Webinar: Finding One’s Advocacy Community: Stories and Insights from the Disability Community

The ACL Grassroots Project: Engage. Connect. Advocate. launched in 2023-2024 with the goal of supporting national, state, and local disability advocates to build networks and grow advocacy leadership, with the intention of driving disability policy and supports to serve disabled people and communities robustly and wholly.

One of our tasks includes an environmental scan identifying organizations and resources supporting grassroots disability advocacy. Through this scan, we seek to understand the range of disability advocacy, resources, services, and supports that people rely on. Learning how individual advocates act as catalysts in their communities has played an important role in our understanding of the advocacy landscape. We acknowledge that advocates come from complex and multi-varied backgrounds encompassing a breadth and depth of experience, goals, and desires.

In this first national webinar, Finding One’s Advocacy Community: Stories and Insights from the Disability Community, we seek to learn from disability advocates and discuss how advocates stay informed, work together, and mobilize to make changes in their communities and services systems. This webinar provides a chance to hear from advocates about the steps they took in finding their disability advocacy community, the trials and tribulations along the way, any tips for success, and ultimately, how they see disability advocates maintain a sense of connection in their work together.

ASL interpretation, Spanish interpretation, and live English captions are provided during the webinar. If you require additional accommodations to participate, or if you have any questions about the webinar, please contact Laura Bernas at lbernas@hsri.org.

Webinar List of Speakers:

1. Cody Drinkwater

2. Allilsa Fernandez

3. Lola Kernell

4. Santa Perez

5. Eric Washington