Launch of “Can They Do That?

On May 29, 2020 Hezzy Smith kicked off HPOD’s “Can They Do That?” monthly webinar series for self-advocates. This webinar series aims to answer self-advocates’ pressing questions about their rights. Often, self-advocates do not have easy access to information they need about their rights and this webinar seeks to address this information gap.

The kick-off webinar was held with self-advocates and allies from the Self-Advocacy Association of New York State (SANYS). Participants watched and discussed short videos co-produced by SANYS and HPOD of an interview between prominent New York-based self-advocate Chester Finn and Hezzy. They focused on one video where Chester described some of his early experiences advocating for himself as an African-American growing up in Jim Crow Alabama. The series of videos are captioned and freely available on hpod.law.harvard.edu. Held over Google Meet, which provides free closed captioning, Hezzy facilitated a live question-and-answer session with Chester, with other self-advocates chiming in.

Some self-advocates voiced concerns about social distancing and testing with regard to their personal care staff. Specifically, some self-advocates were concerned that the support staff on whom they rely for personal care might not be tested frequently enough for them to know they are safe. They also discussed tensions between maintaining staff hours in their service plans while ensuring their own personal health and safety, fearing that a reduction in hours due to their own saftey concerns amid the covid-19 pandemic might become permanent later on. They made plans to support each other to take this issue up with New York’s state agency on persons with intellectual disabilities.   

Future webinar topics will be decided based on questions submitted by self-advocates on an ongoing basis. Self-advocates are encouraged to submit their questions here. Between sessions, Hezzy will research legal information to provide accurate answers to self-advocates’ questions. Each month HPOD will announce the topic and date of the following webinar.