from the desk of Pamela Bisceglia, Executive Director

As I ready this E-Voice for print, Coloradoans are still sorting out the flurry of final changes made to the Long Bill by Colorado lawmakers. We live in one of the wealthiest states and yet we made profound cuts to Medicaid in order to balance the budget. The cuts to public benefits disproportionately impact children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Among the budget drivers that Colorado lawmakers and Joint Budget Committee point to each year are Colorado taxpayer policies (Tabor and Gallagher); opinion in relation to these policies will need to wait for another day—shared over dark chocolate outside of the workday.

I had an opportunity to reflect on different publications, letters, concerns, recommendations, writings that ADVOCACYDENVER has issued over the last decade in relation to Health Care Policy and Financing (HCPF), the state’s department that runs Medicaid. May 2023, we published an E-Voice that discussed HCPF’s launch of their new IT system and Care and Case Management System (CCMS). To date, the contractor for this project is still trying to correct the system. HCPF has paid between 20 and 30 million dollars for a system that is not yet completely functional. The contractor has not met their obligation, and HCPF does not demand a remedy.

Boots on the ground advocates, advocacy leaders and parents were not aware of many of the gross errors in HCPF spending until legislative hearings for this budget cycle. ADVOCACYDENVER was focused on a list of HCPF blunders that impact children and adults with disabilities. Among the items on our list:

• Phase I case management redesign in the metro area. Phase I rolled out with deep and broadly consequential flaws. HCPF forbid case management agencies from providing any written information to their clients. HCPF sent written information at the last minute. After assigning clients to the wrong case management agency HCPF realized that counties share zip codes, As a result, HCPF had assigned a significant number of children and adults to the wrong case management agencies. 
• Beginning November 2023, HCPF inappropriately removed thousands of individuals from long term disability Medicaid rolls.  This error resulted in a domino effect that led to asignificant backlog in case management and county intake, escalations and appeals.

Disability advocates asked HCPF to wait until the case management system was stable before introducing any further changes. After initially agreeing that they would not implement changes that would further destabilize the system, they continued to rush to implement additional changes. 

October 22, 2024, AdvocacyDenver sent an email on behalf of a list of stakeholders to the Governor’s office and copied to the Joint Budget Committee “JBC” that outlined ongoing concerns with HCPF. Advocates, parents, and other disability agencies provided recommendations to resolve stated issues. First and foremost, the community asked that:

The Governor/Joint Budget Committee assign a Special Master to monitor HCPF and that that person(s) report to the Governor and the Joint Budget Committee. That person should have the authority to correct HCPF, and demand that HCPF provide a Corrective Action Plan and provide bi-weekly reports of progress in meeting the objectives defined in the plan. . .

The Governor’s office sang their praises of HCPF but encouraged ongoing discussion and collaboration. We saw little substantive difference as a result. What was different was that Kim Bimestefer, HCPF Executive Director, started to attend some meetings with parents and advocacy leaders with Bonnie Silva, Director, Office of Community Living.   

On March 17, 2025, the Colorado chapters of The Arc issued the following statement:

We anticipate that Medicaid funding will be cut at a national as well as a state level. Members of the disability community, including persons with lived experience and boots on the ground advocates believe it is important that we have a voice at the table in terms of potential cuts/restructure. In addition, we want to identify the “nonnegotiable”, areas where we advocate that Medicaid funding remain constant. Recommendations speak to services for Medicaid eligible individuals’ birth through life. 

• No caps on waivers
• Payment for medication, physical health services
• Home health services
• No cuts in provider rates

Kim Bimestefer was silent. Bonnie Silva asserted that the Governor provided their marching order. In JBC meetings HCPF asserted that children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities cost the most per client/member and consume the larger share of HCPF funds such was the reason that decisions disproportionately impact that community. Ms. Silva and other government leaders begin a narrative that families were misusing the system. The narrative that Ms. Silva and Ms. Bimestefer did not forward was the gross mismanagement under their leadership. 

