26/07/2024
The value of disabled perspectives must be treated with more dignity in both education and employment.
Get involved with SDAG to build community so we can navigate better together.
[Image ID: 34 Years of the ADA: Nothing about us without us, GVRA. Maeve (Jill) King, Founder & Director.
Yesterday, the Atlanta Journal Constitution published an investigative article titled: ‘It’s so broken right now’: How a Georgia agency. failed to help disabled people find work. I am writing to share my own experiences and reflections with Georgia’s Vocational Rehabilitation Agency (GVRA) and to stand in solidarity with my fellow disabled Georgians who are more than frustrated with being underestimated and used fraudulently.
Today my education is financially supported by GVRA. But when I was declared legally blind in 2022, it took a year of persistence, working 3 jobs, and a policy change before I received any sort of aid.
My case manager was new to GVRA, and not familiar with blindness. From his constantly full voicemail box and constant shuffling papers in the background of calls, I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge his likely overwhelming caseload and red tape that was necessary for each of us.
Halfway through my year of persistence, after being asked to send the same set of paperwork for a third time, I sighed and said that they would likely deem me not deserving of help. I heard him stop shuffling papers before saying,
“You’re deserving of help, this system is broken.”
Throughout my year as a triad employee, it was my fellow disabled siblings who helped me figure out how to navigate the system.
Phone calls became emails, emails to my case worker now had Georgia’s Client Assistance Program CC’d. GVRA leaves far too many capable, valuable disabled people with burnout from navigating their system as it stands.
If it weren’t for blind mentors, community vents about the system at large, if my case manager had been as cruel as those penned in AJC’s article and the stories of many; I’d be one of the 37,000 disabled workers’ cases quietly closed by GVRA over the last 5 years.
(ID Continued in comments!)
