"DISABILITY
MATTERS"
HOST: JOYCE BENDER
GUEST:
MARSHA BLANCO
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Communication
Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in
order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally
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>> Welcome to "disability Matters"
with your host,
Now, the host of "Disability
Matters," here is
>> JOYCE BENDER: Welcome to this show. I have to begin by thanking all of the
listeners for all of the e-mail we have been receiving and all of the call-ins,
which of course we hear from you throughout the world since this show is
replayed in 12 hours. But, you know,
you've got to remember, keep united. As
I said the other day on the air: Right
here in the
And speaking of power, we are really lucky
today, because we have a very powerful person as our guest, someone who
impressed me, really, the first time I met them, and who I have -- any time I'm
at an event about disability, including an event that was at Vice President Gore's
home, it seems as if Marsha Blanco was there also. And she is not only the President and CEO of Achieva, but she is truly a national advocate for Americans
with Disabilities.
And Marsha, it is an honor to have you on the
show.
>> MARSHA BLANCO: Joyce, you are so kind and I wanted to begin
by saying that we are so fortunate to have
>> JOYCE BENDER: Well, that's very kind of you, very kind of
you. Marsha, I know someone like that,
and it's you.
>> MARSHA BLANCO: You're kind.
>> JOYCE BENDER: I know someone like you. And really, what I want to say to all of the
listeners, and I really want you to follow what Marsha has to say, and really hear
about Achieva, because you know she is one person
that I've met -- so many people, unfortunately, sometimes get into vocational
rehab, or they are service providers, and they get so caught up into their own
thing and their own system that they forget about everyone else. And she is one person who is not like
that. She truly is a leader, trying to
make it happen for everyone.
And maybe, Marsha, you could start by telling
our listeners a little bit about Achieva, what Achieva is. I know
that many people here in
I
have to tell you, on their website it says:
"Celebrate abilities:
Exceeding expectations." I
love that.
>> MARSHA BLANCO: Thank you, Joyce. We are Achieva, a
family of companies here in
Over the last number of years we here in
In addition, we have been partnering with
many other organizations, both nationally and statewide here in
Joyce just mentioned that our tag line is
that of "Celebrating abilities: And
exceeding expectations" and all of us here at Achieva
do, in fact, celebrate the abilities of individuals who carry a variety of
labels and hopefully exceeding each and every expectation of both our customers
and that we at Achieva hold ourselves to. We hope to exceed the expectations of all of
our constituents.
Here at Achieva, we
do everything from very, very early work, upon actually sometimes prior to the
birth of a child with disabilities or developmental delays and on through
senior services. Our work includes early
intervention, very near and dear to my heart, Joyce, this is where I began my
career working with very young children with disabilities. This year we will provide early intervention
support under IDEA, to some 2500 babies, from birth through 3 years of
age. And we do that throughout Central
and
This particular program is just the joy of
this entire organization. It's based on
our belief that if we can help families to get over that initial hump of
oftentimes great confusion and very, very strong feelings in perhaps not having
that baby that they expected to have, helping that family to understand that
this child is going to bring great joy to their lives and to the entire life of
their family, we of course provide everything from developmental therapy to
physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech and hearing work, and we do this
all in natural environments; either in the homes or, if the parent would
prefer, a daycare center if that's where the infant is. And it's just a total inclusive family where
we are working with brothers and sisters and parents to help them to become the
great developmental folks that they are going to become in working through
their milestones in their children's lives.
We go on to provide extensive respite
services for children and adults. We
have individual advocates who work in both the educational system as well as
with adults with cognitive and other disabilities. As every one of your listeners understands,
Joyce, we work in a very, very complicated system regarding benefits and
supports that may be available to an individual. And we have a team of advocates who are there
free of charge to assist individuals and their family members for children, and
being sure that folks are accessing the types of supports and services for
which they would be eligible.
We do recreational programming. We do, as Joyce knows, job placement and
vocational services for people on a daily basis. We have residential supports, including
personal assistants, to help individuals who are still living with the natural
family at home as well as individuals who are living in apartments or homes.