Starting July 1, HCPF will be instituting cuts that disproportionately impact members of the IDD community. At the time of this publication, the most painful cuts that have been approved include: 

• A 56-hour weekly cap for family caregivers. HCPF will allow case management agencies to make limited exceptions. Other exceptions will have to be submitted and approved by HCPF. Word on the street is HCPF will not approve any exceptions.
• IDD waitlist “churn” slowdown. Two people will need to come off the IDD waiver (move to another state or die) before one person can move off the waitlist.

February 27, 2019, The Arc of Colorado and volunteers placed 2,900 flags on the grounds of Colorado Capitol to represent each adult with an intellectual and developmental disability on the waitlist. Today there are 2,800 on the waitlist with the potential to double due to the 2026 budget cuts.

ADVOCACYDENVER asserts that a constant issue in relation to HCPF leadership has been centered around transparency and accountability. These issues were prominent during the Joint Budget Committee special sessions beginning Spring 2025, to date. In past years HCPF leadership was able to shmooze their way through hearings and argue about the need for additional staff funding with the Joint Budget Committee. This year much of the discussions and questions pointed to the lack of accountability and multimillion dollar errors:

• Erroneous removal of 575,605 Coloradans from the state Medicaid system between May 2023-May 2024.
• Overpayment of hundreds of millions of dollars for non-emergency transportation between 2021 and 2024. HCPF reimbursed providers at10 times rates they should have paid out and ignored alerts from these same providers.
• Overpayment of non-wheelchair transportation providers at an additional cost of 33 million dollars in the 2025-2026 budget.
• An estimated 77.8 million improper payment for Applied Behavioral Analysis.

In April 2026, Kim Bimestefer resigned from HCPF under threat of a vote of “no confidence” by the legislature. The Governor names Gretchen Hammer as the interim executive director. Ms. Hammer will have her work cut out for her as she tries to turn the Titanic around. The Joint Budget Committee provided full time allocations so that HCPF can try to recover overspending/overpayment that was their making. In the meantime, our children and our adults will bear the fallout of HCPF’s overspending, lack of accountability and transparency.

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from the desk of Pamela Bisceglia, Executive Director

November 29, 2025, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Public Law 94-142 Education for all Handicapped Children Act and reauthorized in 1990 and 2004 as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. May 12, 2025, ADVOCACYDENVER celebrated our 71st anniversary. The Denver County Chapter was established in 1954, by parents to address the lack of access for children with disabilities to public education.

We stand on the shoulders of the parents before us.

My journey: I am the parent of a child who was identified as having a disability at birth. My daughter was premature; her health was fragile. I took life one day at a time, I did not think about or plan for her future because I wasn’t sure if she would be with me tomorrow. 

When my daughter was about two years old, a friend invited me to have lunch at her home. For the first time I left my daughter under the care of a grandparent. When I arrived for lunch, there were several other guests, but my friend said, “I want you to meet June. You and her have a lot in common.”  I looked at this woman, many years my senior, but soon learned what we had in common was we were both parents of children with disabilities. 

As we talked, I had reason to wonder out loud what school would look like for my child. She said your child will have every opportunity because of parents like me. She remembered when her son was young, he attended kindergarten at a Denver Public School. The next year, on the first day of school he insisted that he walk to school with the other children in the neighborhood. She watched as he walked down the path of their house, pencil box in one hand and writing tablet in the other. Each day at the evening meal he would talk about school; the teacher said this, a boy did this, a girl did that; today we learned…  He was excited about his learning. 

About two weeks into the school year his mom saw him walk up the path to the house. He had his writing tablet in one hand, but she noticed he had his pencil box in his other hand. This puzzled her because the pencil box always remained in his desk at school. When he walked through the door, she noticed a note pinned to the collar of his shirt. The note said “We have determined that your child cannot be educated. You will need to make other arrangements for him.”  The note was signed by the principal. She was outraged. 

