 Green Mountain Support Services to empower neighbors with disabilities to be home in the community. Major support also includes Washington County Mental Health, where hope and support come together. Ala Israel. All people know limits. Hello and welcome to this edition of Able to Donor, the one and only program that, uh, for the last eight seasons has been focusing on the needs, concerns, and achievements of the definitely Able, both in Vermont and beyond. We would like to thank our sponsors, Green Mountain Support Services, empowering people with disabilities to be home in the community, Washington County Mental Health, Ala Israel, and OSAM products Israel. With us to discuss many, many important topics involving people with special needs is Joshua Smith, Executive Director of Green Mountain Support Services. Welcome to Able to Donor again. Thank you Lawrence and thank you Arlene for having me come back. Yep. And we wanted to, uh, you asked me to come in and talk a bit about our cerebral palsy conference. Yes. We, we host, uh, that we were able to put on every year. It's our fourth annual cerebral palsy conference. And it originally started as, uh, as a dream of, uh, and the cerebral palsy conference started originally as, um, one of the people we provide services for, Jimmy, who always wanted to go to a cerebral palsy conference. So we said, yeah, sure. And there was none in Vermont. Well, we said, sure, that's easy. We can, we can totally do that, you know? And so we did some research and found out that the closest cerebral palsy conference is in California. The second closest, well, and then the second. It has New York, too. They had, you know, cerebral palsy conferences. They haven't for, they, we, they, if they did, they, they haven't had them in the past decade or so. So then we also looked at the, the second closest one was in, was in, uh, London. There's nothing on the entire East Coast to actually, uh, a conference that specializes in, in working and promoting and people sharing ideas that, that involve cerebral palsy. Right. So we started off very local. We started off, we did it in Morrisville for the first couple of years. Then we decided to open it up a little bit larger. And we had it in, uh, to all of Vermont and, uh, and we had that in, uh, last year in Stowe. And we just got consistent, consistent, uh, push from other people that are, that live with or people who work around cerebral palsy wanted it to be more accessible for, for the greater New England area. So this year we're actually having it host in Hartford, Connecticut. Wow. And, and in Hartford, Connecticut. Because it's close or? We're looking for a place that's accessible for the most amount of people. So the most amount of people in, in the East Coast, because everybody, everybody that we talk to that, as I say that, that either has cerebral palsy or who, or who works around or wants to learn more about cerebral palsy, the closest place for, for a conference is in California. So we, we, we found that the, that, you know, you always look when you do conferences, looking for destination places that you want to find a place that's easily accessible. A place with an airport or a place as a train station. A place that, that, that is, that is, as I say, easiest for, for people to go to. And one of those, you're talking about your, your big hub places like your Boston, your New York, your D.C. and, uh, your Hartford. So there's some of these places that actually is easy to get to that actually has an airport near Bihua and also has a pretty good train station nearby. We want to kind of still keep it within, you know, or close in our geographic area. And so we're, we're very fortunate enough to connect with the, the Holiday Inn in Hartford, Connecticut. And we're going to have it on October, October 7th. They're providing accommodations for people as well? They have, they, there's discounts for people who are there. We, we, we booked, we blocked out, it's called like blocking off some rooms. So we have some rooms that are blocked off for people to be able to, for people to get a significant discount to, to stay there if they're coming for the conference itself. And, and we're also very fortunate to have Michael Bordelotto who is, who it's, who's going to be our new keynote speaker and he's from, he's from Canada. He's, he's a, he's a very well known, he's a very well known, a motivational speaker. He's had books written out and everything like that. And he's had a lot of things that are able for, and we reached out to him because we knew that he would be a great addition to, to our, to our guest speaker list for the area. And so he's, he's flying in, he's from the western part of Canada. So he's coming in and he's going to be our keynote speaker. And we are also very fortunate to have Advanced Wheels which is a company based out of Connecticut that provides mobility, mobility options for, for people that are in wheelchairs. They actually have some very good accessible vans and they are a premier, they are a premier place to go to if you're looking for either to trying to buy accessible vans or via the rent or being able to provide some of those, some of those assistances to get around with. So they are our platinum sponsor this year and we're very grateful to them. We also have, we also have some great breakout