We have very specialized services, such as a
program called Esprit, that works with mothers and
fathers who have disabilities and who are raising children at home. And we have a host of learning experience and
support systems to help parents to be the excellent parents that they want to
be.
We have family and individual training
services. We have, of course, a self
advocacy group for young people and adults with disabilities. And we have senior services for individuals,
including going into the typical senior center and providing specialized
support for a person with disabilities who wants to go to a senior center upon
retirement.
And last, but certainly not least, we have a
family trust, where participants without jeopardizing their government benefits
may place private assets and may draw upon their assets in order to augment
supports and services that might otherwise be funded by the government, so that
people can lead a good life that is one that can help them to achieve personal
outcomes.
>> JOYCE BENDER: That is absolutely phenomenal how many
services you're providing. That's
wonderful.
>> MARSHA BLANCO: Well, it's an organization, Joyce, that has
always had as part of its founding philosophy that of innovation. Whenever Achieva
sees a gap in supports and services, when customers come to us feeling that
there is a gap or something that they need, we go out and try to find the
necessary funding to put that together to fill that gap.
>> JOYCE BENDER: So that our listeners know, and we want to
repeat this again later in the show, how do people contact you if they want to
make a donation to your organization?
>> MARSHA BLANCO: Oh, thanks, Joyce. We are easily contacted via e-mail. And that is at: achieva.info. We are also available of course via
telephone. And the central office number
is: 412-995-5000. I can be accessed at extension 401. That number is 412-995-5000. And I myself can be reached at 401.
>> JOYCE BENDER: Marsha, how many people are you working
with? How many people do you serve,
would you say?
>> MARSHA BLANCO: This year we anticipate that 6,200 people
will choose to receive some type of support through Achieva.
>> JOYCE BENDER: 6,000.
That is unbelievable. How many
would you say percentagewise, if you just took a
guess, would be children?
>> MARSHA BLANCO: Something like a third of those individuals are young children. One-third.
>> JOYCE BENDER: As you were talking about earlier on the
show, this is where you get involved with the early intervention. How early?
>> MARSHA BLANCO: Yes.
We actually provide counseling to a mom or dad who may learn through
amniocentesis, for instance, that mom is carrying a child with
>> JOYCE BENDER: Sorry.
What age does that go through?
>> MARSHA BLANCO: And those very intensive therapies go through
three years of age.
>> JOYCE BENDER: Now, you have counselors that you send out or
how do you do this?
>> MARSHA BLANCO: This is all done through specialists, and I
must tell you since early intervention became an included part of IDEA, this is
of course part of our national work, to be sure that young, very young children
with disabilities get a good, strong, healthy start in life. And beautifully, Joyce, knowing that you are
the advocate that you are, this is also for the entire
disabilities community. These are the
next generation of leaders.
>> JOYCE BENDER: Hold on with that thought. We will be right back after the break with
Marsha Blanco, President and CEO of Achieva. We will be right back.
>> You're listening to
VoiceAmerica.Com, the world's leader in Internet talk radio.
>> Welcome back to "Disability
Matters" with
>> JOYCE BENDER: And we are back to the show with Marsha
Blanco. Of course, you can call in at
1-888-335-5204. But in addition as all
my listeners know, you can e-mail us while the show is on to disabilitymatters@benderconsult.com,
during the show, after the show or prior to the show.
So with that, Marsha, we have a question for
you from Sherry in
>> MARSHA BLANCO: Joyce, I still see daily the amount of
prejudice that is out there. The amount of ignorance and misunderstanding of disabilities
issues. I happen to think that
our greatest barrier to full and complete inclusion and the bounties that exist
in all of our local communities is the misunderstanding of others.
We here at Achieva
spend a fair amount of money and a lot of attention on a daily basis to trying
to educate the general public. The day
that I would live to see is when not only the physical barriers, because those
are things that of course we can see and we can litigate and we can correct
those things. But it's the attitudinal
barriers that I think are the greatest challenges for persons with disabilities
and, in many ways, still act to prevent people from just fully living the life
that they want to live in our communities.
