NYS Developmental Disabilities Planning Council (DDPC) awards $60,000 to NYSACRA

George E. Fertal, Sr., Chairperson, today announced that on December 11, 2008 the New York State Developmental Disabilities Planning Council (DDPC) awarded $60,000 to the New York State Association of Community and Residential Agencies (NYSACRA) to support intensive technical assistance and training for a provider institute on individualized supports for persons with developmental disabilities.

A major obstacle to people achieving greater self-determination has been provider capacity to assist individuals in creating self-directed lives. To help overcome this obstacle a provider institute, called the Individualized Supports Learning Institute, was started that would help providers learn innovative new ways to help people attain greater self-determination The Individualized Supports Learning Institute is designed to encourage learning with peers to provide experts who will lead discussions on implementing individualized supports. Participants will learn different ways of doing things and increase their commitment to individualized supports so that they can use what they have learned to benefit the individuals they serve. New individual service designs will be developed through the Learning Institute that will help people to lead more independent lives. It will create a learning community that will allow participants to explore new ideas and possibilities to foster innovation and lead to organizational change that will lead to better lives for people with disabilities.

Pat McKay, Associate Executive Director at NYSACRA, comments on the role being played by the Learning Institute in improving individualized supports. "NYSACRA's Learning Institute is truly a journey of partners along a path to innovative, individualized supports, bringing together community providers, self-advocates, and government. There are so many day-to-day, pressing demands on providers that keep them in the zone of "business as usual." Yet the fifteen agencies who embarked on this journey in October, 2007 were courageous enough to challenge themselves to think and act differently. They've developed new relationships with the people they support and their families; they've asked new questions and had new conversations; they've visited innovative agencies around the state and witnessed first-hand some lives of distinction. The work of innovation is very hard, and it is never done, so the Institute will keep supporting these pioneer innovators with ongoing technical assistance and feedback. NYSACRA is committed to expanding opportunities for quality, person-centered, customer-directed supports and services."

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.