She and her husband went to the school the next day and met with the principal. The principal said it is obvious that your child is an “imbecile” and as principal of this school, I have the authority to refuse enrollment. The parents reached out to district leadership, the Colorado Department of Education and everyone stood firm supporting the principal and the school district’s decision. The year was 1954, and in 1954, children with disabilities did not have a right to a public education.

June joined the movement and lobbied first at a local level and then at a national level for policy that would afford her child, and all children with disabilities, a public education. In today’s history classes educators teach our children the important history of the Civil Rights movement/demonstrations in the 50s and in particular the 60s. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. were leaders who led the community forwarding change. Because parents saw these leaders discussing civil rights, they recognized their own permission to talk about the human rights of their children with disabilities. 

 Public Law 94-142 Education for all Handicapped Children Act was passed in 1975. For the parents who stood firm in the 50s and 60s, their children were too old to go to school, but nevertheless they took pride in the fact that they had opened the door to public education for future generations of children with disabilities.

We stand on the shoulders of the parents who advocated, lobbied and brought litigation to demand that all children be provided a public education. 

 We stand on the shoulders of the generation of parents and educators who brought our children out of separate classrooms in the basements of public schools and into mainstream classrooms. 

We stand with the parents, teachers and educational leaders who refuse to compromise the promise made to our children 5 decades ago, the promise of a free appropriate public education. 

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from the desk of Pamela Bisceglia

When Donald Trump was elected in 2017 my daughter said she was scared because “he doesn’t like people with disabilities”. I hugged her and said I would do what I could to keep her safe. Flash forward 8 years 7 months. July 3rd my daughter walked into the kitchen, clearly upset and said that they passed “Orange’s Big Ugly”. No disrespect for the president, she calls them as she sees him “Orange”; she understands that the bill forwards deep cuts to one of her lifelines, disability benefits. I hugged her and said I would do what I can to keep her safe.

Readers Digest version, of the “Big Beautiful Bill”:

• Nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts. (Approximately 17 million children and adults will lose coverage).
• Nearly $200 billion in cuts to SNAP food assistance.
• Defines a new private school voucher program that redirects public education funding to private schools. Private schools will not be required to provide protections to children with disabilities or to adhere to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and/or the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Note: a state can opt out/choose not to participate in the program.

This morning, I put on my big girl panties in preparation for ongoing fight for disability rights. In anticipation of this bill, Colorado advocates started meeting months ago with public agencies to begin to define priorities for Colorado’s disability community. Although we will not immediately feel the impact of the decisions of this bill we know in the months to come, city, state and national budgets will need to be modified, worked, and reworked. We know that everyone will be touched by these cuts. ADVOCACYDENVER just celebrated our 71st anniversary, then and now a priority is to keep our children and adults in their home and community; then and now we spend our days and evenings advocating for the civil rights of individuals with disabilities. Today our work is to mitigate harm and to protect the human rights of individuals with disabilities.

For more information please read: The Arc US Budget Reconciliation Provisions Related to Medicaid, SNAP and Education

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You have to know where you have been in order to know where you are going.

Know All Men By These Presents: That we the undersigned citizens of the United States, have associated ourselves for the purpose of forming a body corporate and politic, not for pecuniary profit, under the provisions of Article 13, Chapter 41 1935 Colorado Statutes Annotated, as amended by Chapter 124, 1951 Session Laws, and we hereby make, execute and acknowledge this certificate in writing of our intentions to become a body corporate and politic and by virtue of said statute.

FIRST. The corporate name of our said Corporation shall be The Denver County Chapter of the National Association for Retarded Children.

SECOND. The object for which our said Corporation is formed and incorporated is for the purpose of

1. To promote the general welfare. . .
2. To further the advancement of study . .
3. To develop better public understanding . . .
4. To further the training and education of personnel . . .
5. To encourage, aid and co-ordinate the work of local parent groups . . .
6. To further the implementation of legislation . . .
7. To serve as a clearing house for gathering and disseminating information and to foster the development of integrated programs . . .
8. To solicit and receive funds for accomplishment of the above purposes.