>> JOYCE BENDER: And I agree with you, Marsha. As a matter of fact, when I was asked to do
this show, I was allowed to choose or select the sound track. And as my listeners know, the sound track is
"New Attitude" by Patti La Belle.
>> MARSHA BLANCO: Ha-ha.
Yes, ma'am.
>> JOYCE BENDER: And I chose that. To me that's what it
is all about, that we need a new attitude in this country and of course
throughout the world toward quality of life, equality employment for people
with disabilities.
>> MARSHA BLANCO: What we are battling are hundreds, actually
thousands and thousands of years of total misunderstanding, so that I hope and
I do believe in the next generation and the generation following that that we
are going to be breaking down these bad attitudes. I think that one of the most wonderful things
that has occurred in just the last 25 years, and of course it was through a lawsuit
before the Supreme Court of the United States, was to get special education in
place. And more and more so as young
people are now being educated shoulder to shoulder with their peers who do not
have disabilities, we are seeing a real difference in
attitude.
I think that that is going to translate as
this next generation comes into the workplace and become supervisors and
managers, that having gone to school with children, even children with very
significant disabilities, that the doors are going to be much more open to
understanding how to make an adaption here or an
adaptation here or there, in order to allow every adult to fully participate in
the community.
We have only been at this for 50 some years,
and on a bad day I reflect back to what it was like 50 and 60 years ago in
these
>> JOYCE BENDER: Will you repeat to our listeners again when,
in the
>> MARSHA BLANCO: Oh, this was, regrettably, this was under 30
years ago and we here in
We still have a lot of work to do.
>> JOYCE BENDER: I'm so proud that that happened here in
>> MARSHA BLANCO: What an extraordinary comment, yes.
>> JOYCE BENDER: It's only 10 years old. Of course, it's a little longer than that
now. But it was only signed in 1990 and
implemented in 1992, the Americans with Disabilities Act. And it did open the doors for millions of
Americans and people throughout the world that then modeled after that their
own legislation. But nonetheless, we do
still have a long way to go. And that's
why I'm glad we have people like you and organizations like Achieva
helping us do that.
And by the way, how were we so lucky to get
you involved with Achieva, Marsha?
>> MARSHA BLANCO: Aren't you kind even to ask. But I am one of many, many professionals that
grew up with disabilities in my family.
And it was one of those things that I knew from a very early age that I
was going to do with every amount of energy and professional training that I
could get, that I wanted to help to make the world a better place for people
with disabilities. So many of us, of
course, in this field ourselves have disabilities or have immediate or close
family members. And I think that that is
part of what gives us some of that special energy that we have. Don't you think, Joyce?
>> JOYCE BENDER: Absolutely.
I know that in my case, as I tell people -- of course they know, my
listeners, all know I have epilepsy and a hearing loss. And, you know, I tell them. Don't let it be that you have to have an
accident or that it has to be a family member for you to realize that all
people should be included for their ability.
But, unfortunately, just as you mentioned, many times I've noticed that
even in employment that sometimes I'll meet someone and they are so passionate
about employing people with disabilities and then I will find out a son,
daughter, sister, brother, mother or father, a wife or husband has a
disability. And that's why I'm even more
excited when I meet someone who wants to do this and they have no one in their
family with a disability. They just
realize it's a good business decision to do that.
>> MARSHA BLANCO: We call them concerned citizens and civilians
here. Among our 80 some trustees, about
30 outstanding folks from our community choose to assist us with the governance
of this organization. And I, too, am
always amazed when someone has not been affected by a disability him or herself
or through an immediate family member.
And they just come to care about this issue as much as we do.
>> JOYCE BENDER: Uh-huh.
Yes. And we, we call them the
temporarily able-bodied.
>> MARSHA BLANCO: There we go!
I like that, Joyce. I'll use
that. I'll attribute it to you.
>> JOYCE BENDER: Yes.
Now, Marsha, we have a question here for you from
>> MARSHA BLANCO: We are -- I think that IDEA, what we know is
that of course it has never been properly funded. When we say IDEA for all of the listeners, that of course was originally the right to
education for all handicapped children's act.