sessions that are coming. Explain for people who don't know what's a breakout session. So usually when you go to a conference you'll have a keynote speaker who will kind of do the, the initial discussion that might last for either an hour to 90 minutes of, of talking about the, the theme of advocacy that we're having this year. Talking about self-advocacy and advocacy is going to be, is, is our basically kind of one of our major themes this year. And, and he'll be talking about that. Then we're going to have some breakout sessions. After that it'll be these, these little presentation and sessions that we're going to have nine total this year. Which is, which is a, Everything to do with cerebral palsy? Yeah, all about how, so, and the people who come to these events that come to our, our conference are mostly folks that, that as I say that have cerebral palsy who are, who might be parents, guardians or friends of people with cerebral palsy or it could be people who support people with cerebral palsy. And, and we see now in our fourth year, we have, it looks, we still have people that came years before coming back again. So it's almost a point where people use, utilize this time as almost a reunion atmosphere to say, hey, I didn't see you since last year. So it was this, this opportunity for people to come together again. And, and what we're, what we're talking about, so these breakout sessions are these sessions where they, they're, they're smaller, smaller presentations that are often to some other rooms that specialize in a, in any specific chosen topics. We have coming there where we have about, as you said, we have about nine breakout sessions. We have some pretty large agencies that are nationally recognized agencies that are, that are, that are hosting some of those. We have that, that NADSP, which we've talked to about before, the National Alliance for Direct Support Professionals and John Raphael, who's the Director of Education and Training there. He's coming in and he's going to be talking about informed decision-making. We also have, we also have John Quinn, who was our keynote speaker from the year before. Oh, you remember, he wrote that book. Yeah, he wrote a book, award-winning author who has cerebral palsy. He was in the military and he's done a lot of great things. He's coming back to do a keynote speak. He's coming out to do that as well, not a keynote speak, sorry, as a breakout session. Oh, wow, that's something. Yeah, and we also have, we also have Roy Gerstenberger, who's from First Person Services. What's First Person Services? He's also, it's a consulting training group that works with people with intellectual disabilities, works with agencies to, to learn about, you know, to learn and teach about person-centered thinking practices and teaching person-centered thinking skills. And he's going to be doing something along the lines of doing a breakout session on how to promote choice and how to promote choice for people with intellectual disabilities and to help people learn that, you know, people are people and treat, and learning how to create this attitude that, you know, being in charge of your own decision-making, being in charge of your own life. Being in fact that I have cerebral palsy, you know, there used to be, this is a personal opinion question, there used to be like telethons years ago and people used to feel sorry for people with special needs. What is the misconceptions around people with special needs when people first meet them, you know, going to conferences, being professional, etc.? Well, I think the main piece of it too is that ultimately is that we live in a diverse community. We live in a, the diversity only makes us stronger as a community. Is that when you see people from different backgrounds and different abilities and different things, we learn more about ourselves and we learn more about our community and we learn more that diversity makes our, the places we live much more enriching. And so this is the point that I consistently bring home is that the consistently talk about is that the more we expose ourselves to new ideas and new backgrounds and meet new people, the more it becomes normal to know that everybody has their own story. Because like I said years ago, I mean the norm took them up the norm. You know, what is the norm anymore? The norm is putting a person away in an institution locking away the key. Oh, you can't take care of them, you got to put them away. Yeah, so that's the whole point is that everybody needs to be integrated with each other and it's good to have, it's good to have perceived like you have, you know, your own, that it's the same thing, it doesn't matter what religion you are or background, what country you're from, you know, what level of ability you have. Everybody should have the same amount of access and connections to their neighborhood and their community and their neighbors and everybody else. So it's, you know, and talking about that, you know, disability prejudice is one of the last, you know, prejudices that we haven't really faced and talked about. You know, we talked about issues of, we talked about issues of, you know, sexual orientation, race, gender, religion and different ethnic backgrounds but we also got to realize that prejudices and disabilities is something that we still have to address and the best way to address this is making sure that we make sure everybody, no matter what your ability, no matter as I say what your background, everybody should feel safe and connected and do things in their own community and that's what self-advocacy and one of the points we talked about today that we talked about in our breakout sessions, really focusing on advocacy, self-advocacy. We have Katrina Hazel who is now the- Miss Wheelchair. Miss Wheelchair, Miss Wheelchair New York and that's based off of, and that's, and she's the 2018 Miss Wheelchair New York and they're going to be- 2019. 