Mission & Values

MISSION & VALUES

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:

Everyone is a valued, contributing member of their community.
The Arc helps self-advocates and their families by creating opportunities, so that they can achieve their goals.
The Arc fosters respect and protects the human rights of people with IDD and their families.
For 70 years, The Arc has been a family-focused, grass roots organization.
The Arc is the resource of first choice for people with IDD and their families regardless of the diagnosis and at all stages of life

Michigan Alliance for Families

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:

https://www.michiganallianceforfamilies.org/

Land Acknowledgment

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.

The Arc Community Advocates

MISSION & VALUES

Michigan Alliance for Families

Annual Reports

Land Acknowledgment

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