Transcript of “Rights
Here, Rights Now –
Episode 27: All About
Centers for Independent Living with Liz Kumar from ENDependence
Center of Northern Virginia, Inc!”
Produced
by the disAbility Law Center of
Virginia.
[INTRO]: The
information provided on this podcast does not, and is not
intended to, constitute legal advice. Instead, all information, content
and materials available are for general informational purposes only.
[REN]: Welcome
to Right Here, Right Now!, a podcast about disability
advocacy and activism. I'm your Advocate host, Ren Faszewski.
[VIRGINIA]: And I'm
your Advocate host, Virginia Pharis.
[REN]: Every
two weeks we dig into to relevant issues, current events, and avenues for
self-advocacy.
[VIRGINIA]: Because
someone has to.
[REN]: And it
might as well be us.
[Enter, Ren Faszewski.]
[REN]: Virginia, I am very excited for this resource episode we
are doing today.
[Enter,
Virginia Pharis.]
[VIRGINIA]: Yes, I knew
nothing about the Centers for Independent Living except for…[pause]
they were centers that maybe did some
stuff about Independent Living. [LOL.]
[REN]: You know what,
I think that's a fair assumption. Today, we have the Communications Director
for the Center of Independent Living up in Northern Virginia, Elizabeth Kumar, who's
going to perhaps elaborate a little bit more than just, “We do independent
living stuff,” and that will be helpful for consumers.
[VIRGINIA]: But before we
jump into that will check out disability in the news!
https://www.disabilityscoop.com/2020/11/11/man-down-syndrome-historic-first-ironman/29078/
[Enter, Elizabeth Kumar, Comm Director.]
[REN]: Well, once
again, Liz, thank you so much for joining us on our podcast!
[ELIZABETH]: Thank you so
much for having me; I'm really excited to be here!
[VIRGINIA]: We are very
excited to talk about centers for Independent Living, otherwise known as CILs,
and I think the best way to start off with that is what even is
a CIL??
[ELIZABETH]: That’s a really
good question. And, there's a lot of people in my years of networking asking me
about what is that exactly… what do you actually do? What is it? So, we are
actually a non-profit we have 17 CIL in Virginia, (wow), & there's four
hundred nationwide, (wow!) and we were started by
people disabilities, are primarily run by people disabilities, (wow.) And, we
serve the Northern Virginia [NOVA] area, so our areas of service include:
[CONTINUED]: Arlington,
Fairfax, Loudoun County, and the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax, and Falls
Church and if you contact us and it's not in our area we can help you.
So, what do the CILS
provide? but I would say that 5 CORE SERVICES are provided
by all CILS- Nationwide- and
this includes advocacy, information referral, Independent Living skills
training, peer training, and transitioning. And, our CIL in particular, the ENDependence Center of Northern Virginia, Inc. (ECNV) we also have other special programs,
which I would say are not provided by other CILS- So, our main service
that we have that stands out, is that we have free travel training. And
that is travel training to learn how to get to, let's say, interviews, -and how
to get to other fun places as well. [For instance]:
We can teach people how to take the metro bus various places! We
also have Medicaid waiver Services, and, we have social groups, and, we have- I
love that we do this- We give out to the community free, durable medical
equipment that has been donated to us. And, a lot
of equipment is almost new or new equipment such as electric wheelchair
scooters hospital beds and things like that.
[REN]: That’s
amazing! First of all, I just have to say, that’s incredible! When you
introduce the concept of a CIL, you said that, it's- you know, a lot of its
kind of run by people with disabilities for people with disabilities; Can you explain what that kind of means- in the people that
you serve?
[ELIZABETH]: Yes, so the
people we serve, the clients, we don’t
actually call them clients, we call them consumers. They’re in
control of what happens; it is consumer-directed. So, when they come to us, they're ready to be independent,
they're ready for a change, or, whatever it is in housing employment,
etc., all of that. So if someone comes
to us and they think we will be doing all the work: [For example], finding
everything, filling out applications, all the hard work- No, that’s not what we
do [not us.] So, what it is: is we have empowered people and power for people
to build a life of independence! If that makes sense?
[REN]: Well, that
makes a lot of sense. I think that one of the things that again why we wanted
to connect to you specifically is the idea of resources in the community that
really work with disabilities to help them run their own lives rather than
feeding into sort of you know, paternalistic feelings, or having folks do
things for you— You don’t really need [other] folks to do things for you!
[ELIZABETH]: Yeah. That's
true. And- it's very much different than how you know a patient goes to a
doctor. It's not that mentality, it is completely different, because
unfortunately the doctor will run the show in that case, right? But here our
consumers run the show. And they
tell us what they want to do
differently reach that particular goal that they have.
[VIRGINIA]: So…[pause] pivoting a little bit to current events, and the
weirdness that is the year 2020— [LOL] how has the covid-19 pandemic impacted
your work at the CIL?? And, you know, are you guys still operating? Can people
still get services?
[ELIZABETH]: Yes,
definitely! We have gone virtual. We have been very creative in doing
so. And we are now providing all of our social groups virtually. and sometimes it's hard with transportation to get to the
new people [individuals] to those social groups. And, it’s been exciting
because…we have more people attending now. Sometimes it’s hard to get people to
those social groups because..you
live far away, or might not be available, or if you live far away [or conflict,
etc, etc.] […] And, with our medical equipment
program we find that we have more people reaching out to them! [Wow!] So, we
have a wonderful staff member that runs that- Salem Garcia-- and he has
running all around delivering equipment in the community and we're really proud
of that. And with peer counseling, we are still doing that, it's just gone
virtual, and Medicaid team, and all of that, you know, doing all that it's just
like, Telehealth anyway, your doctor or just doing it all virtual!
