AMINA KRUCK: So this is our little check in wrap up and I have a couple things following up and then see if you have any questions.
There were a couple of different questions or concerns that people had, and one of them was related to I think, we were trying to interpret it, what if you notify the agency you supposed to, like CPS, Child Protective Services, or Adult Protective Services, and I don't know about where you are, but our Adult Protective Services don't really do anything.
And they don't have power like Child Protective Services should have.
However in our state, last year they discovered that after they had this mandatory follow-up on everybody, over the last year that they had that, there were 10,000 children they didn't check in on at all.
So that's also a huge controversy.
So what they did is not fire the person in charge.
They fired some online staff and then moved the agency somewhere else.
So what do you do? 
And there was also there's always that issue about what if there's a crisis.
And the day before people had mentioned what if something    And the day before people had mentioned what if something happens over the weekend with a mentor and a mentee? 
So we wanted to remind you that part of that crisis training we have with them is to remind them that if they're worried about danger to self-or others, what they do is call 911 first.
Then they call us.
Because the main thing is to get safety to that person that they feel are in danger.
And they don't have to be sure that there's a danger.
If they're worried about it, there can be a welfare check.
As an old crisis counselor, what I know is that most people who are having problems at least with the danger to self are reassured when people are checking in on them because they get it, that somebody else knows they're having a hard time and is really listening to them.
The mentee will tell them they're going to do that.
We haven't had an issue in our program about danger to other.
I can say in the years I worked in the crisis field I only really had that twice.
And one, the danger was to the psychiatrist that put a suicidal girl in the hospital.
And when she got out of the hospital and came in for her appointment, she lunged at the doctor.
I'm laughing because it was, like, it was scary to see somebody that angry, you know, when we were trying to save her life and she was so mad about it.
But in our peer mentor program, that hasn't come up.
That's not been the issue.
It's more people feeling hopeless and then the more you give them hope they move through that usually pretty easily.
Primarily our mentees are not people with a psychiatric disability.
But we did have one this last year we worked through who had issues with taking meds or not taking meds.
And we had to give some extra support and get the staff more involved and that kind of thing.
But the first stop is always call 911 or ask for a welfare check.
That kind of thing.
Because I don't know about you, but, if you call the crisis line, that's for mental health, they only want to hear from the person that has the issue.
So that's the other thing, we encourage them to be with that person or conference call so the person can talk to that crisis line.
But the only support they'll give a staff person is support about their own worry about what's going on.
But they do you know what I'm saying? 
They want to talk directly to the person.
And we do have crisis teams in the Maricopa county area that will go out to the home.
But what do you do when APS or CPS doesn't do anything? 
Well, what do you do? 
What can you do? 
You do what you have to offer and that's all you have to offer.
And support the mentor if they're frustrated as you are.
I mean, I've been frustrated as staff not being able to get help for people who are really not taking care of themselves.
You know, you go out to a home mod and you find the person and they open the door and you almost pass out from the urine smell and they've got newspapers to the ceiling and cats all over the place.
And you know it's not a safe situation.
You know? 
And so that you need to support each other but you may not have any control to do anything in that situation unless somebody else has something.
Yeah, Steven.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: I was just 
AMINA KRUCK: Hello.
Thanks.
Try again.
He's nodding.
Try again.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: I've had to make a few reports to both adult protective services in a couple different states and Child Protective Services.
Child Protective Services usually rates the level of abuse and has policies around when they want to follow up with a family.
Adult protective services also has policies around how quickly they have to send a representative when abuse is reported or neglect.
Typically in neglect situations, it can be 48, 72 hours before somebody will come.
So in that situation, you usually do have to call 911.
And get immediate assistance 
AMINA KRUCK: Yeah.
If you're really concerned.
And the other piece of that is even when they go out, really what they are in our state anyway is more of a referral agency.
They don't really have power to move anybody around like they could with a child.
Or remove them from the home or anything.
This is this woman's home.
This mobile home is her home.
And they don't have power to make her move or anything unless they bring out a crisis team that determines she's a danger to self-or others.
And so 
APRIL REED: Amina, I just wanted to say that you and I, when we try to report to an agency that there's a problem with one of their clients, if we weren't happy with their response, then we would have had there's been a situation we have instigated a welfare check and did that for somebody.
AMINA KRUCK: Yeah.
So, if they're not because you can all at least in our state you can always call the police and ask for a welfare check and you can ask them to get back to you and let you know.
And that will help you feel a little bit better.
It will help get that message and buys you some time.
Better safe than sorry.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: I can't get it out of the stand.
No strength.
One of the things that has been very disheartening other than calling APS and not having and having my staff received a lot of negative I mean, they felt like they were under investigation for calling.
And so but because they're mandatory reporters, it's a requirement and without investigation to call and just give information across.
So that was my question is to what you could do above APS in order to affect some changes.
And I think with financial it's even harder.
 
They seem to be more willing to come and actually do something if the abuse is some kind of physical abuse.
But, if it's financial abuse, there just seems to be a lot of resistance.
AMINA KRUCK: Oh, you mean like somebody's taking somebody's money from them, that kind of a situation.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: That's correct 
AMINA KRUCK: Family members by the way, right?           "00:08:10.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Everyone in the family feeds in to mom who is the head of the home.
