September 2018 Newsletter
LOCAL ACTIVITIES
This month’s meeting of the Sonoma-Marin SCI Support Group will be held on Monday, September 17th from 4:00-5:30 pm at the home of HolLynn D’Lil in Graton. A light supper will follow the meeting. Call Stan at 707-774-6466 for more information.
Know Your Rights!
People with disabilities are often mistreated and silenced. Often they are not even aware that their rights have been violated because they don’t know what their rights are. On Thursday, September 13th from 6-8 PM persons with disabilities and their families are invited to attend a free workshop “Know Your Disability Rights” which will be held at Disability Services and Legal Center (DSLC) office at 521 Mendocino Ave, Santa Rosa. At the workshop, Handy Potter LLP attorneys will inform you of your rights to an accessible environment, housing, reasonable accommodations on the job, and other rights that have been enacted over the last forty-plus years.
Please RSVP to reserve a seat and to submit any specific question you may want the speaker to answer. Contact Lake Kowell 707-636-3063 or Lake@myDSLC.org.
Visitability
A sub-group of SCI support group members is working with a number of community advocates to promote the concept of ‘Visitable Housing” in Sonoma and Marin Counties. The goal is to support new housing construction of single family housing in a way that friends and relatives with mobility disabilities can readily visit others in their homes. [Note: existing mandates cover the construction of multi-family housing, and this new initiative takes access one step further into the area of single family housing.] Three basic items are covered in visitable housing: 1) there is at least one no-step entrance into the first floor of the house (could be the front, the back, the side, or the garage), 2) interior doors on the first floor provide at least a 32” clear opening, and 3) one first floor bathrooms has enough space so that a wheelchair user can open the door, enter the bathroom, and close the door behind them. That’s all there is to it.
To view a short video on the benefits of visitable housing go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkHMtqeQOvE .
[Note: visitable homes can be easily adapted at some future time should one of the family members living there become disabled as they age – there would be no need to sell the home due to a lack of basic access.]
Other Videos
While on the subject of videos, NorCal SCI reminds us that the SCI Empowerment Project run through the University of Washington's Rehabilitation Medicine department has produced a series of informative and demonstrative videos addressing several key areas that individuals with a spinal cord injury, especially wheelchair users, tend to face. Check them out at.
http://sci.washington.edu/empowerment/videos.asp
Quadriplegic bowel program and morning routine
You can always find useful videos on just about any topic if you know where to look. Here is an eight minute youtube video of a quad with tricky spasms as he begins his day after getting through his bowel program - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shidad_QR6I
Advocacy Alert! Nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court
The American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) and a number of other national disability rights organizations are opposing the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the United States Supreme Court based on his previous rulings as a DC Circuit Court Judge that have devalued the lives and liberty of people with disabilities. Judge Kavanaugh's rulings and statements on health care, self-determination, employment, and education threaten the rights of all Americans with disabilities. To learn more about the nominee and his judicial background go to:
http://www.bazelon.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Kavanaugh-Disability-Report-2018.pdf
September is National Spinal Cord Injury Awareness Month!
Mission of the Sonoma-Marin SCI Support Group
To assist those newly injured with spinal cord injury or disease as well as those who continue to be affected by long-standing disabilities. We meet the third Monday of the month at the Azure Apartments Clubhouse, 5 Indigo Drive - Petaluma from 4:00 to 5:30 pm.
We are here to support each other in every way possible by providing useful, up-to-date information about services and products as well as an atmosphere that allows for discussion of personal challenges and solutions to everyday problems.
Contact person: Stan Kosloski – 707-774-6466 or stankosloski@gmail.com