2018, the 2019 one is happening, I think. I apologize. Yeah. And the biggest thing about that is that the Miss Wheelchair New York is being very, the thing about Miss Wheelchair New York is being very specific. It's not a beauty pageant. It's what it is, it's based off of what your abilities and what you're bringing to and type of advocacy and facilitation that you're doing to work within your community and that's what the judgment is on that with the Miss Wheelchair New York. We also have the Connecticut Children's Medical Center coming in talking about occupational therapy. They're going to be doing a session. Storyhouse 28, which is an agency- I've heard of them. Yes, Storyhouse 28. They are the ones that we worked with to do our cerebral palsy book, a graphic novel anthology. And they are coming in- You want to talk about that? Yeah, we can talk about that later. And what they're doing, they're coming in here talking about advocacy and storytelling and how to actually tell your story, do some self-aggravity work in a comic book form, a graphic novel form, which is very popular these days. Kids are reading graphic novels. Kids are really reading illustrated books. Kids are reading the comic books. And being able to tell your story in that format is really important. So they're going to be doing a breakout session on that. I mean, we also have Juliana Featherman, who she's the director of, and she made this thing called Making Authentic Friendships. She's making an app on how to reach out and make real friendships based off of people who have similar likes and interests, not based off of people- A dating site? No, this is a dating site. It's making authentic friendships and based off of- because what you do is you see people that work within this that might be getting services within an agency model, they're surrounded by more paid supports than they're getting surrounded more by paid supports than they are by natural supports. And being able to reach out and find people that are some true friendships is super important. And then we also have Rad Innovations coming in and they're the ones that have a lot of things about adaptive cycling, ways to get out about and ways to be part of a community. Adaptive cycling is a big thing, especially with tandem bikes and others. And there's plenty, and they're going to be talking about all these ways. So it's from a technology perspective and from a perspective of being able for people to connect so much easily with people with how we are with the internet and technology and sciences progressing. So basically your conference, because it's a larger area, and you're having what you call it a conference or what you call it an expo, because there is a disabilities expo. There is, and we go to the abilities expo. And we do have 20 plus exhibitors as well that are going to be out there as well. So we do have some people who are actually there as providing some exhibitor space. And as I said, we do have an also Abledon Air. We've sponsored your event, yeah. You are one of the sponsors this year, so we really appreciate that. And we'll be showing some of your work as well there with an exhibitor table. But yeah, so I mean, we're really excited about it. We have our, and as of this recording, we still have some time, but I think once this is put, that our Early Bird Registration ends September 3rd. So I think by the time this airs, it'll be past that Early Bird Registration, but, or maybe not. And so, but after that, we are, our registrations are filling up. Is it still, are you still allowed to get sponsors for your event, despite? It'll probably be a couple weeks beforehand because then we want to make sure, at least in our literature, to make sure that somebody's a sponsor. October, October 7th. Yeah, October 7th, yeah. Okay, so, who are some of your sponsors this year, besides us? No, with that, we have, I mentioned Advanced Wheels is our Platinum sponsor. And please check them out. They do great stuff. They're one of the premier agencies out of Connecticut that actually provide accessible vehicles for people with disabilities. Are you having any wheelchair companies? Yeah, we do. We have Mobility Works is there. We're going to have them there. We checked the list, but we have, definitely, we have Vermont Adaptive Sports is going to be there as well. Oh, yeah, we had one time a picnic. I had one when kayaking in that kayak. