Policy Agenda

The late disability rights hero, Justin Dart wrote of the ability of individualized empowerment to transform not just lives of people with disabilities, but all people.  It strengthens individuals, families, communities, and the American way of life.

Our goal in Tennessee is to create a culture that focuses the full force of science and free enterprise on the individualized empowerment of all people to achieve their unique, personal, God-given potential.  It is based on the value that every human life is equally sacred and equally worthy of personalized empowerment to achieve his or her best possible independence, productivity, and place in the community.

The empowerment of all is the American Dream.  It is the pledge of liberty and justice for all.  It is familiar work.  Good families and businesses do it.  They give the tools of empowerment to their members so that each can be more self-reliant, and contribute to the whole. 

Too often, this is not the way we approach supports and services for those with disabilities.  Structures are put in place to try to provide the minimum necessities of life to every person – but we frequently do it in messy and unwittingly degrading ways.  As a result, we make people with disabilities beggars and prisoners to disability, robbing people of their health, productivity, prosperity and pride. 

The new paradigm should be one of rights, responsibilities, and return on investment.  Supports and services for people with disabilities need to be organized efficiently and effectively.  They need to be focused on ways to give individuals, families, and communities the tools they need to move into the mainstream, to be productive, and to fully participate in our American way of life.