be aware of, and providing examples about how some of these policies can affect the lives of people with developmental disabilities.
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Tatiana Thomas: Congresswoman, Ayanna Passley, also Congress for Maine for Winthrop, actually gave us the name…
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Tatiana Thomas: the private pass is to go underneath the tunnel, so we actually got the opportunity to go listen to what our Congress and our House were saying about, like, the team…
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Tatiana Thomas: Like, in there.
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Kaitlin Stober: Amazing point, I'll go to the next picture, because, so,
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Kaitlin Stober: what Tatiana's alluding to is that we had some really successful meetings, we made some great relationships, and, we were invited by two representatives.
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Tatiana Thomas: Congressman. You mean Congress, Caitlin?
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Kaitlin Stober: Yes, yes, two… two Congress people to, go tour and listen in to a bill session in Capitol Hill.
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Tatiana Thomas: And also, in fact, Congresswoman Ayanna Parsley actually has a new bill out there for safety for fire drills.
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Kaitlin Stober: She brought up how…
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Tatiana Thomas: State legislation brought that up to us, so that's something different that we don't know.
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Kaitlin Stober: Yeah, so that's such a good example, Tatiana. She shared an example of how she learned stories and looked at other states where students with disabilities did not have good plans when they were fire drills to be able to evacuate buildings safely.
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Kaitlin Stober: Her and her team took those stories seriously and are, working to propose legislation, that would make evacuation plans accessible and inclusive, you know, across states. So, very good example. Here's some more photos, and we got one more.
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Kaitlin Stober: We've got one more thing of photos, so the middle one is Tatiana and Austin in Capitol Hill. The one on the left is Austin, when we were going in the tunnels to go between the House and the Senate side, and we were going between these different buildings to meet people.
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Kaitlin Stober: And then, yeah.
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Tatiana Thomas: So we met the guy that's won in against, Senator's team, and Markey.
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Tatiana Thomas: And he… Senator Ed Markey, Jennifer did tell us that Senator Ed Markey is still winning.
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Kaitlin Stober: Yes, so I think that Senate races are unfolding, so we did definitely get a front-row seat to the politics of Washington, D.C, and learning that there's multiple people on the ballot, who could be our representatives, in the coming.
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Tatiana Thomas: We also got to have a sneak peek, at a congressman for Bookline, because one of… we were blocking his way, so we actually moved for him.
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Kaitlin Stober: It was… it was very hustle and bustle. We got to meet a lot of people, and again, Tatiana and Austin did a fantastic job representing the DD Council, and it was a busy and exhausting and very, successful trip. Jennifer, did you have anything that you wanted to add?
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Jennifer Bertrand: I love this particular picture of Austin in the bottom left, where it says our house, and if you were to zoom in on him, you can see his finger pointing to the sign behind him, because, you know, it's so important for advocates to know, like.
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Jennifer Bertrand: you're the experts, and our delegates, they work for their constituents, they work for us, so I love how he's pointing, like, this is our house, and I love this picture of the two of you together, Tatiana, with Austin. This is in the Capitol itself, on Capitol Hill.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Where they were able to, receive special access to a house, session, I guess.
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Jennifer Bertrand: I would… if you don't mind, unsharing your screen, I thought I'd quickly flash a couple of the Hill documents
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Jennifer Bertrand: So, in addition to Tatiana and Austin sharing their story, you know, we talked to a lot of upper-level policy people, we talked to some delegates directly, but we wanted to make sure we had some materials to leave with them so that they would remember who we are and,
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Jennifer Bertrand: what we're doing, I… I'm… it's hard to talk.
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Tatiana Thomas: Also, in one of the documents, they don't know about the MDDC Council, so it was explaining what we do.
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Tatiana Thomas: account.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Yeah, so we… can everybody see my screen, and you see Austin's?
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Jennifer Bertrand: Everyone can see that? Okay.
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Jennifer Bertrand: So here's Austin's… Story, that we included in the… He'll visit folders.
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Jennifer Bertrand: And it's just a visual resource to leave with policymakers. They remember him, what he looks like as a person, and his story. He talked a lot about the importance of funding for DD programs that help people with DD and their families across their lifespan.
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Jennifer Bertrand: He talked about how important his Medicaid home and community-based services are in order for him to live his life.
