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
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