We’re Just Getting Started

I invite you to read our interview with Congressman Patrick Kennedy about overcoming the barriers to full inclusion.

- Jay

Almost two years ago, our first post hit the Blogosphere. We featured a story that appeared in Philadelphia’s Jewish Exponent newspaper which discussed local venture philanthropy and how this model will help shape philanthropy in the future.

We were off and running. 199 posts later, I can look back with satisfaction at how our blog has created conversations surrounding the inclusion of people with disabilities into Jewish communal life, American-Israel relations and philanthropy.

Our blog is a home for leading experts and advocates, members of Israel’s Knesset (Parliament), parents, foundation workers, rabbis and Jewish leaders. We have heard from camps, organizations, schools, synagogues, Shabbat programs and more and learned how they are becoming more inclusive.

We have focused on tragedies and triumphs, discussed the changing Jewish community worldwide, conducted interviews, heard firsthand accounts of everyday people working for a more just society. The blog is a showcase of our community’s diversity and our constant will to create lasting change.

The biggest takeaway from our blog is the conversations that have started elsewhere and the many blogs which now discuss inclusion in the Jewish community. Our goal has always been to put this issue on the international Jewish agenda and this is slowly becoming a reality.

200 blog posts. We’re just getting started…

Please note: There will be no blog post on Thursday due to the Jewish holiday of Shavuot. Our next post, next Monday, will feature William Daroff of JFNA discussing the ADVANCE Conference.

Interview with Congressman Patrick Kennedy

I had the pleasure of interviewing Congressman Patrick Kennedy (D- RI) recently about inclusion of people with disabilities and the issue of mental health. Congressman Kennedy, after representing Rhode Island for 16 years, founded One Mind for Research which is dedicated to dramatic enhancements in funding and collaboration in research across all brain disorders.

Below is part one of the interview. Part two will appear soon on our blog.
- Ephraim Gopin, Communications Director, Ruderman Family Foundation

Yesterday’s ADVANCE Conference was designed to impress on funders the importance of full inclusion and make them aware how their funding can be more inclusive. What do you believe are the biggest barriers to the full inclusion of people with disabilities in all aspects of our society?

Attitudinal barriers obviously affect everything. It’s attitudes that still get in the way of full inclusion and the empowerment of people facing various challenges.

It goes back to the most elemental moral issue that President Kennedy spoke about in the National Address on Civil Rights: “Who among us would be content with the counsels of patience & delay?” Would you be willing to trade places with someone who has a different station in life & be content? It’s the oldest rule in the book, the golden rule- it’s really that simple. It’s about treating others as we ourselves want to be treated.

Everyone becomes nervous because it means they have a moral commitment to do what they know is the right thing. Will you do what’s right or compromise your values for expediency?

If this was your son or daughter, brother or sister, mother or father, would you tolerate the status quo? I hope everyone says no, because we can do much better. We have an opportunity to investigate what works in helping people live the most fulfilled, independent lives they can and to restructure the current pay mix for health care today.

We should ask the consumer, NOT their provider, what they require. Forget what’s paid for now, what’s reimbursed, what the current criteria say. Find out what people want- let’s understand that first and then see how we can make that reality.

We’re in a historically terrific environment to create lasting change. It’s a disruptive environment in healthcare and the challenge is to take money out of the institutions (high cost, low value) and redirect those dollars to offer more benefits and better value. Let’s utilize resources wisely for individual achievement and empowerment so they can live full, independent productive lives given what they’re faced with.

What do you believe are the most effective ways to remove those barriers?

We have often siloed ourselves in the disability advocacy movement by a particular diagnosis. Instead of looking at our common ground and our common struggle, which allows for larger representation for what unites us, we have become a fragmented representation of many different advocacy organizations.

In the disability movement, we’re not always a movement but a collection of many individual enterprises that in total represent a movement but organically don’t really represent a coordinated common endeavor. United we stand, divided we fall contains an essential element of truth.

