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Tuesday, October 22, 2024

7:30 - 9:00 a.m. - Registration, Networking, and Breakfast

9:00 - 10:00 a.m. General Session 1, Welcome and Keynote

Keynote: A Seat at the Table - Africa West Ballroom

Join Max Barrows, Director and Self-Advocate, from Green Mountain Self-Advocates as he discusses how state leaders can ensure advocates not only have a seat at the table but are driving forces behind policy work. It will be an insightful conversation.

Max Barrows is Outreach Director for Green Mountain Self-Advocates (GMSA), a position he has held since 2007. GMSA is Vermont’s statewide Self-Advocacy organization. Started in Burlington, Vermont, as one small Self-Advocacy group today has grown to more than 20 local peer support groups across the state! Over 600 self-advocates speak up for themselves as part of these groups.

Max mentors youth and adults with developmental disabilities to speak up for themselves and become leaders. GMSA is a lead partner of the Self-Advocacy Resource and Technical Assistance Center (SARTAC). Max connects with people on all levels advocating for
true inclusion of people with developmental disabilities. In his work, he advances the message that when you meet an individual with a disability, presume competence.

Website: www.gmsavt.org

Session Materials

10:00 - 10:45 a.m. Networking Break, Exhibitors, and Friendship Lounge

10:45 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Really Good Learning Sessions

Everyone at the Table Has a Story to Tell

This session will discuss how important it is for advocates to tell their stories. We will also discuss the different parts of a story and other methods of telling stories. This session will make advocates think about how to share both a short story and a longer story for different situations they happen to be in.

Presenters: Sydney Badeau and Brett Maki

Session Materials

Live Your Best Life Using Your Strength

Do you ever wonder why you make certain choices? Why are you better at some things than others? There’s a reason. It’s your talent. This session is meant for individuals to understand their strengths and talents, how to identify what they do best, discover their greatest opportunities to lead, and how to achieve what is most important to them.

Presenters: Stephanie Birmingham, Jamie Champine, Dana Glinski, Samm Pamperin,

and Andrea Prendota

Session Materials

Sharing your Lived Experience to Drive Change

Learn how people can use their voices and personal experiences to move beyond advocating for themselves to impacting change that can help many others. Rosie and Stacy are passionate advocates who have shared their own stories with state-wide, national and global audiences including with legislators and provider agencies. Their stories help to find solutions to problems many people are
experiencing. Learn how sharing your own stories and experiences can help to make a bigger change for others. Learn how to find a seat at the table including how to apply for conference presentations and apply for committees (ex. IRIS Advisory Committee, Long-Term Care Advisory Committee, etc.)

Presenters: Rosie Bartel, Stacy Ellingen, and Dan Krohn

Session Materials

Your Vote is Your Voice: Nothing About Us, Without Us!

Learn about why voting is important. Savanna, a self-advocate, will share why voting is important to her and will tell you about her voting experiences. Nancy, Savanna's mom, will share how she has supported Savanna to use her voting voice. The session will teach you everything you need to know to be able to vote in the November election. You will learn about registration, early voting, absentee voting, and more! You will find out what your rights are as a voter with disabilities. You will make a personalized plan to vote.

Presenters: Savanna Hawpetoss, Nancy Heltemes, and Wendy Heyn

Session Materials

Unlocking Creativity and Discovering Ideas
Through “Yes, AND”

Whatever brings you to this conference, this session will have something for you! It is about brainstorming in a different, fun, and productive way. Listening more deeply to each other, building on each other’s ideas and generating creative ideas.

Presenters: Priscilla Battle, Cindy Bentley, and Peter Leidy

Session Materials

Peer Mentoring: Exploring Possibilities in Your Life

Discover how peer mentors can guide and support people with disabilities in reaching their goals. Learn how you can become a peer mentor and help others while growing your own skills. See how peer mentoring can open new possibilities in your life. Hear from self-advocates and agencies who have been developing the Wisconsin Peer Mentor Program.

Presenters: Sally Flaschberger, Shawn Ihrcke, Kate Norby, Emily Savage,

Kristi Schuenemann, and Tina Wiley

Session Materials

DHS Listening Sessions

The Department of Health Services (DHS) wants to hear from you about how you use long-term care services to live the life you want. What works well, and what could be better? There are four listening sessions scheduled. Pick the one that fits best with the other sessions you want to attend. They will all be set up the same so you only have to attend one of the four sessions.

