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News Article

WVA Seeks Public Comment on Priorities and Objectives for the Next Three Fiscal Years

May 5, 2008

You are receiving this mail because we need your participation in the development of our Priorities and Objectives for advocacy on behalf of individuals with disabilities for the next three years, (2009-2011). A draft copy is attached. We would appreciate your thoughtful consideration and response. We began soliciting public input through a public forum held in Flatwoods, in March 2008 and have been gathering additional responses since that time. Our formal 45 day advertised public comment period is May 5, 2008 through June 21, 2008. The final draft of the Priorities and Objectives will be presented to the Board of Directors at their July meeting for the approval process. We can be contacted through our website at www.wvadvocates.org, by e-mail at bgiven@wvadvocates.org, by phone at 1-800-950-5250 (please speak with Clarice Hausch or Susan Given), by fax at 304 346-0867, or by mail at 1207 Quarrier Street, 4th floor, Charleston, WV 25301. We look forward to hearing from you.

West Virginia Advocates, Inc. (WVA) is the federally mandated protection and advocacy system for individuals with disabilities in West Virginia.

Our Priorities and Objectives are the tool we use to determine what issues we will work on each fiscal year and how we will accomplish that work. Like many Protection and Advocacy Systems in the country, West Virginia Advocates uses a three year cycle because it is more cost effective and allows us to do better planning for the use of our limited resources. The Priorities our Board of Directors adopt for the agency this year will be the focus of our work for the period from October 1, 2009 through September 30, 2011. The Priorities will remain our priorities throughout the 3 year period. The Objectives will be reviewed in year two and three and some may be modified to reflect those Objectives that have been accomplished, and to accommodate new issues or areas in which there is a need for a change in emphasis. As you will note there are certain Priorities and Objective that are required by the federal agencies who are our grantors and they appear every year in our Priorities and Objectives because we must provide and report on those services to remain funded. The rest of our Priorities are selected by a process of public comment, Board of Directors input, emerging issues, national data on best practice disability advocacy, review of agency data from the previous three year cycle, knowledge gained by our ongoing work, and the availability of fiscal and staffing resources.

Like the other 56 Protection and Advocacy Systems across the nation and territories, West Virginia Advocates has been moving steadily into systems issues. This year we have committed to increase the focus on systems issues, and litigation if necessary, to resolve some of the more difficult and long standing systems issues in the areas of abuse, neglect, MR/DD Waiver services, mental health services, Special Education, and Olmstead issues. Some of that activity is already underway, and additional efforts will begin in fiscal year 2009. We will be aggressively working on developing a strong self-advocacy , cross disability network around the state that will enable consumers and their families to better understand and work to obtain their legal rights and to undertake the much needed legislative lobbying essential for securing the funding in state and federal budgets necessary to fund sustainable services and to obtain the legislation needed to protect people from abuse, neglect and financial exploitation. Systems work allows us to take our finite resources and apply them in a way that hopefully will eventually benefit larger numbers of individuals with disabilities than using those same resources primarily for the representation of individuals on individual advocacy issues. Unfortunately, in some programs moving forward with systems work includes the unpleasant reality that we are forced to reduce the amount of individual representation we can provide.

Clarice E. Hausch
Executive Director

Click here to review WVA's draft Priorities and Objectives

Submit Comments on WVA's draft Priorities and Objectives