This October 23-24 is the 50^th anniversary of President Kennedy signing the Community Mental Health Services Act (CMHA). We are going to host an event looking back on his historic speech to congress on February 5, 1963. In that address, President Kennedy outlined a process. He talked about prevention, way back in 1963! Prevention and early intervention is now readily available in allowing people to live full and productive lives.

He talked about standardization, discussed using evidence so when we know something works, we make it available to everybody.

He talked about continuity of care, coordinating community support services. We’re at a point now where we can actually realize this through health care reform and have it covered, which we of course have neglected to do until now.

We have become distinct groups- the intellectual disability community, the developmental disability community, the severe mental illness community. There are so many commonalities in what we all need, the notion that we won’t get in the same room with one another because our agendas are different is just self-defeating. That’s why I co-founded One Mind for Research because we’ve divided this one organ by disease. We need to understand the complexity of this organ called the brain and how we can unite together to create lasting change.

This is an important anniversary and is the catalyst for why we’re bringing all the stakeholders together. The conference is not a one and done. It’s the beginning of an effort to make the most of healthcare reform and all the changes we are seeing take place.

At this anniversary event we’re going to discuss what we got wrong, what we got right & how the new laws of parity and health care reform can be used to fulfill the original vision of President Kennedy as articulated in his address to Congress. I hope we will be successful.

Inclusive Philanthropy

This is an op-ed that originally appeared on eJewishPhilanthropy.
by: Jay Ruderman

“The day is short, the task is great and the master is urgent”
(Chapters of the Fathers, 2:20)

Thousands of people and hundreds of Jewish organizations are dedicated to working towards the full inclusion of people with disabilities in our communities. US government statistics show that 20% of the US population has some form of disability. This is a population we are all connected to.

Our foundation and many others believe that all Jews should be fully included in Jewish communal life, whether at school, synagogue or in the workforce. No one should be excluded from participating and no barriers constructed to keep people out. As this issue probably affects someone in your family, a neighbor or a friend, full inclusion needs to have a prominent place on the Jewish agenda.

The question for Jewish funders and philanthropists is: Are you funding programs which are fully inclusive and accessible to people with disabilities?

There’s a growing number of philanthropists and major Jewish organizations dedicated to full inclusion of people with disabilities in our community, but we need more partners in our efforts. It is crucial that philanthropic leaders are made aware of the issue of inclusion and its centrality to vibrant Jewish life.

The upcoming ADVANCE conference – the Ruderman Jewish Disabilities Funding Conference – is specifically designed to engage and challenge Jewish funders. We do not want philanthropists to change their funding strategies but we want them to consider being more inclusive with their charitable donations.

Conference attendees will learn:

• how to include supports, services and opportunities for Jews with disabilities in whatever programs or fields they fund
• how to recognize programs that promote inclusion
• how to deal with pressure from prominent organizations to fund programs that segregate.

To advance the cause of inclusive philanthropy, the conference partners with major Jewish organizations so they too can bring this message to their funders. Partners include the Jewish Funders Network, the Jewish Federations of North America, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and Combined Jewish Philanthropies in Boston. Their participation shows the importance attached to full inclusion and their commitment to making it a reality.

The American Jewish community has many issues which need fixing and important matters to be grappled with. Inclusion of all members of our community should be something which we can all agree on. Funders and philanthropists play a vital role in making this happen.

People with disabilities want to be included in every aspect of Jewish communal life. The day is short, the task is great and it is imperative that we all work together to create a dynamic and attractive Jewish community for everyone.

Nothing Can Stand In My Way

Today we are happy to feature a post introducing Pascale Bercovitch, who will be speaking at the upcoming ADVANCE Conference. Pascale is a renowned Israeli Paralympic athlete, TV personality, film maker, best-selling author, international motivational speaker and corporate adviser. She has inspired more than half a million people through her speeches, many saying she changed their lives forever.