THIRD. The affairs and management of our said Corporation are to be under the control of an executive committee consisting of seven members Philip M. Russell, Joseph V. Calabrese, Albert Kane, Rachel Ryan, Mr. William Samuels, Mrs. Myron Wydell.

IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF, we have hereunto set our hands and seals, on the 12th day of May A.D. 1954.

Alfred Gallagher [SEAL]
Elizabeth M. Calabrese [SEAL]
Dorothey M. Kane [SEAL]
Shirley P. Samuels [SEAL]
Philip M. Russell [SEAL]
Joseph V. Calabrese [SEAL]

The purpose of our agency and how we forward our mission has not really changed in the past 70 years. In 1954 a team of parents served as the leaders of AdvocacyDenver. Looking through our archives we learned that in 1986 Bill Muth was the Board of Directors President and Cristine Boswell served as the Executive Director; in 1990 Josephine Fisher was the Board of Directors President and Terry Parks served as the Executive Director. In 1993 Carl Cignoni served as the Executive Director and Debra Stephen was the Board of Directors President; in 1977 Bill West served as the Executive Director and Bob Baca was the Board of Directors President. In 1980 Patricia Hale Killian was hired as the Executive Director for the agency. She was followed by Marcia Tewell and Aileen McGinley.

March 2018 Pamela Bisceglia was named Executive Director of ADVOCACYDENVER. The success of our organization has never been contingent on a single leader, but rather is the result of a talented team of professionals and volunteers working toward a shared goal. In 2024 Pamela had the honor of working with Linda Brooks, Michael Breeskin, Kaley Day, Seth Grove, Charlene Lawrence, Jennifer Levin, Jane Miyahara, Erika Montano, Melissa Palacio, Emily Park Friend, Heather Peters Jen Pringle, Jack Robinson, Michele Sandoval, Tony Sears and the ADVOCACYDENVER Board of Directors Mitch McKinney, Dan Rosenberg, Shauna Casement, Kent Olsen, Peggi O’Keefe, Donald Johnson, Raiko Johnson, Peggy Henninger, Hetty Pazos, Khoa Nguyen, Scott Baldermann, Don Morales and Ricky Garcia. Looking forward, we stand together to forward ADVOCACYDENVER’s mission:

To promote and protect the human rights of people with disabilities and actively support their full inclusion and participation in the community throughout their lifetimes.

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You have to know where you have been in order to know where you are going.

What do The Denver Board, Denver Options and Rocky Mountain Human Services have in common?   How about a center board, community centered board and case management agency? The Denver Board was the center board for Denver. Denver Options and Rocky Mountain Human Services served as the community centered board for Denver. Over the course of some 60 years, each provided case management and services to individuals with intellectual disabilities. With the roll out of conflict free case management, Rocky Mountain Human Services became the Case Management Agency for Denver and Adams County (2024).

Let’s take a minute to step back in time. In 1963, Colorado created a community-centered system to manage and provide support and services to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD).

The Denver Post

Aid for Retarded Gets 1st OK

House members passed the measure HB 1090 on a preliminary reading without a dissenting vote…

Purpose of the bill is to establish centers, to the fullest extent possible, at the community level, both to improve training programs for the mentally retarded and to reduce state expense by cutting down the numbers of patients who must be in an institute.

The bill provides for a contribution by the state of up to one half of the annual cost of training or $500 a person whichever is less.

Programs were initially focused on children, but with time, legislation and funding, the focus was on providing support and services for individuals birth through life.  

By 1964 Arc chapters had been established in the metro area including Adams, Jefferson, and Arapahoe counties. Other agencies interested in the civil rights of marginalized communities opened their doors.  In the 60’s, 70’s, and into the 80’s much of our focus was on deinstitutionalization. The Arc of Denver/ADVOCACYDENVER understood then and now, that in order to realize systemic and policy change at a local and national level we must stand in solidarity with other like thinking agencies.

