Meet Our New AAPD Intern: Cheri Montgomery!
I am deeply passionate about advocating with the disability community, and I cannot wait to spend the next few months serving and learning alongside this incredible community.
Home and Community-Based Services give me control of my own life. I can live where I want. My home care staff help me do the things I want to do. Like go to art classes and run my own art website.
I’m tired of begging for crumbs. That’s what people with disabilities and their families do – we beg for scraps of funding from our state and federal governments.
I wanted a good life for Rob: to live with dignity and respect in his community, to attend the public schools and to participate in the same activities that other kids did.
Our family embraces everything about each of my kids–including disability, which we view as just another part of life and parenthood!
Renzo has come a long way since surviving a sudden cardiac arrest with a subsequent anoxic brain injury at age 14.
As the great Congressman John Lewis said, "Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble."
But what about children like mine? Those who are medically complex? Those who are disabled? Those too young to be vaccinated?
I am here today to honor and remember those in our community who have died at the hands of their parents or caregivers.
SDAN has become a voice for participants and their families to ensure that participant choice and control is the mantra in Maryland, and that paid family support is respected and continues to be an option.
Because institutions and nursing homes haven’t gone away, and traditional providers are often struggling to make their own programs more flexible and community-based, there are lots of voices clamoring to be heard in state government deliberations.
We had a high school student from Louisville who had a heart attack on school grounds and was given CPR and he survived. This student testified before the Education Committee.
Danny had cerebral palsy and intellectual disabilities. He lived at home with us until he was 24, until my mother did not have enough help to provide the 24/7 care he needed.