Alicia Boehme and Christian Moran

Session Materials

12:00 p.m. - 1:15 p.m. - Lunch and Networking Break

12:30 p.m. - 1:15 p.m. Friendship Lounge

1:30 - 2:45 p.m. Really Good Learning Sessions

Developing Great Relationships with Your
Direct Care Employee

Self Advocates and their direct care workers are diverse groups. Differences in culture, language, values, and background can make it difficult to build trusting relationships. Caring Across Cultures (CAC) is a free, web-based toolkit for self-advocates to use with their direct care workers. CAC will help you understand
cultural differences through a series of fun and easy activities that will help develop strong working relationships between self-advocates and their workers. Attendees will learn how to access and use the CAC toolkit.

Presenters: Kristi Scheunemann and Dave Verban

Session Materials

Supported Decision-Making: Are Youth Seated at the Table?

Supported Decision-Making allows people with disabilities to keep all their rights while still getting support on making decisions in any area of their life they choose. Youth are often left out of conversations that impact their lives for the rest of their lives. Making decisions is a skill that can be developed over time and with practice. This session will give you the basics of Supported Decision-Making, ideas for working
on those skills, and a fresh perspective from young adults about how they had a seat at the table before the decision was made.

Presenters: Jordan Anderson, William Becker, Jenny Neugart, and Junior Sotelo

Session Materials

Building Inclusive Opportunities through
Community Collaboration

Through community collaboration and storytelling, learn how you can engage with people and places to build inclusive opportunities. Participate in an activity using a storytelling narrative to help people highlight their strengths and abilities. This will empower individuals with disabilities to tell their stories positively. Attendees will learn to build inclusive communities by leveraging existing partnerships and
resources, including local businesses, volunteers, and fundraising. Discover practical ways to build meaningful relationships and expand social connections, improving well-being and quality of life for everyone.

Presenters: Ashley Nickel and Samantha Szynskie

Session Materials

Financial Management Services: Onboarding

Self-directing in WI requires you to work with a Fiscal Employer Agent (FEA). Does it take forever for new people to be hired? In this highly interactive session, you will learn about common errors that may delay worker and vendor setup and payments and how to avoid them. At the end of this session, you will realize that you have more control than you might have thought.

Presenters: Erica Andres, Jonathan Claflin, Rob Lewis, Sana Khan,
Kaitlin McNamara, and Danielle Smith

Session Materials

Self-Direction is on the Menu! Let’s Make it Better!

Sometimes, change takes time. A group of advocates have been working on recommendations to improve self-directed services in Wisconsin. Have a seat at their table and help them prioritize improvements, offer suggestions on how to make self-direction easier for participants and prepare to share those recommendations at one of the DHS listening sessions. Hear from people who use self-direction on their experiences, successes and challenges.

Presenters: Lynn Breedlove, Cathi McCutchen, and Andy Thain

Session Materials

Ready, Set, Dream!

A vision board, also known as a dream board, goal board, or inspiration board, is a collection of pictures, words, and other visuals that represent your goals and dreams. Vision boards can inspire and motivate you to achieve your goals. Some say that vision boards can also help improve mental health.

Presenters: Ashley Mathy, Shannon McKinley, and PINC

Session Materials

DHS Listening Sessions

The Department of Health Services (DHS) wants to hear from you about how you use long-term care services to live the life you want. What works well, and what could be better? There are four listening sessions scheduled. Pick the one that fits best with the other sessions you want to attend. They will all be set up the same so you only have to attend one of the four sessions.

Alicia Boehme and Christian Moran

Session Materials

2:45 p.m. - 3:15 p.m. - Networking Break, Exhibitors, and Friendship Lounge

Obviously Kelsey: My Dream of Owning My Own Art Business

Kelsey is a young woman with autism. She shares her story that starts with her taking her first high school watercolor art class all the way through her journey of building her art studio and creating her own retail brand of products from her original artwork.

Presenters: Kelsey McNamara

Session Materials

Dominic the Food Reviewer’s Journey

I will talk about my journey with my food review page that now has over 16,000 followers. I will discuss how I started and how it is my passion to meet people, try new foods, and let my community know what great food is out there to try. I started off as a very shy 14-year-old, and now I am a 19-year-old who is confident in my ability to create posts and videos to bring people into restaurants I love.

Presenters: Dominic Dean

Session Materials

My Mental Health; My Music

There are many ways to deal with being different and being anxious. Hunter uses different kinds of music, but especially heavy metal music to help himself get through the day. Yes, some of the lyrics are harsh and yes, some of the music is best heard loud! But this is the way his mind works. Join him as he shares favorite songs and how music can help you!

Presenters: Hunter Markle

Session Materials

5:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. - Dinner and Diehard Awards

3:45 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. - Break and Hotel Check-in

6:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. - Dance Celebration with People First and DJ Buffet!

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