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You have to know where you have been in order to know where you are going.

ADVOCACYDENVER was established May 12, 1954, by parents to address the lack of access for children with disabilities to public education and in-home supports. It is important to remember in 1954, 1964, 1974 and even into the 80’s parents of children with intellectual disabilities were encouraged to institutionalize their child. This article pays tribute to the parents before us; the parents who refused to institutionalize their child, the pioneers of inclusion.

Many children and adults with intellectual disabilities were cared for in overcrowded, understaffed institutions that isolated them from their families and communities. The first patient was registered in 1912 and by 1936 there were 260 patients.  Ridge closed in 1990; the facility was demolished in 2007.

In 1928 going forward Denver Public Schools dabbled in providing school programming to some children with disabilities.  In 1928 the first class for the deaf and hard of hearing established in Denver.  1948 Denver began two classes at Evans School for children with intellectual disabilities.

In 1952 the General Assembly passed the first major legislation for the education of children with disabilities.  It included 5 categories: “aurally; educable mental; physically, speech and visually handicapped”.  Colorado Law discussed, but did not guarantee or mandate the education of children with disabilities.

ADVOCACYDENVER was established May 12, 1954, by parents to address the lack of access for children with disabilities to public education and in-home supports.

The 1965 Handicapped Children’s Education Act of amendments added the category of “educationally handicapped”.  Still, children with more significant disabilities were excluded and programming was contingent on space, funding availability of teachers or other professionals.  The public law allowed school districts to maintain waiting lists for services.

Suit seeks education for handicapped

Rocky Mountain News Sat. December 23, 1972

“A suit was filed in Denver U.S. District Court Friday to demand from the state equal educational opportunities for some 20,00 physically and mentally retarded youngsters.”

The suit was filed by the Colorado Association for Retarded Citizens and 19 youngsters. . .   Defendants include the State Department of Education, the State Board of Education, State Department of Institutions and 11 school districts.  Among the examples cited in the suite are:

• An 11-year-old Denver boy with Down Syndrome who was refused admission to Denver Public Schools.  His parents were paying tuition to Laradon Hall.
• A 9-year-old Denver boy with an IQ of 111 who is perceptually handicapped
• An 11-year-old Littleton girl who is epileptic and has an IQ of 90
• A 7-year-old Aurora boy with a visual perception limitation and a movement disability. He has an IQ of 115.

The suit asked for a declaration by the court that laws and rules denying an equal education to handicapped youngsters are unconstitutional and that officials be stopped from enforcing them.

1975 Public Law 94-142 Education for All Handicapped Children Act

The law supported more than 1 million children with disabilities who had been excluded entirely from the education system. The law also supported children with disabilities who had had only limited access to the education system and were therefore denied an appropriate education.

Guaranteed a “free, appropriate public education” to all children and youth with disabilities.

In 1986 the law was reauthorized and named the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”).   IDEA promised that children would be provided a free, appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment. In the 1980s, going forward much of the focus of child and family advocacy has been to ensure that children are in fact educated in the least restrictive environment.  Arc of Denver’s Executive Director Marcia Tewell appropriately observed that decisions in relation to educational placement during the 80s and 90s were based on a list of historical labels like “educable/trainable/profound”. The Arc of Denver advocated children with disabilities participate in general education instruction with peers of the same age in their neighborhood school.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act was reauthorized and amended in 1990 and 1997.

In 1997 Congress said:

“To the maximum extent appropriate, children with disabilities will be educated with children who are not disabled, and special classes, separate schooling, or other removal of the children from the regular educational environment occurs only when the nature or severity of the disability is such that education in the regular classroom with the use of supplementary aids and services cannot be achieved satisfactorily”.