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Jennifer Bertrand: And also, he talked about
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Jennifer Bertrand: programs that helped empower his advocacy that, were funded and, offered by the MDDC, and how that led to establishing a really important
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Jennifer Bertrand: nonprofit to help increase, social opportunities for people with developmental disabilities, in their communities. So that's Austin's. I'm going to switch tabs. Nick, can you see Tatiana now?
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Yes.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Here's Tatiana, so we also shared, Tatiana's story. Tatiana talked a lot about not only the Medicaid home and community-based services, we're most concerned about these with the reduction in federal funding, because they're not required federally, and states don't have to fund them
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Jennifer Bertrand: So, when the state is making some difficult budget decisions about what services they're going to fund, they need to know why these are important.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Tatiana also talked about her inclusive educational experience and how that supported her to transition into her adult life, work, and competitive integrated employment.
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Jennifer Bertrand: And so she also talked a little bit about IDEA and Section 504, and the importance of the Department of Education.
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Jennifer Bertrand: I'm gonna click to the next tab here. We also talked to lawmakers about the Social Security
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Jennifer Bertrand: Income Restoration Act. This is, being introduced by Elizabeth Warren, Senator Warren, and it's really aimed to update and strengthen Supplemental Security Income Program.
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Jennifer Bertrand: We also touched on, again, we had a whole fact sheet dedicated to HCBS, home and community-based services, about
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Jennifer Bertrand: what they are, how they help people to thrive in their community, how many people in Massachusetts benefit from these services, and so forth.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Finally, last thing I'll mention, there were some other things that we talked about, but we also talked about an important bill around employment. HR4771, it's the Transformation to Competitive Integrative… Integrated Employment Act.
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Jennifer Bertrand: And we talked about how this
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Jennifer Bertrand: Legislation would help phase out subminimum wages and help support people with disabilities to transition to
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Jennifer Bertrand: competitive integrated employment opportunities and leave-sheltered workshops. It talks about the expansion of training and services and how this legislation promotes inclusion for people with
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Jennifer Bertrand: developmental disabilities, so I'll stop sharing. Thanks for your patience. We're going to put these materials on our website so they're available, and we're going to use these resources as well on the state level to advocate around the budget, the state budget, and the importance of these
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Jennifer Bertrand: Programs, and how they support individuals to live inclusive, meaningful lives.
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Kaitlin Stober: Okay.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Okay, so… Well, I want to thank everyone for joining to celebrate Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: A lot of you were probably at our, annual 48th annual reception, which we hosted with the ARC, in which we recognized two, legislators,
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Joan Lovely and Jay Livingstone, and that was a great event. I'm glad people came there, and
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Do we have any pictures from that event, or… no, we don't have pictures from that event, okay.
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Jennifer Bertrand: today, but if you go to the link at the bottom, I believe Jackson put some pictures on our website, and also, if you follow us on social media, there's a gallery of pictures from the event there as well.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Yeah. Alright, thank you. Next slide, huh?
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Okay, who wants to talk about the 5-year plan? I think that's you, Caitlin.
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Kaitlin Stober: Sorry, everyone, sometimes when I'm sharing my screen with the slides to toggle between muting and unmuting, it takes a minute for things to pop up. I know Liz is also on the call, so Liz, please feel free to chime in, but we have been working together, with… the whole GD Council team has… has…
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Kaitlin Stober: Contributed on our 5-year state plan.
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Kaitlin Stober: So, we are currently in the process of refining a new survey that we're going to send out for community input.
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Kaitlin Stober: This survey is based on the feedback we got during our focus groups. We've also worked closely with our state plan committee, which consists of different council members, to inform this, and we got
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Kaitlin Stober: Liz recently worked with our training team to get excellent feedback to really help us shape and make some changes to the survey that we hope will make it easier for people to take, and
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Kaitlin Stober: You know, help us get the information that we need to finalize some of our goals and objectives for this 5-year estate plan.
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Kaitlin Stober: So, really, this is just an update that we have been working hard behind the scenes. Please keep your eyes open, we'll probably be sharing this survey out soon, and we would love for everyone to take it and share it with their networks. Liz, sorry if I spoke, for both of us, do you have anything that you want to add?
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Liz Fancher: Now, I'm kind of laugh… there's another slide, but I'm kind of laughing because you're faster with unmuting than I am. I was, like, just there when you start.