Now called the Individuals with Disabilities Education
Act, or IDEA. This is a law that
has never been fully funded. About four
years ago we had tremendous movement in Congress. That led all of we who work constantly to
educate our Congress folks starting to see some movement toward more proper
funding of special education.
One of the difficulties is that special
education gets bad mouthed at the local school district level because it has
never been properly funded by the Federal Government. And it is felt sometimes to be a drain on
funding sources that would otherwise go to regular education.
And I think that that causes a lot of
resentment and unnecessary problems at local school district levels. We still have quite a number, although
diminishing in
It's a law very much like the
>> JOYCE BENDER: Hold on one minute with that thought. We will break again and we will be right back
with Marsha Blanco.
>> You're listening to VoiceAmerica.Com. The world's leader in
Internet talk radio.
>> Welcome back to "Disability
Matters" with
>> JOYCE BENDER: And we are talking to Marsha Blanco, the
President and CEO of Achieva, and truly a national
leader in advocacy for the employment of People with Disabilities.
Marsha, we have a question for you here. Jennifer, in
>> MARSHA BLANCO: You know, it's a
great question. And, first of all, we
know that we have the data that says that a person with cognitive disabilities
can do all kinds of work, that we have data from employers throughout the
country that tell us that some of the most consistent of their employees,
consistency in getting to work, consistency in getting the job done, getting it
done right and getting it done on time, are persons with disabilities and
especially people with cognitive disabilities and mental retardation, where the
unemployment rate of course as we well know for people with disabilities in
general, but more specifically for people with cognitive disabilities, hovered
around 90 percent. So we have all of
this wonderful talent with about 3 percent of the general population carrying
that classification or label of cognitive disabilities or mental retardation,
we have this wealth of talent and manpower out there.
You know, I'm one who subscribes to something
that I learned very, very early on from one of our
greats, deceased, Mark Goldmark, training us to
say: Try another way, try another
way. I believe much of this is just
education, putting forth the facts, even asking your employer to give it a
shot, give them four to six weeks and see if this person can be trained to do
the job to the level of proficiency that you want, and I can almost guarantee
you that that will be done.
>> JOYCE BENDER: May I add to that, the company that I own,
Bender Consulting Services, is working on a national project called the
Elizabeth Project, where we want to employ people with cognitive disabilities
into competitive work in the IT area.
And we now have two companies who are interested in the group we are
partnering with, is Achieva,
to make this happen. And I firmly
believe that one of the biggest problems is ignorance. Because, Marsha, I'm sure that you run into
this every day, but have you noticed how, when you talk about people with
cognitive disabilities, that many people who are not educated or informed in
this area have a tendency to immediately put them in certain types of jobs
only?
>> MARSHA BLANCO: Thank you, Joyce. And by the way, the
Yes, and some of this goes back to a previous
question about how IDEA is going. From
14 years of age, a child who is in special education is entitled to
transitional services to help to prepare that young person for real work in the
real world for real pay. Regrettably, I
think that oftentimes our school districts are failing us. They tend to try to pigeonhole young people
with disabilities into only a few fields.
Yes, we have quite a number of people who bag at supermarkets, and yes
we have individuals who might want to go into food service or janitorial
services.
But people with cognitive disabilities are
like all the rest of us. They have a
huge variety of talents and ways in which they would like to express themselves
in the workplace. Unfortunately, there
are just a lot of misperceptions out there about the talents and skills that a
person with cognitive disabilities can bring to any job.
>> JOYCE BENDER: Yes, and just so you know,
this is across the board. Because I know
that I've sent people on interviews, and these are people, for example, from
the deaf community, and the company wanted to know how did they get there? They didn't think deaf people could drive a
car.
>> MARSHA BLANCO: Wow!
>> JOYCE BENDER: So, you know, this is in so many areas. But I have to say that unfortunately the
unemployment rate is so extremely high in this area. And that is why it's so important that we all
really work together in this area to include all people with disabilities when
we are looking at employment in different areas.
And, by the way, I'll tell you because many
of my listeners know The Honorable Tony Coelho, he has been on the show and he
will be again. He is involved with this
>> MARSHA BLANCO: What a wonderful person. I'm so delighted to be in the company of some
of your guests, Joyce.
