Take a moment to watch this great video on how
The Arc Community Advocates can help!
MISSION
We exist as an advocacy organization to make it possible for each person with a developmental disability to participate fully in all aspects of community and to support the effort of each individual to determine their own future.
VALUES
As an affiliate member of The Arc, Community Advocates believes:
The Arc Community Advocates and The Michigan Alliance for Families (MAF) have an
educational relationship that spans six counties. Families with a student with a intellectual
and/or developmental disability, who do not yet have an IEP (Individualized Education Program) or have not yet accessed Special Education Services are referred to MAF for parent mentoring and information on the Special Education process.
The six counties we serve under our MAF contract are Kalamazoo, St. Joseph, Cass, Berrien, VanBuren and Barry. Michigan Alliance for Families is our state’s federally funded Parent Training and Information Center. They are a Michigan Department of Education IDEA Grant Funded Initiative.
For more information:
We begin today’s efforts by showing respect, speaking truth, and
acknowledging that we reside on land that itself provides connections across all
heritages, differences, beliefs, and understandings.
The word “Kalamazoo” is derived from “Kikalemazo” the Anishinaabe
word meaning surrounded by smoke. The name Kalamazoo was chosen for the
land, to honor the ambient mist rising from the Kalamazoo River. We
acknowledge this loss, of the descendants, of the sovereign nations across
Kalamazoo and Southwest Michigan.
We acknowledge are standing on the ancestral lands of the indigenous
nations of the Great Lakes region and home of the Council of the Three Fires: the
Ojibwe, the Odawa, and the Potawatomi. We recognize, respect, and honor the
enduring relationship these tribes maintained with the land and surrounding
sovereign nations.
Our community and its inhabitants owe gratitude to the generations of
indigenous, settlers, bondsmen, immigrants, and scores of intersecting descendants
that have stewarded this land since its birth. It is to those legacies in which we
make space to honor that history with dignity, truth, and respect.
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