Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD) Conference

I took the Metro again today, but this time to Metro Station, where I met Andrew for the annual CCD conference. This consortium is a coalition of about 100 different organizations and associations that represent citizens with various disabilities. Today was the annual meeting and about 80 different associations were represented. It was so very intriguing to see the different activists in the room who live with disabilities, like spinal cord injury, congenital birth defects, blind, and deaf, just to name a few. Guest speakers included the Disability Director of Obama’s Presidential Transition Team, Kareem Dale. This man was so incredibly impressive to me. His list of accomplishments went on an on from graduation of Law school to starting his own firm. He spoke so eloquently about disability issues and the direction that Obama plans to take. He urged people not to get caught up in January 20 being a deadline for change, but the beginning. He joked about how difficult it was for him to get a ticket to the inauguration, and he’s on the transition team. The man will do a great job, as he is well versed of the issues and he personally understands the difficulties that people with disabilities face living with blindness. The next two speakers were Yvette Fontenot and Becky Shipp, both Health Policy Advisors for the Senate Committee majority and minority staff, respectively. I did not get much out of these speeches and questions. They seemed well over my head actually. We left after that section and I had the rest of the day off! I understand the importance of APTA being involved in this consortium, but there were definitely other groups that had more pertinent issues than ours. Citizens with disabilities are just one facet to physical therapy, while most of the participating groups actually represent citizens with disabilities. It seems more of a side organization for us, if I could explain it that way.