Summit Independent Living Center, Inc.

Women with physical disabilities are less likely than other women to have ongoing breast cancer screening, in part because they face barriers that other women don't encounter. Working with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Right to Know campaign, the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services (DPHHS) and the Montana Disability and Health Program (MTDH) are working to change this. One effort includes partnering with Montana women living with disabilities who have the will to overcome barriers to quality early detection services, breast cancer treatment, and survivor resources.

If you know or are one of these women with a physical disability who advocated for your Right to Know about your breast health, here is your opportunity to have your story heard. In order to tear down barriers faced by this population, it is important to show that you are a woman first, not just a disability. Every Woman Matters!

If you want to spread this message, be one of twelve spokeswomen for the campaign.

• We will pay for travel costs to Missoula on the weekend of January 24^th and 25^th or January 31^st and February 1^st, to have your portrait done for this event.

• Your hair and makeup will be done by Burton’s Classic Salon. The owner herself, an award-winning stylist, will be at the studio to make sure you feel as beautiful as you are.

• Portraits will be taken by Begleiter Photography. Mr. Steven Begleiter is an internationally acclaimed portrait photographer and author.

• While at the studio, we want to hear about your experiences surrounding your breast health, so that we can capture it to share with others.

This multimedia exhibit will begin showing on March 6, 2009 from 6 to 9 pm, during the “First Friday” event, at Begleiter Photography Studio located at 223 West Front Street in Missoula. It will feature black and white portraits of women from all over our great state- some of them breast cancer survivors, all of them role models and advocates. Portraits will be augmented by written and recorded commentaries of their experiences. This event will hopefully kick off a traveling show, so don’t be surprised if it ends up in your town as well.

If you are interested in becoming a spokeswoman, or would like to be involved with the event, please contact us by January 10^th if possible. Or visit our website at: http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/79226/first-night

We are looking to draw in a sample of women that would represent Montana as a whole. Therefore, we would like to have as many different regions involved as possible. We especially are interested in women who have physical disabilities as well as breast cancer, or a survivor of breast cancer. We are also looking for a few women who are role models and advocates in the disability community. If you have any questions, feel free to contact Mary Olson or Desirae Ware.

Mary Olson
Peer Advocacy Coordinator
Summit ILC
700 SW Higgins, Suite 101 Missoula, MT 59803
(406) 728-1630 - voice
(800) 398-9002 - toll free
(406) 829-3309 - fax
molson@summitilc.org - email

Desirae Ware
Graduate Assistant
Montana Disability & Health Program
University of Montana Rural Institute
52 Corbin Hall
Missoula, MT 59801 Office: (406) 243-2966
email: desirae.backs@gmail.com

The Statewide Independent Living Program Manager position formerly held by Mike Hermanson is now open. Let’s thank Mike for all he did in this position and for putting people with disabilities first on disability issues. Now, pass this around to whoever you think may be interested in this position and with any luck we will find a commendable person for the job who will put people with disabilities first the way Mike did.

View the job description

Inside The Nation's Largest Mental Institution

by Renee Montagne

This is the second in a three-part series.

On a recent morning, we took a visit to the floor devoted to the "sickest of the sick." As we arrived, a dozen deputies were working to restrain a patient and inject him with an anti-psychotic drug. The entire ordeal was videotaped — to protect the patient as well as the deputies. It was the first hint at the complexities that emerge from creating a mental hospital inside a jail.

The End Of Public Mental Hospitals

Until the 1970s, the mentally ill were usually treated in public psychiatric hospitals, more commonly known as insane asylums.

Then, a social movement aimed at freeing patients from big, overcrowded and often squalid state hospitals succeeded. Rather than leading to quality treatment in small, community settings, however, it often resulted in no treatment at all.

As a consequence, thousands of mentally ill ended up on the streets, where they became involved in criminal activity. Their crimes, though frequently minor, led them in droves to jails such as Twin Towers, says Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca.

"Incarcerating the mentally ill is not the right thing to do," he says.

Read more...

Assisted Living Firm Rejects Medicaid, Evicts Elderly : NPR: "'I think it would kill her,' he says. 'This lady is probably 80 pounds. You could pick her up with one hand. You could put your fingers around her wrist. She is just a little, little, little, teeny, frail, frail person. She smiles and she's always happy. But she don't know what's going on.'"

You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call 'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down.
~ Mary Pickford

So if you missed the National Forum on Disability Issues Webcast, you can watch it at http://www.disaboom.com/Community/Organizations/AAPD

I-159 has been pulled

SEIU is apparently pulling I-159 from the ballot today in a press conference scheduled for 11:00. This is great news for Montana, especially Montana’s senior, disabled, and caregiver communities. Thank you to everyone who had a hand in spreading the word about the true intent of the initiative, all of your hard work has paid off. We will continue to monitor things to make sure this is really dead and to see if something else pops up. Here is a post on the Montana Main Street Blog about the initiative being pulled:

http://montanamainstreetblog.typepad.com/montana_main_street_blog/

June 25, 2008
SEIU Retreats: I-159 Getting Pulled from Ballot
Word on the street is that I-159 will be "voluntarily" pulled tomorrow today at a press conference. I-159 is the Service Employees International Union's (SEIU) attempt to unionize home health care workers in Montana through a ballot initiative.