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Kaitlin Stober: Hi!
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Kaitlin Stober: Every time I went to try and get my toolbar, it would disappear, you know? The muting… I'll go to the next slide, and if there's anything… maybe you can speak to this about how the survey… we can provide support for folks.
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Liz Fancher: Right, and as Caitlin said, coming soon! We hope it's really soon, but yeah, we're still revising it, and we are going to translate it into Spanish.
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Liz Fancher: But when the survey goes out, it's gonna be online, it's gonna be on SurveyMonkey, but, if people have difficulty with that kind of, you know, taking a survey in that way, Caitlin and I, we're very happy to, like, either, you know, set up a Zoom meeting and we can fill the survey out for you, or even meet in person, or do it over the phone, or, you know, let us know if you have, like, issues with accessibility, that the SurveyMonkey doesn't work. We want to work with you and make sure
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Liz Fancher: Make sure that you give us, you know, your opinions and, you know, tell us about your experiences.
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Liz Fancher: So, so we'll do what it takes to get your input here. We hope, it might be a little long, but,
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Liz Fancher: we've actually shortened it quite a bit, but we do hope, you know, it's very important to get your feedback, because that's going to determine our work over the next 5 years. So we expect to do this in, you know, sometime in April, into May.
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Liz Fancher: And we will be announcing it, if you're not on our mailing list, there's a link on our website where you can sign up for email updates, and also Facebook and Instagram, and I guess, X, and LinkedIn, maybe? We will be posting when the survey's ready, and you can find the link there.
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Liz Fancher: Are there any… well, I guess if there are any questions, you can let me know.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Josie?
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Jennifer Bertrand: Before we go on to partner updates, I… I wanted to, also just another shout out.
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Jennifer Bertrand: There are a lot of people that you don't necessarily see in the front-facing part of this meeting, and I want to say another sincere thanks and appreciation to my colleague Jackson Crilley, also our colleague Christine
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Jennifer Bertrand: Joelle, for their support to…
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Jennifer Bertrand: Make sure that everything was working on the tech side of things today. Jackson also, he's the one that creates the registrations so that, you know, members of the public can
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Jennifer Bertrand: attend these meetings and have access to the information. He also created the survey and the survey link, and I'm just so grateful to work with so many talented professionals, and with people who have such a great attitude and team mentality, so thank you all.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Alright, I appreciate that.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: So now for our partner updates. I know we have some partners on the line. I know Barbara from
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Display Law Center is here. I know, David from ICI is here, who would like to share some partner updates.
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: Well, I would say my biggest update I already covered, right, which is the RevUp training on May 14th. However, we're also doing a pretty intensive training on this Friday. It's really mostly aimed at educators, in the public school system.
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: It… there'll also be, perhaps, parents there, but it's really to put a light on the new regulations that have happened with regards to timeout and seclusion, that really happens among
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: folks that are still in the school system. And so we're… we're doing that. We had enough individual cases coming to us that were cause for concern that we started trying to work on this systemically, and were able to get
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: a seat at the table with the Department of Education and able to influence them to rewrite their regulations so that people, young people with developmental disabilities cannot be left in a
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: a locked, or closed-door situation for hours on end.
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: So, we were able to get some funding to be able to help school systems
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: get an expert to train, and so this will sort of go over the updated regulations and, what, you know, some of the best practices are. So I realize it might really affect more people younger than those on this meeting, but it's important to know within the
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: DD network, right? That there are… we see issues, pretty regularly with… with young people that are of school age that are being subjected to, timeout, for extended periods of time, or seclusion, or even use of restraint. So that's sort of what we're getting at.
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: But if anyone wants to kind of be apprised of the different things that we are doing, that, or the, the RevOp, or any other things that we're doing, I would really suggest going to the website and signing up to be on our mailing list.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Thank you, Barbara.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Any other updates from our partners?
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David Hoff - ICI, UMass Boston: So, this is David Ha from the Institute for Community Inclusion.
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David Hoff - ICI, UMass Boston: Not a whole lot, but a couple quick things. The… we… we have been looking at, we're applying for some funding.
