NYS Developmental Disabilities Planning Council Announces Grants

ALBANY, NY (03/24/2008)(readMedia)-- New York State Developmental Disabilities Planning Council (DDPC) awards $150,000 to the Self-Advocacy Association of New York State (SANYS) and $96,000 to the New York State Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities.

George E. Fertal, Sr., Chairperson, today announced that on March 13th, 2008 the New York State Developmental Disabilities Planning Council (DDPC) awarded funds to the New York State Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities (OMRDD) to put People First through Self Direction and to the Self-Advocacy Association of New York State (SANYS) to promote and expand self-directed and individualized supports in New York State.

For the past four years, the DDPC has collaborated with the Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities (OMRDD) and SANYS to develop the OMRDD Self-Determination Program. The intent of this program is to assist individuals to develop and administer most aspects of their own services exclusive of a single service provider. The Self-Determination service grew from a modest first year to a successful project characterized by increasing consumer and family interest and exponential growth. The popularity of the program has sparked a re-evaluation of other programs and offered a real example of including people with developmental disabilities in all aspects of planning their own lives. Over 400 individuals statewide are benefitting from this service option, many of whom are already hiring their own staff, managing their own budgets, and living highly successful and satisfied lives.

The funding going to SANYS will be used to help an individual work through the We Have Choices training. The We Have Choices training was designed to provide training in specific areas that individuals will need to live more independent lives. The training sequence and content are broken into four life areas, home, friends, work and health and investigate those areas the individual wants to explore.

OMRDD will help build capacity to deliver self-directed services through building provider skills to help people control their own services and budgets. It will also address equity issues by proposing ways to share information on successful practices related to self-directed services, and will help to strengthen participant ability to better understand and manage their service options.

SANYS and OMRDD both expressed praise for the program. “We’re pleased to receive these funds since they allow us to continue the valuable work of putting people first through self-direction and leveraging even more self-directed services as part of our strategic imperative to transform our service system and rebalance the portfolio of services to better meet demand,” said OMRDD Commissioner Diana Jones Ritter. “People participating in the pilot project report very high levels of satisfaction, feel more in control of their lives, and enjoy the choice of staff and other service providers that the individualized budget allows. A key goal of our work at OMRDD is to help the individuals we support live richer lives within their communities. This service option goes a long way toward providing the kind of independent, choice-driven services people with developmental disabilities want and deserve.” David Liscomb, SANYS board president, commented on the success of the self-determination program by saying that “individualized support feels like a life, not a program.”

The DDPC is a federally funded state agency dedicated to designing and implementing new programs that serve New Yorkers with Developmental disabilities and their families in the most effective way possible. Sixty percent of the Governor-appointed membership of the DDPC is parents and people with developmental disabilities. For more information on the DDPC, go to: www.ddpc.state.ny.us.