If you want to hear her inspirational story live, tune in here at 9:15am EST next Wednesday, May 8^th.
- Jay

My story starts out rather tragically: At age 17 on my way to school, I fell under a train and lost both of my legs. During the eight hour rescue, awake and already aware of my new condition, I took the crucial decision that changed my life forever. When I awoke in the ER, my family and the medical staff were staring at me with an odd look… and calling me “disabled”. They began to plan a new life for me in a specialized hospice. But I had other ideas. Nothing could ever stop me again; not a train, social convention, my family or fear.

I grew up in a mixed Christian and Jewish family and very early on decided that my dream was to go to Israel to join the army and live as an Israeli. Six months after my injury, armed with only a suitcase, a wheelchair and $100, I flew alone to Israel. I had no family there, no language, no home, but a wonderful dream and the solid belief that nothing could stop me. I enlisted in the IDF and stepped into my new life.

After the army, I began a career as an international journalist, going from researcher to reporter to chief editor. Simultaneously, I began to challenge myself as an athlete. I trained as a swimmer for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and was a member of the Israeli Sydney Paralympics team in 2000. I finished 8^th in rowing for Israel at the Beijing 2008 Paralympics and took 8^th place in handbiking at London 2012. One week later I competed in the Climbing World Championships in Paris for the first time, finishing in 4^th place.

Today, I am a member of the Israeli Climbing National Team and the Paralympic National Team. My next goals are Gold in Handbiking at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games and Gold at the Climbing World Championship in 2014. I am also a relentless extreme sport amateur, enjoying skydiving, waterskiing and surfing. Above all, I am a wife to Oz and a mother to Eden and Mica.

I have accomplished much but there is much more to be done. Nothing has stopped me until now and nothing will in the future.

ANOTHER Conference?

by: Steve Eidelman

The Third ADVANCE: The Ruderman Jewish Disabilities Funding Conference is nine days away, on May 8^th in New York.  You might ask, “Do we really need another conference?”  I answer with a loud Yes!

Inclusion of people with disabilities, my life’s work, is a challenging and important aspect of life in the Jewish Community.  Families increasingly demand it, people with disabilities are vehement about it and professionals of all stripes study, promote and implement it.  Yet, all too often, Jews with disabilities remain segregated and isolated from the day to day life of their communities.  Inclusion is part values, part skill, part law and part human rights.  The ADVANCE conference is focused on providing information and inspiration to funders and funding organizations in the Jewish community that can make a difference in the lives of Jews with disabilities.  The focus is on inclusion across the lifespan, and across the institutions in our communities that support families and all people, not solely people with disabilities.

There is momentum in our communities towards inclusion of Jews with disabilities.  People who have worked with and in the Jewish community for a long time on this issue say they can “feel it.”  Malcolm Gladwell, in his 2000 book “The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference” talks about those times where, after years of struggle and work, something goes from a small activity to mainstream and popular.  We are at that point, I think, with inclusion in the Jewish Community.   Movement from programs that either segregate or completely exclude people with disabilities to those that include them and, especially when they are children, their families.  The Jewish community in North America, and worldwide has taken up the mantle of inclusion, to help a significant part of our society, people with disabilities, become part of the Jewish community everywhere.

The Greatest Lesson
The ADVANCE Conference brings together funding organizations with program experts-those who are operating inclusive programs, those who advocate for them and those who study them.   The Ruderman Family Foundation is focused, as they say, like a laser beam on this issue.  The ADVANCE conference is part of that focus.  Inclusion in all aspects of Jewish life is a long term process.  Changes and advances are taking place daily.  By coming together to learn, to be inspired, to question the how and why of inclusion, we will, working together, strengthen the Jewish community.  Not just for people with disabilities but for the entire community.  When we support people with disabilities and their families we make our communities stronger.  We show our sons and daughters without disabilities that all people have value.  What better lesson could there be?

Steven M. Eidelman is the H. Rodney Sharp Professor of Human Services Policy and Leadership, and the Faculty Director of the National Leadership Consortium on Developmental Disabilities at the University of Delaware.

Disabled Individuals Bring Innovation To The Workforce

Below is an op-ed I wrote for Huffington Post about the positive aspects of full inclusion of people with disabilities in the workforce.

