This week’s topic: Does Your CIL Have A Culture Of Advocacy?

To start, here is how TRIPIL defines Advocacy:

Advocacy can be easily defined as an action that produces change. TRIPIL speaks out for the equality and civil rights of people with disabilities. TRIPIL works to teach people with disabilities how to become their own voice using either individual or group advocacy techniques.

As stated in our mission statement TRIPIL’s goal is to promote independent living in Southwestern Pennsylvania for and by individuals with disabilities; to enable them to take control of their lives; to make decisions about themselves and their future; to ensure that the necessary support services are available to enable them to be active participants in their communities; and to prevent unnecessary institutionalization; and one way we do this is through advocacy.

Some of the key issues effecting people with disabilities in our tri-state area are accessibility, transportation, and housing. Our efforts include both individual and systems change. A common thread running through all advocacy efforts is empowerment so individuals become self-advocates. This means that we do advocate, but our purpose is to provide people with the right skills and information to advocate for themselves concerning issues that effect their ability to live independently.

    At TRIPIL we eat, sleep, and breath this. Advocacy is what drives us. We provide Attendant Care service coordination but even this is seen as a result of our advocacy.  We are known in our community for our advocacy. The biggest victory we have fought for in recent years have been polling place accessibility for voters with disabilities. We started tackling this problem three years ago, and its been a hard-fought battle but a battle worth fighting. We started in Washington County by advocating with county officials and our local elections board. Then we surveyed all the polling places in our county. This brought our CIL together because the advocacy staff and the services staff came together to complete the surveys. This gave our services coordinators a real life example of being a part of advocacy and they learned how important our job as advocates are. It showed the community have important polling place accessibility is to the disability community. It made our county pay attention to TRIPIL because we we’re not going away. The local press started reported on our advocacy and people’s eyes were open to the problems voters with disabilities face. Our message was simple. We wanted to vote like everyone else, and the meant that polling places had to be accessible. Our goal is 100% accessibility. We are not there yet but here is what we have accomplished so far:

Polling places were changed to more accessible polling places.

That county go more HAVA grant money to buy accessibility equipment to make polling places more accessible.

TRIPIL has become a polling place because of its accessibility.

We have done disability training with the election board.

We have good relations now Washington county in our efforts for accessibility.

     These are a few great results of our advocacy. The disability community is better because of it. The questions you and your CIL need to ask is :

” How is your community better because your CIL is in it?”

   Is your CIL having an impact for the disability community?

   What can I do to create a culture of Advocacy?

   I hope these posts will encourage you in your advocacy. Future posts will dig deeper in what I think makes a great CIL. This is the second post focusing on  what makes a great CIL. Please see my first post “Does your CIL have a Community Space” More posts are coming after the holidays. I hope everybody has a awesome Christmas.