>> JOYCE BENDER: Well, of course you would be, with all the
great things you are doing. And you know
with that IDEA, I mean, do you think that we are going to have problems with it
continuing on?
>> MARSHA BLANCO: I don't think so. I think that special education is now firmly
entrenched. When we understand the
amount of prejudice that of course has existed and that we have only had some
25 years to begin the process of exploring instructional techniques to help
every child to reach their full potential through education, I don't think that
there is -- we have never felt any threat from Congress on retrenchment of
IDEA. We do and we are currently involved
in reauthorization that, you know, there are efforts to chip away at some of
the basics and fundamentals of IDEA.
However, I've got to give tremendous credit
to the disabilities community. And
forgive me, I need to mention the ARC of the
The ARC had shown leadership not only on
IDEA, but on so many of these very, very important legislative pieces that we
need to have in place. And we here at Achieva are pleased to have two ARC chapters that are
members of the Achieva family. And what a great, great job nationwide these
1,000 chapters of the ARC do in assuring that we not only maintain those benefits
that have been put in place, but to continue to improve those benefits.
>> JOYCE BENDER: And what do they have? Do they have a similar organization in other
parts of the world, such as
>> MARSHA BLANCO: Yes.
And, in fact, we have sister organizations in Canada, in New Zealand,
throughout the world, that regularly communicate not only on a research basis,
but assist each other in developing the legislation and public policy that we
know will some day allow all people with disabilities to fully participate in
their local communities.
>> JOYCE BENDER: I have another question for you here,
Marsha. And I -- as I always tell our
listeners, I cannot read every question that is sent to us, but we have a
question here, another question from
Some school systems are not as good as others
about accommodating people with cognitive disabilities. What advice do you have for parents who are
running into these roadblocks?
>> MARSHA BLANCO: Well, number one, what we try to do in local
school districts is to have groups, family groups, for the parents of children
with disabilities in a given school district.
The person who is asking this question is absolutely correct. It's a quilt, and you have some districts
that have simply embraced inclusion and are doing an unbelievable job with
every child in that district. You have
other districts that, frankly, don't do such a great job.
Here at Achieva we
do have a team of educational advocates.
Again, these services are free of charge to any family, and if a family
is having either a problem in developing or having implemented the proper
individual education plan for their child, they need only call. Again, that is 412-995-5000. We can provide individual assistance,
including going with the parents to their EIP.
And we will take things directly, if necessary, through due process for
families.
It is interesting, and this is a phenomenon
throughout the country, the implementation of IDEA is not at all level, a level
playing field, and when folks are moving here to Pittsburgh we are oftentimes
the organization that will get a call if the family has a child with
disabilities. They will often determine
where they are going to live based upon the supports and services that they can
get from a local school district. And we
have, again, several districts that are just excellent and it is also the case
that those districts tend to have larger numbers of children with disabilities
in the district, because we refer to those districts that do things really
well.
>> JOYCE BENDER: Wow, that is
excellent. Well, Marsha, when you were
talking earlier you mentioned just briefly about, you know, people going to
special schools versus being included, mainstreamed with everyone. But in addition to that, I have a question
for you. I mean, we have made so much
progress, but where are we in the
>> MARSHA BLANCO: The simple answer would be too many! The progress in the area of
deinstitutionalization has been actually quite phenomenal. Here in
We here in
>> JOYCE BENDER: Hold on one minute. Keep that thought. We will be right back with Marsha Blanco.
>> You're listening to
VoiceAmerica.com. The world's leader in Internet talk radio.
>> Welcome back to "Disability
Matters," with
>> JOYCE BENDER: Welcome back to the show. We are here with Marsha Blanco, President and
CEO of Achieva, and someone who I look up to very
highly. Marsha, before we went to break,
once again going back to the institutions where people with cognitive
disabilities are still residing, approximately how many did you say there were
in
>> MARSHA BLANCO: At one time we had over 12,000 individuals in
our publicly run institutions and we are down to about 3,000 people today. As I was saying, Joyce, the great news is
these numbers continue to go down nationwide.
