Name
First Name
Last Name
Office you are seeking (add position number if relevant)
Does your campaign have a platform targeted to people with developmental disabilities and their families? (See our Resources and Terminology pages, and questions below for possible suggestions)
Are you an incumbent?
If you are an incumbent, what policy or budget proposals that promote equity and belonging of people with developmental disabilities and their families are you most proud of supporting during your time in office?
If you are not an incumbent, how do you plan to center people with developmental disabilities and their families?
Questions for 2025
The following questions touch on just a few of the issues advocates will press next year. This is not an exhaustive list of issues. From a lack of transportation and interpretation services to having the highest un and under employment rate of any minority group, people with developmental disabilities have historically been marginalized and ignored. The focus of this PAC is urgently center the needs of the most impacted people, and the PAC acknowledges that the needs are too vast to address in one questionnaire. To help ensure year round access to your office for people with developmental disabilities and their families, please get started with our Resources and Terminology pages. Also, center people with developmental disabilities in your campaign, committees, commissions, hearings, and workgroups. Normalize asking about access needs and barriers to participation. Please let us know if you have any questions or want further support with this endeavor.
Paying Parent of Minors as Caregivers
Washington State allows parents of adults who are eligible for caregiving support to be paid for their caregiving labor.
Unfortunately, Washington State currently prohibits parents of children who are eligible for caregiving support to be paid for their caregiving labor. There are not enough unrelated caregivers to cover assessed hours, and 1.4 million hours go uncompensated every year. This problem disproportionately impacts women and single family households, and erases millions of dollars of care labor. Instead of a stranger working these hours, parents of minor children ask for parity with parents of adult children to be their child's paid care provider.
Will you commit to ensuring eligible parents of minors can be paid for the caregiving hours they would otherwise have to try to hire outside caregivers to work?
Behavioral Health Support for People with Disabilities
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People with developmental disabilities often struggle with co-occurring unaddressed mental health needs. There are too few providers who are trained to provide neurodiverse affirming care. This is true for people who have ongoing mental health care needs, and for people experience acute crises. This is true for both adults and for minors. Families and self advocates report that approaches that may work for neurotypical people do not work for people with developmental disabilities (such as talk therapy), and that outdated therapy models rooted in behaviorism exacerbate rather than solve mental health issues. Updated approaches are available, but we need providers who take Medicaid, and are trained in neurodiverse affirming behavioral health supports.
Will you commit to supporting both mental health parity for people with developmental disabilities, and neurodiverse affirming provider trainings to help avert mental health crises? If so, how will you offer support?
Schooling
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Eradicating restraint and isolation in schools is critical to ensure the safety of all children, but especially of BIPOC children with developmental disabilities.
According to a recent report*, “Restraint and isolation are used primarily on elementary school students, young children who are still learning how to regulate their behavior and who are especially vulnerable to harm by restraint and isolation. These practices are disabling, emotionally and psychologically damaging, and profoundly impact students.”
Further, “Restraint and isolation have no educational or therapeutic benefits but have profound disabling effects and result in lifelong harm, especially for students with disabilities who are low-income, live in foster care or are homeless, are Black or multiracial, and are in Kindergarten or elementary school. Importantly, states, districts, and schools have eliminated isolation and drastically reduced restraint use with staff development and coaching, incident review/debrief teams, school board review, and data tracking/analysis.”
*https://disabilityrightswa.org/reports/restraint-and-isolation/
Will you commit to eliminating restraint and isolation in all Washington Schools? If yes, how will you offer your support?
Adult Isolation
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In the last 5 years, the legislature has eliminated “sub minimum wage” job programs where people with developmental disabilities were taken out on “work crews” to clean, do lawn care maintenance, or perform other work for pennies an hour. While we applaud the elimination of sub minimum wage jobs, we cannot leave people to languish with nothing to do and nowhere to go.
Meaningful day programs are imperative and must be prioritized with urgency to replace the loss of connection and engagement in a person's community. People with high support needs (and any family who supports them) are most at risk for isolation, mental and physical health deterioration, and impoverishment. Most people, especially people with caregiving and behavioral support needs, cannot access the day program services currently available on the waivers because those programs are not required to fully support a person's personal care or behavioral support needs. Other states offer 25-30 hours per week programing for adults things to do and places to go).
Impacted advocates will ask the legislature to direct DDA to expand day "habilitation services" to ensure people can access their communities, for at least 25 hours per week, if they so choose. Day habilitation is a CMS approved service offered in most other states, and helps people with developmental disabilities attain, keep, or improve skills and functioning for daily living.
Will you support the expansion of day habilitation services so that, in addition to other programs and services, adults with developmental disabilities have at least 25 hours of things to do and places to go in their community?
Housing
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Currently, more than 37,000 people with developmental disabilities are in need of housing units to come on line in the next few years. Our current rate of bringing units online hovers around less than 100 per year.
We need a dedicated and sustained commitment to increase available funding dedicated for building either new accessible housing for people with developmental disabilities, or ensuring existing inventory is accessible, affordable, and available (usually accepting section 8 vouchers or some other affordability mechanism). Investments into specific capital budget project requests, REET, and Housing Trust Fund are critical for providing culturally responsive housing.
How will you champion increasing funding for building new inclusive and accessible housing units for people with developmental disabilities via specific proposals, the Housing Trust Fund, REET, or some other mechanism? If you are seeking a local office, please discuss how you will eliminate barriers to building affordable, accessible, and available housing to people with developmental disabilities who are almost universally impoverished?
Do you have any questions or additional information for the PAC?
Email
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Phone
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