Project Description:
Eitas and UMKC-IHD plan to develop a Health Equity Collective that will build grassroots community organizing capacity to address critical health issues affecting individuals with intellectual/developmental disabilities (IDD) in the greater Kansas City metro area. The project will train individuals with IDD, family members and professionals from a range of sectors in grassroots organizing principles and skills. They will collectively identify key issues and develop approaches and action plans to address them. Through the organizing process, participants will learn to mobilize around health policy issues, influence policy decisions, and inject the voice of people with IDD into local health equity efforts.
People with IDD and their advocates will identify policies and issues to be addressed through the grassroots organizing process. However, we anticipate that priority areas might include: a) waitlists for IDD services; b) inclusion of people with IDD and their advocates on local community health coalitions; c) access to primary health care services; d) policies supporting accessible public healthy living resources: e) supported decision-making policies at state and local levels; or f) discrimination/implicit bias in health care systems. In addition to people with IDD and family members, we will engage partners including disability service providers, the Kansas City Health Department, KC CARES Health System, Childrens Mercy Hospital, Greater KC Community Health Worker Collaborative and other health providers. We will measure the following primary outcomes: increased capacity of individuals with IDD to influence health policies that affect them; increased numbers of individuals with IDD engaged in advocacy; increased capacity of Eitas, the Health Equity Collective, and member organizations to advocate for health equity for people with IDD; increased numbers of people with IDD, family members, and direct support workers taking leadership roles in advocacy efforts; and greater inclusion of people with IDD and their needs in broader healthy equity work in the Kansas City area.
