National Council on Disability
Cultural Diversity Advisory Committee (CDAC)
July 9, 2004 - Record of Public Meeting

The Designated Federal Official (DFO) called the meeting to order at 1:00 PM.

Participants: Jean Lin, Deb Smith, Glenn Fujiura, LaDonna Fowler, Paul Leung, Lilly Rangel Diaz, Ollie Cantos (guest), William Myhill (guest), Elaine Mbionwu (guest), Kathy Martinez (NCD Council member), Milton Aponte, JD (NCD Council Member and CDAC Liaison), Gerrie Hawkins, Ph.D. (Designated Federal Official), and Kerry Lida (NCD 2-month intern - doctoral student University of Kansas). CDAC member, Darrell Simmons was excused while providing leadership training to emerging leaders in Washington, DC.

After the Call to Order and Roll Call, guests were provided an opportunity for self-introduction. Ms. Mbionwu stated her previous participation in NCD forums and interest in learning how CDAC was being used to inform the follow-up process or activities. Mr. Cantos shared that his interest in participating in the call stemmed from not only his Filipino American background, but also his involvement with diverse cultural communities at the grassroots level and seeing an absence of outreach to people with disabilities in those communities, as well as his desire to want to find ways to get material to people in different languages and cultivating disability rights activists who can take their rightful place among the broader community. Mr. Myhill indicated that he is with a research center at the University of Iowa, College of Law. His background is special education and working with students with cultural and linguistic diverse backgrounds. His present research is to address the disabilities among people with cultural and linguistic differences.

Unfinished business and/or Updates:

Report on Committee recruitment - At the time of this meeting, Ms. Lida reported having received fourteen names of people who might be interested and more were expected. Each person received information about the recruitment and how to apply-sending to the DFO a resume or curriculum vita, plus cover letter expressing interest and highlighting related experiences, if interested in CDAC membership. Of those people, ten were contacted by e-mail, four are being contacted by telephone (who have no e-mail access). The DFO thanked CDAC members and NCD Council members for their suggestions of names for contact and indicated that at least two CDAC members would assist with the review of applications. At this time Paul Leung and LaDonna Fowler were the volunteers for this task. The original timeframe for sending application material was July 15, 2004.

CDI Toolkit update - DFO stated that in June 2004, NCD staff sent letters to the nine federal agency partners who participated in the initiative and the July 2003 diversity forum. Each was asked to verify and update the summary information; that process was continuing at the time of this meeting with most of the agencies responding and coordinated by NCD's intern. Ms. Lida, provided an update on the status of the technical aspects of preparing the toolkit for posting on the website. She was involved in tasks that included obtaining estimates from contractors, getting contractor approval by NCD, and working with that contractor to update initial technical changes. With the assistance of Pam O'Leary for proof reading areas, Ms. Lida was also able to expand several of the toolkit areas where additional information was deemed appropriate and available. The toolkit was seen as a starting point for knowledge dissemination on the topic of disability and people from diverse cultures and can still be expanded in the future. The DFO and NCD member Kathy Martinez also indicated that at the CDI forum where the toolkit framework was introduced there was a good deal of enthusiasm demonstrated by federal partners. The toolkit provides an opportunity for federal agencies to share information with the public regarding what they are doing in this area of outreach.

Marketing/publicity - A question was raised (Ms. Martinez) regarding plans to monitor use and gauge the value of the toolkit. Mr. Aponte stated that one avenue might be the civil rights organizations as we plan to link with them. Along this line, the DFO also indicated that from an historical point for at least the past 12 years, the need for finding ways to disseminate information about services, programs, and so forth has been raised whenever attention has been brought to the concerns of people with disabilities from diverse cultures. Mr. Cantos indicated that once NCD has the toolkit ready, AAPD would be able to assist with publicity through its website. Ms. Diaz also emphasized that the marketing of this toolkit needs to include consultation with the NCD communication staff. In this regard, the DFO recounted that perhaps, this was also a time to consider resurrection of the CDAC workgroups, in particular, the Outreach and Networking group previously headed by CDAC member Darrell Simmons. It was agreed that several procedural phone calls with a workgroup might be needed to develop marketing of the toolkit and other outreach strategies. No timeframe for beginning this work was set, however. Other follow-up questions related to outreach were: What was the possibility of providing the toolkit in other languages? Was it known whether the contractor will address or can be asked to enable us to track the number of hits and/or number of pages read. The two questions will be investigated by NCD staff and reported back to the committee. Ms. Smith who initiated discussion of gauging use of the toolkit also expressed her support a toolkit evaluation component and offered her assistance, as needed.

