Rich also attended meetings with Special Education Directors from the Lakes Region and a Family Support Advisory Council meeting in order to listen to their concerns and issues. Through this inclusive process we identified the agency's primary strengths, weaknesses, challenges and key issues. Most of the responses were very favorable and fairly consistent. Overwhelming the respondents agreed that the people who work here have extremely high levels of commitment to people with disabilities. This was probably the most consistently agreed upon concept in the entire planning process, repeated so often, that it made a very strong impression on the readers of the data.
People clearly view each other as valuable assets.
They believe in our mission and the direction in which we are evolving. Participants from all stakeholder groups strongly agreed that the culture of our organization and communication within the organization were very important issues. Some people are quite satisfied with the dynamics, health and supportiveness of the agency. Predictably, funding came up as an issue for many of the participants. The Self-Advocates wanted more money to increase the amount of staff, increase the transportation options and, help them find better jobs.