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, we've had some of your guests that you've mentioned. But yeah, how important is conferences like this besides, you know, just how important is it to getting the word out for services for people with disabilities? I think it's really important. I think it's, and too, from the public perspective, it's important for people to know the importance of having conferences that are specialty in this sense. So from the public perspective, it's really important. What's also important is that for people to that, that, you know, it gives people who have cerebral palsy a chance to learn more about how they can do more advocacy. It gives them an opportunity to share their story, very much allow them to kind of sit down and share their story, to help them out to be, you know, stronger self-advocates. And it's also great for people who that work with people with cerebral palsy to be able to learn more about what other resources are out there or what types of trainings that they might be able to do as well. So it's a great, and as I said, we get people that are coming back every year to the point where they just mean so much for them to, you know, they make new friends the year before and they come back and they're able to connect again with and seeing them again. And that's really ultimately what we feel it's the most important thing that we do that we can have people take away from is that they're able to make lifelong connections or that their lives are changed based off of the people they've met through networking or learning something new. So to go backwards for a minute, for those that don't know, what are the missions and goals of your agency and for people that want to get involved with your agency? Yeah. So our mission, our mission is to make sure that ultimately that our job is to make sure people have more natural supports in their lives and paid supports in their lives. We don't do congregate settings. We don't do segregated settings. Why? We truly believe it's not, you don't segregate everybody with glasses in one end of the town. You don't segregate everybody who is, we don't segregate everybody who has, that are hearing impaired to another side of the town. You don't segregate people that are all of one color or one race or background to one side of the town. Yeah. So why would you segregate people who have an intellectual disability to one certain specific area, to sequester them and make them not integrated into the community that they're a part of? Yeah, that makes sense. How long has your agency been? We've been around for over 30 years. Okay. And this is your 30th year? Yeah. No, we're past 30. We were... 31. Last year, 31 or 32 now. Okay. Was your agency under a different name before Green Mountain Support? Because I know it was Sterling... Yep, it was. It was under a different name for a few years. Yep. It was called Sterling Area Service. Was it the same mission or has the mission changed? Yeah, it's probably, it's always been the same. It's always been the same. We've been providing very person-centered supports and we're very proud of the work that we've done over the years. Okay. All right. So is anyone from Green Mountain Support Services going to be there to talk about what your agency provides? Yes, absolutely. I mean, we have at least between 20 or 30 people from our own agency coming down there because they're part of the process of how growing the program and how growing the conference. And anybody that's been on that committee, we make sure that we're able to provide them with all the support they can to have them come down to it as well. Okay. That's good. Last question. Well, second to last. Being the factor, we're in this current administration. Yeah. And services are being cut on a daily basis for people with special needs. What's one or several things you can tell any political person that is, you know, on how important services for people with special needs is? So I think what our job is as an agency is to be sure that to be very honest, politicians don't listen to people that work for agencies. No. Because I think there might be a level of self-interest in saying why. So ultimately what it comes down to is advocates, self-advocates to tell them how important those services are to them. Because they could very easily say this is a great system, or they can say how it works now needs to be changed. But ultimately what it is that our job is to make sure that we support people to be their own, to be self-advocates. Being able to give them that, provide them with that support. A lot of work that both of you do here I think speaks volumes to being able to be a voice and being able to... Because with a lot of voice, I'll give you a prime example, 20 plus years ago when I created this type of media, news only gets a small amount. Why not interview people for half an hour, 40 minutes? You need to get the whole story, not just a half. So yeah, and ultimately it's that the voiceless never get, never have the rights they deserve. So in being sure to have, we have about, I can't remember, in Vermont I think it's maybe 7,000 people that have intellectual disabilities. If all 7,000 of those people are able to have a shared voice and do some advocacy and being able to help to explain how they would prefer to be, how they would prefer to how they want their lives to be like and how they want things, those are scary, so much more voices, so much more weight than all the employees of nonprofits or state agencies that get together and talk. Because it means so much more to having self-advocates talk and that's what our job as an agency is making sure that people have that