Over the next two decades child and family advocates worked with families and schools to demand the children with disabilities be included.  April 10, 2018, AdvocacyDenver filed a systemic complaint against Denver Public Schools on behalf of five families.  AdvocacyDenver asserted that the district failed to provide supplementary aids and services in regular education classes, other education-related settings, and in extracurricular and nonacademic settings, to enable children with disabilities to be educated with nondisabled children to the maximum extent appropriate.  All five students were labeled as students with an intellectual disability. This was the first systemic complaint accepted by the Colorado Department of Education State Complaint Office.  The investigation took almost 5 months.  Students prevailed on all issues defined in the complaint.  Four of the students were fully included in their neighborhood school/school of choice in elementary, middle and high school.  One student graduated from high school in 2023.  This systemic complaint resulted in a countless number of students across the district  being afforded the opportunity to be educated in the same schools, same classrooms as nondisabled peers.

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You have to know where you have been in order to know where you are going.

In January, we provided Part I of the history of AdvocacyDenver. We were established May 12, 1954, by parents to address the lack of access for children with disabilities to public education and in-home support. Advocacy is the foundation of our agency. Individual advocacy is important, but real change, systemic change is the result of policy advocacy.

Think back to the founding families who in 1954 lobbied first at a local level and then a national level for public policy that would forward the rights of children with disabilities. At a national level Public Law 89-313 Elementary and Secondary Education Act Amendments of 1965 provided authorized grants to state institutions and state operated schools devoted to the education of children with disabilities. That same year, Colorado passed major legislation for the education of children with disabilities, The Handicapped Children’s Education Act of 1965.

In 1954 and the decades going forward AdvocacyDenver staff, parents, members, and community partners lobbied for policy focused on eliminating the barriers to education, employment, and community. AdvocacyDenver stood with community partners demanding policy to eliminate sheltered workshops; Protections of Persons from Restraint and Seclusion amendment to ban prone restraint; House Bill 14-1051 (Developmental Disabilities Strategic Plan) aimed at ending the wait list for services for individuals with intellectual nd developmental disabilities; Supported Decision Making as an alternative to guardianship…

Going forward AdvocacyDenver will actively lobby for national, state and local policy that advances best practices and the human/civil rights of individuals with disabilities and/or against policy that compromises those rights.

‘Champion for the Underserved’ Leaves Legacy of Wait List Reform

An interview with Catherine Strode from May 8, 2014

After six years in office, State Representative Sue Schafer (House District 24) is not seeking reelection. It is her vision that along with her personal retirement will come the retirement of the term, ‘the wait list.’ The passage of House Bill 14-1051, which she sponsored this session, provides for a strategic plan to retire not only the term, but the existence of, the wait list for services for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities by the year 2020.

In an interview with Catherine Strode, the Health Care Advocacy Program’s Consultant, Representative Schafer discusses the goals of House Bill 14-1051 and how the bill represents her work as a legislator, her contribution to the state, and, her legacy.

Read More…

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You have to know where you have been in order to know where you are going.

I am the parent of a child who was identified as having a disability shortly after birth.  I remember carefully preparing a list of behaviors I would model or avoid as a parent and the topics I felt I could comfortably discuss:

• I will verbally express my unconditional love for my child.
• I will never spank.
• I am human and make mistakes — I can and will apologize to my child when I am at fault.
• We are sexual human beings — I will be prepared to anticipate and answer my child’s questions in relation to physical development, and sexuality.

Along with the promise to answer questions in relation to physical development and sexuality, I understood it was important to teach boundaries.  Boundaries included who in your circle do you give or receive a hug, when and where can you masturbate, attire when answering the door, etc. 

For decades The Arc of Denver/AdvocacyDenver reminded families of their role to teach or model their values in relation to sexuality.  For decades The Arc of Denver/AdvocacyDenver advocated that public schools provide all students instruction in life science curriculum.  For decades The Arc of Denver/AdvocacyDenver encouraged public policy that recognizes that individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (“IDD”) should enjoy the same liberties to marriage, parenting and to proudly identify as heterosexual, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, gender expansive, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual and two spirit.