This is good news since many Montanans would not have gotten the full story on this initiative before they were expected to vote it up or down. Signature gathers around the state for this initiative highlighted the initiative's increased funding for home health care services, background checks and hightened training standards for home health care workers. Few pointed out that the more than half of the initiative focused on new collective bargaining laws. It's a classic stealth campaign with a hidden agenda with big dollars coming from out-of-state to fund it.

Apparently there was pressure from I-155 (Cover All Kids - SCHIP) supporters, the administration, legislators and others to pull this from the ballot. I-155 is going to cost taxpayers more, and supporters of that initiative worried too much money was being requested on ballot measures at a time when state government will likely see leaner times. According to recent news articles, Helena could be seeing red ink next session after present law adjustments are factored into the next budget. Additionally, it didn't help that groups like AARP came out against the initiative. If you can't get the support of the people who will supposedly benefit from this initiative, it can be a hard sell.

This won't be the last SEIU attempts to grow in Montana. They have had some success unionizing a variety of different workers around the country, including strippers. Still, many workers are finding out that SEIU's heavy-handed style is not the kind of representation they want.
Posted at 09:18 AM in Elections Permalink

Here’s an earlier post on the Montana Main Street Blog if you are interested. http://montanamainstreetblog.typepad.com/montana_main_street_blog/2008/05/i-159-seius-att.html

The TRUTH about Initiative I-159

There is a petition drive currently going on to gather signatures in support of Initiative I-159 in an attempt to qualify it for the November 2008 ballot. The language below will appear on the petition and ballot initiative:

BALLOT LANGUAGE FOR INITIATIVE NO. 159 (I-159)

INITIATIVE 159

A LAW PROPOSED BY INITIATIVE PETITION.

I-159 establishes a program to provide home care services to low-income disabled and elderly persons by individual home care providers. These services now are provided only by home care
businesses. Both programs are paid for by government funds. Under the new program, a home care recipient chooses an individual home care provider who is trained and certified by the state. Individual home care providers may collectively bargain with the state, but only through a statewide union exclusively composed of individual providers, and they may not strike.
I-159 costs approximately $2.6 million of state funds the first year, increasing to $7 million by 2013, to train, certify, and supervise an increasing number of individual providers. To the extent available, federal Medicaid funds pay for the remaining program costs.

[] FOR establishing a program to provide home care services by individual providers who may collectively bargain with the state.

[] AGAINST establishing a program to provide home care services by individual providers who may collectively bargain with the state.

►FACT: I-159 is sponsored by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), a well-funded international union with 1.9 million members.

►FACT: SEIU developed this ballot initiative totally on its own accord, with no consideration for input from the disability community, the aging network, the personal assistance provider agencies, or the state. This is a prime example of a wealthy out-of-state group forcing unwanted and unneeded change on Montana.

►FACT: The initiative is a backdoor way to unionize the personal care workforce. Individual providers (caregivers) would be forced to join SEIU and pay union dues, yet have no vote on joining or not..

Since 1995, Montana has been offering quality, consumer-directed, in-home care services to assist people with disabilities and our seniors to continue living independently in the home and community of their choice.

►FACT: The “individual provider” program would duplicate and eventually replace the existing Self-Directed Personal Assistance Services (SDPAS) program, which has worked well in Montana since 1995. The SDPAS program already allows consumers to direct their own care, including hiring, firing, and supervising their caregivers through a co-employment relationship with provider agencies.

►FACT: The “individual provider” program exposes consumers to more risk for exploitation or, abuse and neglect because it does away with the provider agencies who perform the oversight and accountability functions of the SDPAS program that help ensure consumer health, safety, and welfare.

►FACT: The “individual provider” program places the consumers in the role of employer, taking on the risks, liabilities and responsibilities that accompany having employees. The state would be required to serve as a fiscal agent for consumers for payment of wages, filing taxes and other administrative functions, but consumers would still hold the liability for complying with wage and hour laws, workers compensation regulations, etc.

►FACT: Personal assistants who work as individual providers would be required to complete mandatory training, background check and certification requirements each year, regardless of their years of experience providing personal care.

►FACT: Currently, under the SDPAS Program consumers are responsible for and able to train their own caregivers to perform tasks based on their own personal needs. I-159 would take that opportunity away from the individuals and instead, create a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all approach to training personal assistants which the state would be required to administer.

►FACT: Personal assistants working as individual providers would assume the liability for providing care to consumers. In the SDPAS program, consumers assume the medical liability for their care, not the caregivers.

►FACT:I-159 will not provide money to get people out of nursing homes, nor does it "rebalance" the long-term care system in Montana by shifting funds from nursing homes into home and community-based services.

►FACT: I-159 would expand state bureaucracy by requiring the state to assume the fiscal agent role currently done by private provider agencies, along with requirements for training, certification and registry of individual providers.

►FACT: I-159 is expensive, estimated at $2.6 million the first year, and increasing to $7 million a year in five years. The fiscal note for this initiative may be grossly underestimating the cost. Yet these increased costs do not go towards better wages and benefits for caregivers, or more services for consumers, they go towards increased administrative costs for the state.

Paid for by:Summit Independent Living Center, Inc. AGAINST I-159 P.O. Box 3184 Missoula, MT 59806 406-728-1630 Mike Mayer, Treasurer

Summit is an advocacy and resource center for people with disabilities as well as an in-home, self-directed personal assistance program provider.