Email Your Elected Leaders

Email Subject: (to copy: Highlight & use ctrl+c, or right click and choose "copy")
Protect Employment/Service Choice for Persons with Disabilities

I am an advocate for persons with disabilities. I want to make sure you know how important Wisconsin’s Community Rehabilitation Programs (CRPs) are to thousands of Wisconsin citizens with disabilities and their families. Like all workers, people with disabilities have a wide range of skills and talents and should have the right to choose what they do and where they do it. Wisconsin’s CRPs provide a number of employment options to people with disabilities by working hard every day to place as many people as possible in community-based jobs and to provide a supportive alternative for those who have not yet found a job or choose not to work in the community for any number of valid reasons. Please make sure that persons with disabilities, along with their families/caretakers, can continue to choose the employment option that best meets their needs, abilities, and goals. While some people with significant disabilities thrive in community jobs, and CRPs work hard to arrange those opportunities when appropriate, the reality is some people do not. We need to maintain choices for these individuals. That’s why I’m concerned about the growing call for Wisconsin to adopt an Employment First policy for people with disabilities, without recognizing there are other valid employment options. While I agree with the idea that persons with disabilities should have many more opportunities for complete integration and acceptance in the community, I am troubled by a policy that that would use a “one size fits all” approach that eliminates choices made as a part of a person-centered plan. Here in Wisconsin we have started to see a disturbing trend for adults with disabilities who have worked for years in center-based programs who are now facing ultimatums from Managed Care Organizations to get community-based jobs by a certain date or lose their prevocational services. These kinds of ultimatums are not consistent with the employment choices afforded to people with disabilities by the Medicaid program, which are supposed to be driven by a person-centered plan, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. We do not dictate choice for non-disabled adults, so how can we in all fairness dictate where a person should work to the disabled and their families? Persons with disabilities depend on CRPs to provide a continuum of employment opportunities that will provide a future that is meaningful and productive. Their families and caretakers depend on CRPs for those same reasons. I urge you to pass legislation that guarantees that persons with disabilities and their families/caretakers will be able to choose the employment/service option in Family Care that best meets their needs. I also encourage you to visit your local CRP and see for yourself how our fellow citizens with disabilities contribute to their own well being and the economy. Sincerely, Your Name Your address with zip code