Having enough Direct Support Professional (DSP) staff is our biggest challenge. Staffing was harder than usual during the first year of the pandemic. As the vaccines started going in arms, we dared to hope that the staffing situation would improve. Instead we were consumed by a perfect economic storm that nearly sank us.
Sometimes I think of the Goldie B. Floberg Center as a big machine. A machine made to empower and enrich the lives of people with intellectual disabilities. A machine where every part is essential in supporting the next. A machine constantly pivoting to address the needs of the people we serve and the ever changing challenges of the world around us.
In this year-end issue of Dignity, you will read about Aktion Club and its members’ commitment to our community, about the commendations received and given by staff for making an impact on the work we do every day, and about our annual celebration of donors, like you, who make this all possible.
Following a two-year cycle of posturing, votes, votoes, more votes and more vetoes, the State of Illinois has a budget. As a state, we have a lot of work to be done before our finances will be considered sound. Despite the negatives and controversy that surround this budget, and possible cuts from a federal level, this budget brings us bright skies—optimism and relief.
Please click on the link below TODAY and send an electronic letter to your local House Representative urging her or him to vote to override the Governor’s budget veto. This is it folks! The budget not only avoids cuts for our services but also includes a raise for DSPs. PLEASE go the link now and let’s push this budget across the finish line. The link will identify your House representative for you and already has the letter written. Super easy!
From Goldie B. Floberg President/CEO: John Pingo, Ph.D. BCBA-D Everyone knows what a nurse or a teacher does. Yet when I say “Direct Support Professional,” I’m often faced with quizzical looks. [...]
Like most people, I wish that "not in my neighborhood" would be a thing of the past. We have a long way to go to overcoming such biases. Unfortunately for people with developmental disabilities, the journey to conquering discrimination is long and just beginning.
Please urge your friends, family, and colleagues to contact their senators and house representative at the federal level to share how the current bill will have an adverse impact on the people we love and care for, like the children and adults with developmental disabilities served by Goldie B. Floberg Center, or people like my grandfather.
When we communicate outside our walls, executive to executive, grant seeker to foundation, we use the quantifying language which communicates the best possible picture of outcomes and achievements. This isn’t just non-profit nature or professional nature, it’s human nature.
We can’t stop now. Call your Representatives in Springfield in Support of SB 580, a living wage for direct support professionals.