Partners in Policymaking
Dohn Hoyle, Partners in Policymaking Faculty Member, Activist and Organizer
19. Partners in Policymaking
One of the, one of the best teachers for people in Michigan throughout the years has been association with people with disabilities who aren't your child's age, but who are adults at this point, so Partners in Policymaking® is almost ingenious in the idea of let's put parents in the room with people with disabilities and let them see not only what are lives like, but let them also understand what's important to the person with a disability by being there and going through all this with them. It makes such a difference and makes them concentrate more on the whole world and the world later than just on the minutia that they force you to deal with now.
So Partners in Policymaking has been a boon in Michigan to make sure that that idea of special education's preparation for adult life, it's not a be all and end all in itself. And that very same thing should be true everywhere where we deal with people who are younger. There should be concentration of one kind or another. And one of the great teachers for myself, and I think for Colleen as well, is Ed Roberts, who always talked about kids with disabilities and what it would mean if they knew about disability enough to be leaders when they got to that point, and if their parents knew enough to believe that their sons and daughters had to at some point lead their own lives.