support. Giving a voice to those who can't. Yeah, yeah. Pretty much. Well, anything you want to say? Well, we would like to thank you for joining us on this edition. It's always a pleasure having our sponsors start by and give new things. Is there any, besides your conference, is there anything new that's happening with Green Mountain Support Services? We're doing a lot of in-house training. We're training some a lot, a lot, two more people into being person-centered thinking skills, trainers, and so which will give us as Green Mountain Support Services putting our values to work, meaning that we truly believe that we work with the person, not a diagnosis. We work with people to ensure that they have full lives and that you're treated with dignity and respect. And so with that said, we're going to have the most people trained in person-centered thinking in the state out of our agency. We are also, as I said, the big thing is, as I said, a cerebral palsy conference. We also have a pretty robust and strong brain injury program. Which we have been on for that. A nursing program. Yep. A very strong nursing program to support people. And this is what I love about our nurses. Nurses are amazing. Is that they make it clear they work with people, not patients. Patients, patients... People first, not. Well, but then if you work, that we work with people. We don't work with patients because they're not in hospitals. So, and working with people that people need supports, just because you're taking a medication doesn't mean you're a patient. And I'm sorry for the trouble. One of the main, in terms of words. This is a big thing. Years ago, there used to be client, consumer. I don't like those words. Why not call this person? Yep. Yep. What is your take on that? Yeah, exactly. We always make it a point to say that the people we provide services for make it a very point because, as I say, when you label, when you label, you created them. Explain. So, for instance, if you say the... The man with cerebral palsy. No, but even that, but just, you know, it's putting... He has. But if you create a term where you're announcing that the person is different than you, you then created them instead of an us. So, the point is, even in our mission statement that we say we empower our neighbors with disabilities to be at home in the community. We don't say we empower clients with disabilities or we empower people with disabilities because all of a sudden you are now creating a segregation in the terms. But if you say empowering our neighbors, you've already included everybody together. So that's why that mission statement is so powerful. You know, empowering our neighbors with disabilities to be... So it's nothing... We're not talking about people who are far away. We're not talking about... We're talking about empowering our neighbors with disabilities to be at home in the community because there's a sense of ownership that we all belong. Inside the neighborhood, everybody who lives in that neighborhood so... And it's up to people on the individual basis to decide whether they want to be a part of their own neighborhood. But it's not up to us to make that decision to say you don't belong here. Everybody who lives on your street belongs on that street. Everybody who lives in your town belongs in that town. And to say that... Yes, the same thing. Years ago they used to have... In my backyard. Everybody... I sat on a couple of community boards. Why can't a group home be in an area? Don't be scared of a particular group just because they have disabilities. And that's something the two of the agreement supports. We don't do group homes. We don't believe in it. Because the very fact is, hypothetically speaking, you're in Burlington and you say, I'm building. Boom. All of a sudden it's called the autism house. And people start labeling you with autism instead of labeling people as... People with mental health. You love to collect rocks. This guy is employee of the year at the local supermarket or whatever. So people have their own identities in there. But when you start labeling and putting, segregating people based off of a disability, it's a form of prejudice. Thank you for joining us on this edition of Abled and Unair. If you want to get in touch with Abled and Unair to sponsor the cerebral palsy conference, where can they... So come to gmssi.org all of our information on there. Our cerebral palsy conference there's a big picture on the front. Click on that and you get all your information on there. It's never too late to sponsor the cerebral palsy conference because we did. And we would like to thank Green Mountain Support Services for everything they've done for Abled and Unair and continue to do for the special needs community. This puts an end to this edition of Abled and Unair. I'm Lauren Seiler. I'm Arlene Seiler. But before we go we would like to thank our sponsors Green Mountain Support Services Washington County Mental Health OSEM foods and all that as well. This puts an end again to Abled and Unair. I'm Lauren Seiler. I'm Lauren Seiler. See you next time. Major support for Abled and Unair. Green Mountain Support Services to empower neighbors with disabilities to be home in the community. This also includes Washington County Mental Health where hope and support come together. Allah Israel. All people know limits.