And we now have a number of states, a growing number of states, that are institution free zones.
>> JOYCE BENDER: Wow!
>> MARSHA BLANCO: The state legislature has completely
committed itself to community supports and services for all people with
cognitive disabilities.
Joyce, I was hoping that we could touch on
one other thing, and that is one of the more exciting and newer things that we
are doing here at Achieva.
The company is called The Family Trust.
>> JOYCE BENDER: Yes.
Please talk about that.
>> MARSHA BLANCO: Thank you.
This is something that we designed about five years ago in line with
action that was taken by the Congress of the
What does this mean? It means that unlike in previous years when
families would purposefully disinherit, for instance, a son or daughter, that
an individual could not earn above a given amount of income or have assets in
excess of about $2,000 in their name, those days are now gone. And we are trying to get the word out
throughout the country that pooled trusts are now an option. An individual family member, including
parents and grandparents, can place funds, private funds, into again a properly
constructed pooled trust for the individual's use in whatever way they would
want to use those assets at any time in the future. And funds placed, private funds placed in a
properly constructed family trust will not be an offset for the individual for
any government supports and services for which they would be eligible.
>> JOYCE BENDER: And just so you understand when you're
listening to the show, this means that someone with a severe disability, a
cognitive disability, they would be in a situation where, as Marsha mentioned,
they would have to be disinherited; they would not be able to receive this
money from their family. Or if they did,
there would no longer be any services provided to them. What a terrible thing.
>> MARSHA BLANCO: That is correct.
>> JOYCE BENDER: What a terrible thing. And The Family Trust, Marsha, what is it
worth today?
>> MARSHA BLANCO: We have over 700 participants from four
states. And the assets that people have
placed in this trust for use by their family member now totals over $12
million.
>> JOYCE BENDER: So, that's wonderful.
>> MARSHA BLANCO: And of course we have funding coming in and
out on a regular basis. We are building
homes for individuals. Folks are taking
vacations to visit relatives across the country that they haven't seen in many
years. It allows people to lead the life
that they want to lead without jeopardizing any government benefits.
>> JOYCE BENDER: And if you live in another state then and you
wanted to be involved with this, what do you do?
>> MARSHA BLANCO: Yes.
You can simply contact us, once again, through www.achieva.info. Or call the toll free number, which is
888-272-7229. The individual who is the
President of our local family trust is an attorney, Kathleen Hendricksen, and we pledge that she or her team will get
back to you immediately to give you the ins and outs of participation in The
Family Trust.
>> JOYCE BENDER: And for Marsha to continue doing this great
work, which to me is liberating people with disabilities and providing them
quality of life and really hitting your vision statement, "Celebrate
Abilities, and Exceeding Expectations," they are doing that. But you know for her to do that, if you are a
corporation listening or a business person, since many of my listeners are in
the business community, you know, this is a good organization to make a
contribution to. Because
without funds, it's difficult to keep moving forward.
If you are a parent of a child with a
cognitive disability, you know, this is the type of organization that you need
that can help you so much. So I would
encourage all of you, remember, everyone needs help. Make a contribution. And again, Marsha, repeat where someone would
make a contribution to?
>> MARSHA BLANCO: They could call the toll free number: 888-272-7229.
In
I think the most exciting things in our field
right now are those things that are totally innovative. And they are coming from self advocates and
family members. These are folks who have
that vision of what the next generation of supports ought to look like.
And we pride ourselves here at Achieva of being associated, also, with the Council on
Quality and Leadership. That is, of
course, the international accrediting body that now has these beautiful
standards that are outcome based. That's
where the whole field is going to head, so that individuals in a highly
self-determined way can decide how they want to live their lives, what they
want to do to bring their talents and abilities to the table, and we exist to
simply help people find the way to do that.
>> JOYCE BENDER: Well, Marsha, I want to thank you for taking
your time to be the guest on our show.
You know, if you're listening to this show, it will be archived at
www.benderconsult.com. Marsha, it was a
pleasure having you. And every show,
Marsha, every show, we end with a quote.
And today the quote is from Former Governor Thornburgh, who said: "The
>> Voice
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