Comments from Public Forums:

• Being Active in Your Community

Over the last 20 years, people have worked hard for everyone to be involved in the community.  It is important for all people to feel respected.  This respect should come from staff and community members.  It is extra important for people with disabiliites to be included in this goal.  People who live in the community are sometimes called "consumers."  This means that they are using some community services or supports, but it doesn't always mean that they are involved in their community. 

         

• Support for Different Forms of Housing

A survey in 2002 showed that South Dakota was just below the national average for people with disabilities choosing where they live.  This needed to get better.  People want to choose where they live.  They may want to live in an apartment.  Maybe they even want to own their own home.  Agencies (places that provide services) have thought of different ways to make these things possible.  But there are still time when people stay on waiting lists for a long time. 

• Being Active in Your Faith

Some places that are linked to churches or other religious organizations have found ways to help.  They give people the chance to share their talents with others.  They also find ways for everyone to be involved.  Best of all, they help with finding people to help and provide supports. 

• Setting Goals for Employment

People need information to be able to make good decisions.  This information usually comes from classes or talking with people.  A man named Allan wanted to be his own boss.  He knew it would be tough to find transportation in Madison.  Allan learned about the different services he could get from the Social Security Administration (SSA).  They helped him start a Plan for Achieveing Self Support (PASS).  This plan helped him reach his employment goals.  Now Allan works for himself as a taxi driver.  He is able to get himself wherever he wants to go.  He can also help lots of other people get around in the community.

• Choosing the Services You Want and Need

Family members have challenges when they try to help a loved one be independent (do things on their own).  One family member said: "We don't know what we don't know!"  (This means that it's hard to know what questions to ask sometimes.)  People who work for the PLANS Project talked with family members of people with disabilities.  They said that it would be helpful to have one person help them get resources and find services.  It was also important that these services didn't matter how old you were.

• Family Support

There are lots of supports for families with young children.  Family Support is one program to help families get what they need.  The goal of this program is to work with people with disabilities and their families to make their own choices.

• Making Choices on Your Own

For a long time, choices about the way people with disabilities lived their lives have been made by other people.  These other people could be family members, professionals, or policymakers.  These people could only guess what choices would be the best.  Now we know that all people have the right to make thier own decisions.  Families and professionals should help provide support, and people with disabilities should make choices on their own.

• Choosing a Person to be Your Support

Students and parents have a hard time when they start using the adult system (programs that are made for people after they turn 22).  Finding a main support person is really difficult.  Sometimes the people who helped a student in the past are not a part of their lives anymore.  This is usually because of their age once they turn 22.  The adult system can be hard to understand and follow.  It is difficult to know who to contact about services, how to be able to get the services, and who to contact if you have questions.

• Personal Dreams

Set your goals high!  People with disabilities and their families sometimes think it's not possible to dream, but dreams come in lots of different forms. One man who participated in our program had a dream to go to Sioux Falls.  Another man wanted to go to a Vikings game.  Another person wanted to be Spiderman.  All of these dreams were given respect.  Everyone has the right to dream.