National Council on Disability
32 Years of Disability Policy Leadership
1978 - 2010

Living, Learning, & Earning Forums

Statement by Jonathan Young, NCD Chairman

As we approach the 20th Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, it is my profound honor and privilege to serve as the National Council on Disability’s Chairman.

I assume this responsibility understanding full well that the challenges ahead are enormous. Disability issues can no longer be viewed as side issues. Some of our greatest challenges in ensuring long-term fiscal stability depend on providing people with disabilities meaningful opportunities to contribute to our collective well-being. Solutions will not come easily.  I, and my fellow Members, are committed to continuing the history of valuable work of the National Council on Disability (NCD) and will work diligently to find and implement solutions to the current challenges confronting the disability community.  

My primary objective is to build a solid foundation for NCD to carry its work into the future and that means being able to COORDINATE and COLLABORATE effectively across the Federal Government, with state and local governments, and with a variety of stakeholders within the disability community.  We are at a critical juncture. There is no longer any mystery about the broad policy objectives for people with disabilities. The important uncertainties regard concrete and actionable steps toward implementing our policy objectives. Absent effective leadership and coordination, we will continue to fall short both in improving the lives of people with disabilities and in stabilizing our nation’s fiscal health. 

To be an effective agent in coordination and collaboration, NCD must actively ENGAGE with the community it was created to serve. Accordingly, NCD will be aggressive, creative, and steadfast in identifying ways to be TRANSPARENT about its activities and to solicit input from all interested stakeholders. NCD’s engagement will also need to be TIMELY and RELEVANT. While NCD should strive to help set the agenda where it can, our greatest impact will frequently be on issues and topics for which there are windows of opportunity. We need to make sure that NCD is aware of these windows and how best to tailor and present its recommendations so that they make a real difference in advancing disability policy objectives.

My service as NCD Chairman is shaped by my experiences as Associate Director of the Office of Public Liaison in the White House. In that capacity, I had responsibility to be responsive to the concerns of stakeholders representing every type of disability and every conceivable disability policy issue, and yet, I obviously could not be an expert in all of those issues. So I viewed my role largely as a matchmaker—identifying areas of opportunity and getting the right people together, inside the White House and outside.  Being attuned to how best to bring people and ideas together was vastly more important than being an expert on particular issues. The National Council on Disability should play a similar role – be a matchmaker, a facilitator, a convener, a 360-degree “lookout” for tackling longstanding deficiencies in coordination. It is not important that NCD “own” any particular solutions or achievements or expertise. What matters most is whether NCD can establish itself as a TRUSTED AND RELIABLE independent agency that understands how to translate policies into real-life change rather than merely articulate abstract policy recommendations.

This framework inspired the way we have reoriented the ADA Anniversary 2010 Summit. The Council had initially planned a three-day Summit on July 25-27 to have participants vote on recommendations in ten separate tracks, and to include one delegate from each federal agency. Because separate tracks perpetuate silos rather than promote coordination across them, we have identified a cross-cutting and multi-part theme for the Summit: LIVING, LEARNING & EARNING. We are increasing the scope of the event to include many more participants from agencies so that we can restart a dialogue about disability policies and programs. 

For example, we are not just thinking about housing in abstraction, or employment as a concept, or research in isolation.  We are taking these issues and asking: How do we undertake the process of developing livable communities that are fully accessible and become home to many people with disabilities?  How do we take the idea of learning and all that's encompassed within that from a traditional K-12 lens to consider the entire span of an individual’s lifelong learning process?  How do we work on earning so that one of the goals of the ADA, economic self‑sufficiency, is met? How do we think creatively about all of the pieces fitting together?

Through this recalibrated process, we are prioritizing coordination and relationship-building over producing specific plans and recommendations. I have charged three teams (for Living, Learning, and Earning) to work collaboratively with the White House, Congress, agencies, advocates, and other stakeholders to plan the Summit and begin cultivating the relationships that can help to meet the challenges that lie ahead.  We are convinced that there is as much value in the process leading up to the Summit and beyond as there is in what is achieved at the Summit itself.  By being actively engaged with the disability community, Congress, agencies at all levels of government, the White House, and the wide array of other stakeholders, we can begin to build a foundation for collaboration in the years ahead.  NCD will continue to identify policy priorities. But we want to ensure that we are well-positioned to shepherd those ideas and recommendations into reality in coordination with various decision-makers.

NCD’s new Summit theme of Living, Learning & Earning has resonated powerfully with various stakeholders. The ADA is arguably the greatest common ground amongst a diverse constituency comprising the disability community. We hope that these themes can help stake out the common ground to build on the legacy of the ADA into the 21st century.