- Jay

As the U.S. disabled population grows amidst increasing challenges to American economic competitiveness on the world stage, the time is ripe to change our perceptions of disability and integrally incorporate the creative and often resilient disabled population into our workforce.

The American Association of People With Disabilities recently reported that the unemployment rate for people with disabilities is twice the national average. During the recession, people with disabilities lost jobs five times faster than people without disabilities. In addition, only 25 percent of people with disabilities are meaningfully employed, while 75 percent are unemployed or underemployed. Contrary to popular belief, this in large part is not due to a lack of desire or capability to work.

Disabled individuals overwhelmingly want to work — and they bring innovative perspectives to the table. Employees with disabilities have skills and experience that can’t be found in other population sectors.

After all, many of the greatest innovators and leaders in history had disabilities-and the challenges they faced played a critical role in their ability to achieve greatness. President Roosevelt, though unable to walk, led the mightiest country in history through the Great Depression and World War II. The father of relativity, Mr. Einstein himself, experienced learning disabilities in his youth. And Beethoven, arguably the greatest composer of all time, couldn’t hear!

Since confronted with life difficulties that require creative adaptation and ingenuity on a daily basis, disabled individuals know resilience, and they know how to think out-of-the-box and on their feet, or wheels. In fact, recent studies show employers who hire people with disabilities report a higher level of dedication and increased retention.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, workers with disabilities are rated consistently as average or above average in performance, quality and quantity of work, flexibility, and attendance.

The growth rate of the American disabled population is growing tremendously and is outpacing any other subgroup of the U.S. population, according to the Disability Funders Network. Between 1990 and 2000, for example, the number of Americans with disabilities increased 25 percent, making people with disabilities represent the single largest minority group seeking employment in today’s marketplace.

At the same time, the disabled are nearly twice as likely as people without disabilities to have an annual household income of $15,000 or less.

For the sake of U.S. competitiveness — and above all, equality — it is time to prove wrong the common misperception that individuals with disabilities are non-active members of society. It is time to reframe the negative perception of disability as instead an opportunity-filled and growth-inducing challenge. It is time for employers to hire people with disabilities. It is time to pursue a policy of inclusion and smart economics, quiet simply because disabled individuals bring uniqueness and innovation to the workplace — something our economy vitally requires.

Disability As Lifelong Marathon

The op-ed below appeared yesterday in The Times of Israel. Our foundation’s location- headquarters in both Israel and Boston- and our expertise in the area of disabilities gave us we believe a unique perspective on last week’s Boston Marathon bombings.

- Jay

Jeff Bauman is on my mind.

One week ago, two brothers carried out a despicable attack in Boston. Their targets were innocent civilians, marathon runners, fans, by-standers and local law enforcement officials. Their goal was to kill, hurt and maim. And unfortunately, they succeeded.

The foundation I represent is unique in the philanthropic world as we have headquarters both in Israel and in Boston. Living in Israel, terrorist attacks have unfortunately become part and parcel of life here. As soon as news breaks, we text everyone we know, constantly refresh news sites, wait for the latest updates.

But frantic phone calls to staff in Boston, ensuring people are OK, waiting for family members to check in overseas, was a surreal experience. Upside down, in fact. This hit close to home, 6,000 miles away.

Jeff Bauman, who lost both legs in the attack, and the other 170 injured people weren’t expecting to have their lives turned upside down. But those who sustained permanent disabilities have just joined a large swath of the population whose needs are not adequately met.

The US government estimates that 20 percent of the population has some form of disability. In Israel, approximately one million Israelis of working age have a disability. Some are born with a disability while other disabilities occur with age. So many people are affected – those with disabilities, their families, friends, co-workers, neighbors and communities.

But sometimes, a disability happens in an instant. A car accident, sports injury, a stroke and yes, terrorist attack. Jeff Bauman…. Healthy one minute, a person with a disability the next.

Continue reading the post on Times of Israel

Photo courtesy of instagram.com/p/YVclHcpREx