This is a continuation of Dr. Steven Hall's open letter to Georgia Families about HCBS waivers and public education:

Georgia's new Home and Community Based Medicaid Waivers are prepared
to support children and adults to live, work, and participate in full
community life alongside other citizens who do not have developmental
disabilities. "Places for them," day centers, sheltered
workshops, and taxpayer dollars staying with the government to run
institutions are being replaced and closed all around the United
States, including Georgia.

Instead of facilities, buildings, and other "for the disabled
only" programs, taxpayers are investing in people with developmental
disabilities themselves and want professionals to provide the services
and supports in the real life of the community with everyone else.

Employment is very important. Over 200,000 people with
developmental disabilities, who professionals and parents thought
could never hold a real job, are employed throughout the United States
through a practice known as Supported Employment. In the past, our own
fears and lack of knowledge was the greatest barrier to people having
a real job and becoming taxpayers. In addition to meaningful
productive work, membership in clubs, groups, churches, and
associations is just as important.

Parents do not live forever. This is why I have written this letter
to you. People with disabilities need to be valued members of their
community so they are not solely relying upon their parents for
resources, safety, companionship, and love.

Our children will be successful throughout their adult lives to
the extent that we as parents recognize the importance of their living
alongside others who are different from themselves—not just people
who have similar disabilities, not just people who are paid to be with
them, and not just family members who already love them. I want you
to remember that your son or daughter did not do anything wrong.
People who have never done anything wrong are not put in special
places just for them or excluded in any other way from the workplaces,
groups, or places where all the rest of us live, work, and enjoy
ourselves. Special centers, special classes only for others who have
such disabilities, and any program that takes our children away from
the other children, do not result in people spending the rest of their lives with the rest of us in the real world. All citizens with
disabilities, including those men, women, and children with the most
significant disabilities, should develop relationships with other
citizens and be a valued member of the real world.

Disability World is not the real world. When children begin
their educational lives in rooms and other places separate from
children of the same age, they start down a path that most often ends
as an adult existing outside of where everyone else in society lives,
works, and plays. An adult with a developmental disability who is a
part of, not apart from, society is the result when children are
alongside the other children that they will spend their adult lives
with right from the start.

I hope this letter is helpful. I do not expect you to agree
with everything that I have said and it is you, as your child's
parent, who will always know what is best. If you agree with what I
have said, then many others agree with you, and if you disagree with
me, then you have plenty of company also.

The purpose of this letter is to share my knowledge and
experiences that when children with disabilities are educated
alongside children who do not have disabilities, and it is done right,
then the outcomes as an adult are better. Less support is needed when
they become an adult. People live longer. They are happier.

You are welcome to copy, email, and share this with others. I
am looking forward to working on behalf of your son or daughter
throughout his or her adult life. Please let me know what you think
about what I have said, whether you agree or disagree.
Your opinion matters to me.


Sincerely,
Stephen R. Hall, Ph.D., Director
Georgia Office of Developmental Disabilities

srhall1@dhr.state.ga.us