Project Description:
Traditionally, when you think of government and people with disabilities, you think about benefits that flow one way: from government agency to individual with a disability. Service refers to efforts expended ON individuals with disabilities. Indeed in California, individuals with developmental disabilities are called Consumers and while this term was undoubtedly born to give more status, it ultimately continues to generate an image of people who take.
This perception has hurt individuals with disabilities, increasing stigmatization and diminishing self-confidence. The perception has also hurt American society, depriving communities of potential assets, and the workforce of employees who could drive economic growth.
The stigma of incapability is reflected in the actual circumstances of people with disabilities, who are half as likely to report being involved in their communities, as non-disabled counterparts, and less likely to consider themselves valuable and contributing members of the communities. Indeed, 80% of youth and young adults with disabilities feel left out of their communities, more than twice the rate of their non-disabled peers. Unemployment rates hover at a staggering 70%. (National Organization on Disability, www.nod.org).
The Tarjan Center Service Inclusion Project (TCSIP) at the University of California in Los Angeles reverses the ?public gives to people with disabilities? equation by initiating the first and most extensive effort to launch collaborations that bring people with disabilities more fully into community life, by engaging them as providers of volunteer service, instead of as recipients.
Volunteerism is a gateway to true integration, interdependence, and community health. For transitioning youth and adults who have been out of the workforce, volunteerism is often the primary way to identify interests and gain skills and community contacts. In many cases, it is a direct precursor to employment. TCSIP help communities recognize that volunteerism is a bridge out of dependency, as well as recognize the ability of youth and adults with disabilities to contribute through public service.
Traditional notions of government often involve top-down processes, a focus on deficiencies, and rigid regulations. TCSIP leads through grassroots partnership development, flexibility and recognition of strengths. Using an asset-based approach, our 10 regional coalitions, 18 mini-grants, and numerous local initiatives, have pooled the resources of more than 1500 community agencies, families and individuals. Each collaborative effort offers education to improve the accessibility of volunteer programs, networking opportunities that result in pipelines of volunteers with disabilities ready to meet the needs of volunteer programs, and action planning to create systemic community change.
Method:
TCSIP strengthens communities by fostering interagency collaboration between volunteer programs and disability related organizations. Working on multiple levels, in multiple regions, we build on strengths and create relationships, birthing strong alliances on a:
1) National level. We united one of the country?s largest disability-related networks, University Centers for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD) and its largest volunteer network, the Hands On Network (HON), to form the Alliance for Inclusion Advancement.
2) State level. Along with California Volunteers we support a state task force that engages major state volunteer and disability agencies. TCSIP partners are active in similar groups in their states.
3) Regional level. TCSIP partners lead coalitions in 10 cities that have brought together more than 1000 community agencies, families and individuals to work towards service inclusion.
4) Local level. TSCIP has seed funded 18 partnerships between neighborhood volunteer organizations and disability groups leading to creative initiatives like the Bellflower USD Green Thumb crew, in which high school students in special education beautify their school.
5) Personal Level. TCSIP activities connect individuals with disabilities with people and places who need their help, like Ryan, a young man with autism, who gained the respect of volunteer coordinators at the Wildlife Sanctuary of NW Florida, when they recognized his astonishing capacity to interact with and take care of eagles and other large birds of prey.
Results:
Improved Program Accessibility. For persons with disabilities to volunteer effectively, they have to work with agencies that are responsive to their desire to contribute as well their needs for support. Persons with disabilities cannot volunteer successfully if they literally can?t get in the door of the volunteer site, or if they are met with uncooperative staff. For these reasons, we help volunteer programs improve their operations so they are more able to successfully recruit and retain volunteers with disabilities. Thus far, we have helped over 450 volunteer programs improve their accessibility to persons with disabilities. These programs have made more than 1000 separate changes. For example, programs have added wheelchair ramps, trained to staff to interact with people with disabilities, made inclusion of volunteers with disabilities part of their strategic plan and added non-discrimination statements on their information materials, among other changes.
Number of Persons With Disabilities Engaged As Volunteers. We have engaged over 4500 persons with disabilities in nearly 65,000 hours of volunteer service. This is an important measure, not only because it was our stated goal, but also because it exposed community agencies and volunteers with disabilities to new experiences that create long-term changes of attitudes and capabilities.
Growth of Relationships Among Key Community Stakeholders. We work with long-standing agencies that engage thousands of volunteers, provide services to thousands of individuals with disabilities, and will continue to do so far into the future. By facilitating relationships between these groups, the community becomes more permanently able to include volunteers with disabilities. We gauge both the quantity and quality of these relationships.
We?ve found that organizations have become better-connected: 68% report success in using the networking opportunities to coordinate volunteer placements, 80% believe the networks have a shared vision and 70% of disability organizations have provided technical assistance to volunteer programs. Also, programs are becoming more internally responsive as between 70-77% report effectively passing on resources and information within their own service structures, and to colleagues and clients (summarizing multiple questions). Finally, they interact in more knowledgeable ways: 87% agreed or strongly agreed that they have increased their knowledge of volunteerism and volunteer opportunities, 87% agreed or strongly agreed that they increased their knowledge of how to include potential volunteers with disabilities in their program.