[VIRGINIA]: Yeah. I think
it probably helps that you guys are, sort of by nature, are infinitely
adaptable.
[ELIZABETH]: Exactly, exactly.
And, there is also a real need in the community now with COVID-19.
People with disabilities, and with pre-existing conditions, where
they can go out and get groceries. so we started a new
program- a grocery relief program. Delivered directly for consumers, [those
who] who have been affected by COVID. So I’m really proud of that.
[REN]: so you know at
dLCV, you know, we pride ourselves on being the one State institute of
protection and advocacy agency in a deal to support the work of CILS, and, how
do--you know—
[ELIZABETH]: So, in the
past two years time that I have been communications director, our interaction
with you has been really positive! Your organization has been imperative
in providing the information on sessions to us, but also in providing
information sessions. Whether that's dealing with your rights to your
employment or talking about service animals, and/or providing free 15 minutes--
you know, sessions with the lawyer--- I mean, you're an organization has
provided that to us! And, sometimes I send people your way, and say: “Hey,
can you help this person depending on what funding you have? Or what specific
topics that you can help people with this?
[VIRGINIA]: Also, I
didn't even know that like your specific CIL did all this extra stuff! And now
that I know that that's going to be going to answer a lot of questions -- in
terms if you know how do I get Transportation around my city? Or, [if] I'm
stuck at home, and I need groceries? The fact that, you know, there are so many CILS and knowing
that we provide those five for services that's easy for you to refer you to our
consumers. So, if somebody is listening and they're going, like, “That sounds
amazing, and I want to get in touch with—connected--- to their local CIL? Where
do they go for that??
[ELIZABETH]: So, there's a
website you can go to, and you just type in your ZIP code-- to see what the
nearest CIL is to you, or you can't even type in your county, and typing Center
for Independent Living in Google-- and it should come up what Center is nearest
to you and just give them a call. That’s all you have to do!
[VIRGINIA]: And, do you
want to plug your specific Center? CIL? By giving me (us?) contact information
for that?
[ELIZABETH]: Yes. So you
can just email info@ecnv.org that's all you
have to do. And, I will send you to the person that can help you with whatever
it is. Now, usually .when people email us about 1 service, then they actually
end up getting three or four services from because you know, they end up
saying: You have so many great services and I think one of the things that
people immediately going to think of what it's going to cost me!!” [Yep.] Like,
it's so expensive to live with a disability and all of these services sound
great—And I can’t even pay for it!
So, all of our services are free the durable medical equipment and
travel training, the Five Core Services all of it is free. Free. is great, wonderful, especially during these times! [Yes.]
[REN]: Well it
sounds incredible and like a great resource for so many of our listeners I hope
that they reach out I hope we don't overwhelm you with everything. Thank you so
much again for coming on and talking to us about the Center for Independent
Living, CIL. I am really and you're just don't have it right now but thank you
that's amazing and I never know my phone number by heart-- I'm so used to just
putting it on cell phone and just hitting call. But, my phone number is 703-525-3268.
And just in case someone does not have email and of course you
want to email us to see lots of info at […] Just let us know what services you
may need, or if it's something we don't provide just like I said you're right
information referrals so we partner with many organizations and we can send
those resources your way as well so will get next exit info we're happy to send
people your way. And hopefully we'll be able to chat with you in the future.
[ELIZABETH]: I would love
to come back and check on maybe about a particular service in more depth about
it. But thank you so much for having me!
And now, for
a dLCV highlight!
Last year dLCV had a project to survey 20 public libraries. These
surveys focused on accessibility concerns. dLCV staff
surveyed Cradock Branch Public Library in Portsmouth Virginia and while they
did have accessible parking closest to the door, they did not have any signs
that indicated the accessible parking. The Americans with Disabilities Act
requires accessible spaces to be marked with signs. dLCV
wrote a letter to the manager of Cradock Branch Library alerting them of the
need for signs under the ADA. Recently dLCV received a letter and a photo from
Cradock indicating that they had remedied the problem and now had appropriate
signage with the spaces. Way to go libraries!
[Re-enter,
Ren F. and Virginia P.]
[REN]: Once again, I
really want to thank Liz for coming on. She had amazing information. We will
certainly make sure that we get all the contact information for the CILS up in
the show notes! That way you, know, if any you know any of our listeners can
reach out to them and see if any of the services they can they can get access
to.
[VIRGINIA]: I think that
it’s interesting because the way that we often do these episodes…You know, Ren
and I have this background in adults institutions for
people with disabilities, so we get people like Elizabeth Kumar coming
on telling us about the CILS, that we legitimately have no background in.
And so, we are honest to goodness, like learning in the moment. And
my head is just spinning! Like I did not know that there is an agency that did
all of that! I am so excited for all the people that we can refer to CILS I
know the people who are, maybe, discovering their services for the first time
along with us
and I know what is the roles they have for the second year of
Rights here right now is to do a lot more of these resource episodes and see if
we can't connect even more folks to the great stuff out in the community that
can help them out and also have two voices that aren't just the two of us.
This episode of Rights Here, Rights now, is
brought to by the disAbility Law Center of
Virginia (dLCV).
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If you need assistance or what more information about dLCV and what we do visit, us online at www.dLCV.org.
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[VIRGINIA]: Until next
time: I'm Virginia Pharis--
[REN]: and I'm Ren Faszewski and this has
been-- Rights Here,
[VIRGINIA]: Rights
Now!
***[End of
Transcriptions]***