The Board must install an Executive Director who embodies IL and who:
- Is knowledgeable and embraces the Independent Living paradigm/movement
- Possesses extensive personal and professional experience and credibility with disability services and systems
- Has experience with the cross disability and cross-age services programs and services
- Has experience with consumer control as defined in Title VII and is knowledgeable with the federally defined standards and assurances for Independent Living Centers
- Has knowledge of requirements of the state service delivery system for persons with disabilities
- Has experience and knowledge of the state purchase of service rules and operations specifically for: cost reimbursement, unit rate costs, and Medicaid provider regulations
- Possesses knowledge about alternative methods of communication
- Is sensitive to cultural competency issues.
7 comments:
The board needs to question their decision and re-evaluate their choice. The board should have chose a candidate with vast knowledge and experience before appointing someone lacking the expertise to the sensitivity of what is required to run this organization.
With the help of NILP members we may be able to do something about this. If it stays as is, it's another two steps backwards for the disability community.
Throw the bums out-they're incompetent and have no souls. Which one of them helped to get you out of a nursing home?
Here we go again. Once more an ab professes to know more than the program participants she/he serves. The board of directors should be charged with making certain that it's key director be on top of what the needs are from the disability community. If neither the board nor the exec dir. are listening to their own staff, why would anyone assume for one minute that they'll listen to the consumers if they aern't will to listen to the experts.
Yes, people with disabilities are experts. Make no mistake about that.
I get the impression that the exec dir came from the evil bowels of the "medical model." Time for a colostomy.
I am totally against the hiring of the new ED, the board has made a huge mistake hiring someone with zero experience on disability matters and a to give a salary of 102,000 to someone who will drive this program into the ground is just outrageous and not very well thought out. What i see is that the NILP program will be ruined by this hiring and the board needs to correct this mistake by not hiring this ''disability issued challenged'' person. Please hire someone with at least 5 years experience with in depth knowledge on all forms of disabilities and what it takes to keep this agency running smoothly and correctly.
I have been living independently and proudly for over 20 years with the help of the NILP program, please do not allow this great organization to be ruined by the hiring of this unqualified person. Thank you.
Obviously the opposition to the Board's decision to hire the current Executive Director is much more than "a few disgruntled employees". There is a fundamental difference in the whole philosophical approach to life.
Neither the current Executive Director nor the Board can do the job of representing and advocating for the dignity and rights of people with disabilities to live independently. These jobs require people who have experienced the oppression of the ignorant and powerful who have no idea of what it is like to be oppressed. They require people who not only have a history of being oppressed, but a history of being in the fight to end that oppression.
I appeal to whatever sense of decency the current Executive Director has to quietly leave and make way for someone who believes and lives the independent living philosophy and can do the job. You can't do the job without that belief and you can't do it without the support of those on the front lines of the fight.
I appeal to whatever sense of decency the members of the Board have to reverse your decision and look for someone who can do the job.
Do whatever you need to do contractually but please have the intelligence and humility to recognize your mistake and correct it.
Fear produces temporary power but is self-destructive.
Many models of human behavior suggest that there are only two prime motives behind all human action: fear and love. Fear is a reactive energizing to achieve protection from a danger. Love is a proactive energizing to achieve what is good for self, for another or for a society one is a part of.
What was NILP’s Board of Directors afraid of when they hired a person totally unfit for the job of Executive Director? What were they afraid of when they attempted to deny the vote to staff and other members at the annual meeting? What were they afraid of in presenting a draft copy of the financial statement instead of the audited version? What were they afraid of when they refuse to answer questions accounting for NILP’s financial state? What were they afraid of in denying the right of the membership to elect new members to the Board? What is the Executive Director afraid of in refusing to leave a job were she is obviously not wanted, liked or competent for? What is she afraid of that moves her to harass the staff of NILP creating a hostile work environment? What is she afraid of that caused her to hire three police officers to control and intimidate the membership at the annual meeting?
In all of these actions taken by the Board, the Executive Director and supported by a very few others on the staff and acquiesced to by a few members, there is no proactive energizing to achieve good for the members of NILP. Do they think that it is a good thing to turn NILP into a money profit making business? Do they think it is a good thing to change NILP into a social service organization instead of an advocacy and peer support movement? Does the Executive Director think the prestige and excessive salary are good things for herself no matter what they cost the movement?
Members of NILP, you who are or have ever received services from NILP, you do need to be afraid of the destruction of your IL movement. Those of you outside NILP also need to be afraid. This kind of destruction is a fast spreading cancer. React to the threat as you would to any disease. Remember though, it is not the persons who are a threat to you, it is what they are doing. It is not enough to just get these people out of their jobs. You need to proactively restore the purpose and passion of the IL movement. You have every right to be a full, participatory member of NILP, of your community and whatever else you chose to be part of. BUT, you have to work for it as did those who started the IL movement. There are many ab’s who fully support you but you have to be the spearhead, you have to be right up front in the work. You have to be the ones proactive in achieving what is really the highest good for all of us through the IL movement.
Fear can only temporarily get anyone out of a danger. It can not create or build anything good. Living in a fear mode sucks the passion and life out of the person. Love renews the power and energy of life. You can not lose in the long run if you stay the course. You might lose a few battles on the way but as the “Babe” said: "Never let the fear of striking out get in your way." – George Herman "Babe" Ruth
Tommy
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