Dialogue with Council members
An update was provided by Mr. Aponte with respect to efforts of the committee to consider looking at NCD's current or near future priorities, communication with the NCD Council Chair about ideas generated by the committee prior to Council meetings, and so forth. This included sharing with him the suggestions about outreach efforts that place disability on the table with civil rights organizations that are broader in scope than disability organizations and determining how CDAC can assist NCD in introducing disability issues to or raising awareness in diverse communities. Mr. Aponte also underscored the importance of getting the broader based civil rights organizations to include disability in their agendas, conferences as well as website links. In addition to the preliminary list that Ms. Lida developed of potential civil rights organizations for CDAC to consider inviting to a roundtable, Ms. Diaz expressed that as another strategy perhaps, NCD staff could call upon some of the relationships already cultivated with civil rights leaders in the recent past.

Mr. Aponte reported about the next step he had taken regarding the suggestion of a possible roundtable at a fall 2004 Council meeting has been discussed with the NCD Council Chair who is quite supportive of such dialogue opportunities. At least ten organizations will be invited to begin the dialogue. In the long-term, Mr. Aponte expressed the desire to link with many more organizations brought dialogue opportunities and sharing of information. Plans were also underway that involve contractual assistance and CDAC member representatives in preparations for the fall meeting.

Another suggestion by Dr. Fujiura was to give consideration to partnering with other federal agencies as the plans are developed for outreach to broader civil rights organizations. He also stated that a number of other agencies have already engaged in outreach to civil rights groups regarding disability issues. NCD might be able to serve as coordinator and make some of the linkages across agencies, thus avoiding the fragmentation and sometimes confusing mode of government operation. As an example, he recalled a partnership initiated by the Administration on Developmental Disabilities (HHS) that involved the National Urban League. Ms. Diaz reiterated the importance of NCD rekindling its past connections with some of the organizations already identified on the list of potential invitees and future contacts.

Mr. Aponte noted that NCD's having enough staff to work on this project on a consistent basis might be a concern. He posed another idea for thought by the committee of whether a particular CDAC workgroup might consider focusing on this particular outreach effort which will be an ongoing project for quite sometime. The DFO reminded the committee that NCD's human resource needs have also been met through contracting where appropriate. For example, on the roundtable aspect, NCD has looked at a proposal by AAPD based in part on its already established network of broader organizations.

Ms. Fowler expressed agreement with both the notion of re-establishing connections and coordination across federal agencies, as well as potential CDAC input through a workgroup as the outreach is planned and implemented. Ms. Lin stated her agreement with the suggestions made during today's meeting. Dr. Leung added that he was pleased to see that things were beginning to move along with the toolkit as well as the planning for outreach with organizations.

New items: (time constraints did not allow discussion)
1) CDAC Vision and objectives: Whether and how to use the goals set during the July 2002 face-to-face meeting? What are CDAC member perspectives on the general staying power of those visions and objectives? Aligning them more with NCD's current priorities? What is the utility of these objectives for current outreach interest and so forth? - This item was tabled for a future meeting because of time constraints.

2) CDAC leadership - DFO explained briefly that she has been filling in the role that needs to be implemented by the CDAC leadership. It was agreed that the more appropriate time for selecting committee leaders would be after additional CDAC members are selected. August 2004 was the target month for completing the selection process.

Adjournment: After determining that the next meeting would occur in August and confirmation would be made through e-mail, the DFO thanked all meeting participants for their time and valued input. The meeting was adjourned at 2:03 p.m.