Equip For Equality Inc

Programs: Protection & advocacy system for individuals with developmental disabilities in the mid-1970's, congress established a unique, innovative, experimental initiative to safeguard the rights of people with developmental disabilities. Under this program, each governor was empowered to designate one independent organization to serve as a legal advocate and watchdog for people with developmental disabilities in the state. In this role, equip for equality provides self-advocacy assistance and legal services to remedy individual rights violations and pursues systems-change initiatives to benefit the disability community. These initiatives include facility monitoring, systems litigation to promote community living, public policy advocacy, training on disability rights, and other social change strategies.

protection and advocacy system for individual rightsfollowing adoption of the ada, the landmark federal civil rights law for people with disabilities, congress recognized that most individuals with disabilities would not have access to legal services to enforce their ada rights. Thus, in the early 1990s, congress once again expanded the role and authority of the state p&a systems to empower them to advocate for the rights of individuals with physical and other disabilities (besides developmental disabilities and mental illness) who are experiencing discrimination and other rights violations. Under this new p&a initiative, equip for equality opened its doors to individuals with all types of disabilities (e. G. , mobility, learning, sensory, and others), with a focus on promoting access and challenging discriminatory practices prohibited under the ada.

protection & advocacy system for individuals with mental illnessin response to alarming findingsof widespread abuse and neglect and fundamental rights violations in state psychiatric hospitals and. Other facilities that congressional hearings across the country had documented, in the mid-1980s congress expanded the role of the independent, state-level protection & avocacy systems to include people with serious mental and emotional illnesses. With this expanded role and authority, equip for equality monitors the use of restraint and seclusion; assesses the quality of state-conducted abuse investigations; ensures that treatment meets quality standards; and calls for reforms to promote employment, self-determination, communityliving, and other rights under the americans with disabilities act (ada).

other program services