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David Hoff - ICI, UMass Boston: Particularly looked at working with older, keeping older adults with, intellectual developmental disabilities in the workplace, so, we just, we're currently just proposing, these are just proposals, so we don't know,
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David Hoff - ICI, UMass Boston: If we'll get it, but it's been… it's an interesting area that we're continuing to take a closer look at, because it's, frankly, an under-resourced area, and not as much attention is being paid to that as…
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David Hoff - ICI, UMass Boston: We would like… The…
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David Hoff - ICI, UMass Boston: Other thing I'll mention, just on a kind of our own logistics, internal logistics, we are in the process of hiring a new director. We have two finalists. They've done final interviews. We hope for an announcement.
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David Hoff - ICI, UMass Boston: Oh, I'd love to have an announcement by early May, mid-May, hopefully at the latest, about our new director, so… so stay tuned on that, but that, we're very excited about that, as well as, you know, Cindy Thomas retiring, and we've had a temporary director, so…
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David Hoff - ICI, UMass Boston: This will be somebody also who will get re… we'll get engaged with the, the Didi Council and all the work that all these, all our partners are doing.
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David Hoff - ICI, UMass Boston: One other thing, I'll just mention this real quick. I did a webinar, I thought it was interesting. First, I appreciate the budget update, state budget update, Jennifer, and it does seem like the House is taking their time to get their budget out there. I did a webinar last week focused on the employment line items in the state budget.
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David Hoff - ICI, UMass Boston: And one of the findings, and we had a discussion about it on the webinar, and I think this is true of a lot of line items for people with disabilities, so many of them are buried in, like, much, much larger line items that you… it's really hard to get a read. In this case, we were looking at employment, funding. It's really hard to get a read at times in terms of
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David Hoff - ICI, UMass Boston: what is the state spending their money on in terms of disability specifically? When you've got giant line items that talk about
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David Hoff - ICI, UMass Boston: You know, for example, community supports, it's pretty hard to figure out, okay, what does that mean for people?
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David Hoff - ICI, UMass Boston: In terms of specifically for employment in the community. And that's just an example, so I just think it's an interesting issue. Obviously, I think 5 minutes to go, we probably want to go deep on that, but just food for thought, maybe, for this group, and in general, because transparency on…
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David Hoff - ICI, UMass Boston: what the state is spending on disability, is really, really critically important. I mean, the good news is everything's online.
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David Hoff - ICI, UMass Boston: But the not-so-good news is really getting beneath those larger, you know, line items takes some digging, so… just… just a thought. It's pretty much… it's what I've got.
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Liz Fancher: David, may I suggest when our survey comes out, that you fill out our survey?
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David Hoff - ICI, UMass Boston: Yes.
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David Hoff - ICI, UMass Boston: Yes, yes, it's…
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Jennifer Bertrand: I'm so glad that you shared that and you commented. It's… yeah, there are other…
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Jennifer Bertrand: Items in the state budget where we have similar
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Jennifer Bertrand: experiences. The self-direction line item is combined with a lot of other line items, so it's really hard to know, like, what… how much is going and how that's changed over time from one budget year to another year. It's really hard to, like, untangle that, so I… I hear what you're saying.
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David Hoff - ICI, UMass Boston: Yeah, and I think, I think, you know, again, part of advocacy is saying to the state.
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David Hoff - ICI, UMass Boston: I, you know, recognizing the complications of budgets and all that, but, you know, state agencies should be able to make that information more readily available, so… but thank you, Jennifer.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Hmm, thank you.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Is anyone here from the Mass Office on Disability here, or any other of our partners?
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Camille Karabaich (MOD): Hi, this is Camille Karbage from the Mass Office on Disability. I have a couple quick announcements I can share.
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Camille Karabaich (MOD): If you are interested in, our community access monitor training, this is training that, teaches about the, like, building accessibility regulations and how you can be an advocate in that area. We do have
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Camille Karabaich (MOD): trainings, scheduled for June, August, October, and November of this year, so there's lots of opportunities to get involved with that if you're interested in learning,
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Camille Karabaich (MOD): things like the slope of a ramp and, like, how you go about measuring different types of building features to make sure that buildings are as accessible as they should be. We also have our
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Camille Karabaich (MOD): Municipal ADA Improvement Grant that opens May 1st. So while this is not something that individuals can apply for, it is something you can certainly talk to
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Camille Karabaich (MOD): Your local government about, and see if they're planning to apply, or if they have any good programs that would improve accessibility in your area, in your city or town.