AdvocacyDenver is a member of a growing contingency in the IDD community that recognizes comprehensive sexuality and relationship education as a means of protection for vulnerable individuals. Data shows that individuals with disabilities are victimized at a higher rate than the larger population. Empowering clients to understand their bodily autonomy and right to choose what happens to their body provides a foundation to exercise consent and self-advocacy when abuse does occur. 

Today and going forward, AdvocacyDenver facilitates training and provides short webinars in English and Spanish on a list of sexuality topics including consent, public versus private, gender identity and expression.  To learn more go to: https://www.advocacydenver.org/category/webinar/sex-ed/

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You have to know where you have been in order to know where you are going.

The foundation of AdvocacyDenver is advocacy. In the first years parents supported each other, advancing the dream that one day all children would be able to attend school. For decades countless number of advocates worked tirelessly to forward the human rights of children and adults with disabilities. Over time we realized change in the different public systems. Sometimes change was a result of collaborative work championing legislation and forwarding systemic change, and sometimes leaders would listen. Other times system leaders, in particular school systems, would lawyer up and taunt advocates to “bring it on”.

According to Wikipedia an advocate is a professional in the field of law. In 2002 The Arc of Denver and the Association for Community Living embarked on adding a legal representation program for parents of children with disabilities. With time the Legal Representation Program found its forever home at The Arc of Denver. September 2009, the Legal Representation Program was renamed The Center for Special Education Law. For over two decades The Center for Special Education Law has provided representation to Colorado parents and their children with disabilities. Furthermore, The Center has been instrumental in defining case law that touches public school students across the US.

Looking forward . . .

When contacted by an attorney who represents parents in issues related to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, an attorney for the school district said, “we didn’t think the parent could afford an attorney.” It speaks to the fact that school districts respond to privilege; that is, in this case the district admitted fault but did not think the family had the resources to challenge their decision. AdvocacyDenver looks forward, to expanding The Center for Special Education Law. Looking forward The Center for Special Education Law will prioritize the most egregious cases; looking forward, representation will be provided on a sliding scale or pro-bono.

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You have to know where you have been in order to know where you are going.

In AdvocacyDenver History Part I we said that the Denver County Chapter of the National Association for Retarded Children was established May 12, 1954, by parents to address the lack of access for children with disabilities to public education and in-home supports. With time the capitol C stood for citizen. The Denver association moved to an acronym ARC and eventually our articles of incorporation were modified to Arc of Denver. Officially we are Arc of Denver doing business as AdvocacyDenver. Why the name change; why did we rebrand?

Truth be told, participants in People First and Arc Junior were the first to champion a name change. Last month we provided an overview of the important work of youth and adults with disabilities. Some of the more contentious work centered around the campaign to eliminate the “r” word.

Certainly, there was agreement that the word should be eliminated in policy and rules, but more important, everyday vocabulary. Where there was disagreement was in the name of not only our Denver chapter, but the state and national organization.

In Colorado there was, and is, the Arc of Colorado, The Association for Community Living (which is a chapter of the Arc), a growing list of Arc chapters and arc Thrift Stores. Clients were cheered as they initiated letter writing campaigns, testified in public arenas and at the capitol, but Arc disability staff cautioned youth and adults in their letter writing campaign to eliminate the “r” in Arc; having said that, youth and adults were not convinced that Arc is not an acronym.

January 2009, the Arc of Denver embarked on strategic planning. Staff, Board members and other chapter members including youth and adults met and agreed that the name of the agency must pay homage to the “A” in the Arc, no not Association, rather ADVOCACY. This is a tribute to the parents, adults, and community before us that stood firm advocating for the human rights of children and adults with disabilities. We are Denver and so on September 15, 2009 we became known as ADVOCACYDENVER.

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