Virginia Integrated Network of Family Organizations, Medicaid Waiver Consumer-Directed Services Facilitator, Consumer-Directed Services Resource Network, Family Support and Self-Determination Network

Parent to Parent of Virginia co-facilitates the Virginia Integrated Network of Family Organizations (VA-INFO) - Virginia's statewide family support coalition. VA-INFO receives funding from the Office of Child and Family Services at the Virginia Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services and from the federal Center on Medicare and Medicaid Services. VA-INFO collaborates and educates on behalf of children and young adults with special needs and their families, and assists them to obtain timely access to information, resources, supports and services. The coalition is committed to building and maintaining strong collaborative partnerships and communication among all interested stakeholders to increase youth and parent involvement in public policy discussion and system improvement. For more information, please visit www.va-info.org

Parent to Parent of Virginia is listed with the Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services as a Consumer-Directed Services Facilitator provider for the Family Support and Developmental Disabilities and the Mental Retardation Home and Community-Based Waivers. Facilitators are responsible for meeting with an individual or family approved for a Waiver to assess their needs; assist them in being their own employer of attendants; and to ensure development and monitoring of their Waiver services plan. For more information, click here.

Parent to Parent of Virginia is a member of the Consumer-Directed Services Resource Network operated by the Partnership for People with Disabilities through the Real Choice Systems Change Grant. Network members provide information to parents, individuals with disabilities, and service providers on self-direction and consumer-directed services in Virginia's Waivers. If you would like to schedule a training on self-direction and/or consumer-directed services, click here (can you put on a link to email me directly).

In 2000, Parent to Parent of Virginia received funding from the Partnership for People with Disabilities at Virginia Commonwealth University and from the office of Mental Retardation at the Virginia Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation, and Substance Abuse Services to start a grassroots legislative education network. The purpose was to educate parents, individuals with disabilities, and elected officials about best practice in family support, including the philosophy of self-determination, and then to use the network to affect systems change. Through this project, the Family Support and Self-Determination Network worked with legislators to support a Bill to pilot a self-determination project and a Bill to introduce a Independence Plus Medicaid Waiver in Virginia.

With the assumption that everyone has a friend or neighbor with a disability, part of the Network's work included the "Friends and Neighbors" legislative initiative. Legislators were asked to carry friend dolls and neighbor dolls (featuring stories from Virginian's with disabilities) as a reminder that every decision they made affects people with disabilities.

Products:

• Community Tool Kit (2000)
  Is comprised of a video (This is Freedom), information on the roles and responsibilities of the family support trainers, and resource materials on family support, self-determination, Medicaid waivers, the legislative process, nuts and bolts of advocacy, telling your story, conducting media campaigns, and state and local disability agencies. TO ORDER
  
• My Choice, My Control, My Community booklet (2001) TO ORDER
  A resource booklet that features:
  • The faces of many of Virginia's children and adults with disabilities
  • Details Virginia's history of not adequately supporting people with disabilities in their communties
  • What advocates can do to affect system's changes
  • Lets us imagine our state disability system founded on the principles of self-determination
    
• Virginia's Friends and Neighbors campaign (2001) TO ORDER
  When Virginia's 140 Senators and Delegates return to Richmond for the General Assembly Session, each will receive either a "friend" or "neighbor." Stories from individuals with disabilities and stories from prarents about their children with disabilities are collected statewide and affixed to large cardboard cutout "friends" and "neighbors." As legislators hear testimony from citizens about issues affecting their lives, and as they attend meetings to vote on laws and state budget, they will carry our friends and neighbors with them.
  
  Why will they carry them? Because every day families make accommodations to their lives to support their family member with a disability. Child care, meaningful adult day activities (like a job or volunteer work), a home, and respite for people with disabilities are difficult to find.
  

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