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Camille Karabaich (MOD): We have information about that on our website as well. I can drop all of the links in the chat.
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Camille Karabaich (MOD): And finally, we do have our statewide Commission on Disability meeting tomorrow from 1 to 2 p.m, and there's going to be another one in October, so these right now are just for people
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Camille Karabaich (MOD): who already are members of their Commission on Disability, and those are city or town, commissions that kind of serve as
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Camille Karabaich (MOD): The go-between between the public and the local government.
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Camille Karabaich (MOD): So if you're involved in one of those, you can come to that meeting. If you're interested in learning more about commissions and seeing if your community already has one that you could join, or if you would like to, potentially start one in your community, we have information on our website.
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Camille Karabaich (MOD): About, which communities already have them, and, more about
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Camille Karabaich (MOD): how you can get them started, and those types of things. So I'll drop all of those.
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Camille Karabaich (MOD): In the chat.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Well, thank you, and David Hoff just mentioned that in Melrose, his group has, his Commission on Disabilities had great success in getting MOD grants.
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David Hoff - ICI, UMass Boston: Thank you, MOD. But I really encourage folks, if you're not connected, we talked about this before, your local disability commissions, I know, Jay, you're on yours, I think some other people on yours might be on them. They're really great entities to connect with.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Okay, I… I don't see any other partners here. Are there any other partners here that I'm missing?
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: That wanna say something?
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Okay, I guess not. So, go to the next slide.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: You want to take that, Jennifer?
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Liz Fancher: Jennifer just dropped the link in the…
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Oh, yeah, for the…
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Jennifer Bertrand: I was not unmuted. See, Caitlin? And I'm not sharing my screen right now.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Yes, so thank you, for coming. Your feedback is really important. When you leave, please respond to this very short, poll to let us know what we're doing well and what we might be able to do better. Really appreciate, oh, Anne said also in the chat, Jossie, I just noticed, no updates, thanks.
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Jennifer Bertrand: to all for this informative meeting, and thank you, Camille, for dropping the mod, information there in the chat as well.
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Jennifer Bertrand: I also want to thank you, Josie, for your leadership.
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Jennifer Bertrand: and all that you do for our council, and serving, as our Public Policy Committee Chair. These meetings would not happen if it wasn't for your support, your expertise, and your guidance. So, thank you for all that you do.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Well, thank you.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Thank you.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Okay, now it's time for,
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Anyone who wants to make any public comments.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Again, you can raise your hand, or…
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Someone will be watching the chat. Does anyone have any public comments?
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: Can I just ask a question, because I had to hop on a little bit late. Are you going to share the slides from the MassHealth presentation? Because I got on just as it was wrapping up.
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Liz Fancher: Yes.
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Jennifer Bertrand: Yes. Oh, go ahead.
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Barbara L'Italien, DLC she/her: Thank you.
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Liz Fancher: Yes, they actually have,
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Liz Fancher: They have to get prior approval to record the meeting, and we didn't realize that, so we could not record her presentation, but she did say we can share the slides.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Hmm.
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Jennifer Bertrand: We'll… we'll be sure to ask well in advance in the future when, you know, we partner in that way.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Yeah, that makes sense.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Any other questions, comments, reflections?
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Kaitlin Stober: Just on that note, another reminder, as people review the slides, if you have outstanding questions, or things you didn't understand, or things that.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: You won't.
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Kaitlin Stober: more information about from MassHealth. We will work on that direct line of communication with Elizabeth, so please feel free to review the slides and just think about other questions you might have. I know that, you know, we might have some, so, just please feel free to communicate that as well.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Okay.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Alright.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Well, that… this is basically towards the end of our meeting, so our next meeting is on May 12th.
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Kaitlin Stober: Whoops, sorry.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: That's alright.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Then you can see we meet again, and we take June and July off, then we meet in August.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Then we meet in October, and…
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: well, the second Tuesday is Veterans Day, so in November we're gonna meet on November 17th.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: So, and of course, these meetings are always open to the public.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: And, we look forward to seeing you at future meetings. Well, actually, first seeing you in May.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: So, with that, I think we're adjourned, unless there's anything else someone wants to say.
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Liz Fancher: Thanks, everybody, for all your time, for coming.
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Gyasi Burks-Abbott: Yeah, thanks. I know it's been a… it was a long meeting?