But when you get a phone call and I have somebody pulled off their job to come out to the main gate because a sister is there saying mom's over in the Caribbean and she's out of money and you need to go draw your money out of your account, and he's not eating, then that was you know.
financial was the problem.
So is still calling some of the things I've heard still 
AMINA KRUCK: Your guess is as good as mine in that kind of a situation.
Because I know sometimes the police will do something and sometimes they won't.
Just like if I get robbed at my house, you know? 
Sometimes they do something more than other times.
So I know I this wasn't a mentor situation but I had a guy who lives way up out in the country who has attendant care, is very dependent upon attendant care and had an attendant who was taking advantage of him.
And I just supported him as we went through the steps to because the agency that was providing the caregiver wasn't doing anything.
So we had to go outside of that.
And make some other reports.
So when there was a police report filed, then the agency took a different action.
Once the police report was filed.
So now he and I are good friends and we email.
Yeah.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yeah, I was going to add to what you said.
Always right now I work with people who hire home care workers.
And people, you know, sometimes forget that call the cops and file a report because that will trigger APS to take action.
To have a certain amount of information 
AMINA KRUCK: Documentation.
AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Documentation for them to determine what they're going to do.
AMINA KRUCK: That's right.
A lot of times you feel like calling the police may not make a difference or it doesn't warrant it.
But it's just, you know, you do what you have power to do in life, right? 
And what you don't have control over, you don't.
But you just keep and so you stay in touch with these people.
And keep problem solving with them which is the main thing I think.
Did you want to say something Arturo.
You were nodding in agreement, you have to stick with it.
Some things take a while to work through.
Because I'm the director of advocacy, I get the calls that have gone other places.
You know, I was talking with you or somebody here about how I get afraid all the time about new situations.
I just am naturally like that.
And a new person with a different disability for a little bit.
Not for long.
I like to know what I'm doing and when I don't know what I'm doing, I have anxiety that comes up but I know if I hang in there with them and so often the best I have to offer them is to validate what they're telling me as real when I don't have another real solution for them.
And I try to work with staff about that.
Because invariably, people feel better when they're done talking to me because I'm getting it.
And I tell them you can call me back any time.
And I'll be your cheerleader on this.
This an issue I don't have an answer for and it's and I hate that you're in that situation.
And very rarely do they call me back.
But occasionally they do call me back and tell me what else is going on about it.
Occasionally something comes up that there is something I find out about it and I always keep their 
So that's a real thing because staff get very frustrated in those situations and of course you do because you feel powerless.
But the big deal is so do they and it's okay to feel powerless together.
Somehow that feels better than not.
And we know these, like last year we had to make a decision in our report what were the advocacy stories we were going to tell.
And we had a big debate would we talk about what we were doing for CRPD for the disabilities treaty because we had not succeeded yet, right?
So we gave an example of something that did have a successful outcome and we wrote a little bit about some things take a longer time and you have to keep pushing on that door, right?
 It took a long time to get the ADA through and it's taken us 25 years to get it implemented.
So yeah.
There was another concern about something that I said I think it was me during the disability liberation talk about that I had made a generalization, something around identifying as disabled.
I'm not quite sure what it was.
And the person isn't comfortable talking here.
You can write me another note or come talk to me during a break about that.
But I apologize if in some way I expect to antagonize and irritate people when I do that workshop and shock them.
And so that's part of the workshop.
I welcome always questions, because we talked about that word crazy.
And I use to a lot do that whole bit about emotions and discharge and 
say so what happens a lot of times is people feel like they're going crazy and they're not going crazy, they're having a lot of emotions and sometimes conflicting emotions.
And then my friend who I was actually friends with, who was an advocate in the mental health community got up and spoke poignantly in tears about what it felt like every time I used that word.
And that's never been the same for me.
So I invite challenges to whatever I'm doing in case out of my ignorance I'm doing something that's harmful.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: I think that that was mine.
And it wasn't actually it was during April's presentation?
AMINA KRUCK: Oh good, then it was her, not me.
I'm so glad.
Usually I'm the one that irritates people.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: So this is Jess.
You had talked about in your presentation regarding the different stages of grief and you had mentioned that acceptance like people with disabilities didn't have the acceptance, what they did is they adapted and I have to tell you that I vehemently disagree 
AMINA KRUCK: And say more about what you think really happens.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: I and it's not for everybody.
So part of what I kind of would recommend is instead of saying people with disabilities don't go into the acceptance role, that some people with disabilities don't go into the acceptance role.
Some do prefer the word "adapt" like they've adapted.
With me, where my disability has been my whole life, it's been my one constant.
And it was weird because I didn't accept my disability until I was 23.
In fact when I saw people with disabilities, I'd go the other way.
People would be like disabled and I'd be like where? 
And then when I did accept disability, it was like boom.
There was no going back.
And even with the ups and the downs, I love my disability.
Do I get angry at my legs? 
Sure.
But to this day there's nothing anybody could say to me to where they would be like well, do you adapt or do you accept? 
I accept.
Nothing else.
So that's what I was meaning 
AMINA KRUCK: Yes.
And I think you know what you point out is something for us always to remember.
That the point of having a disability makes a big difference in people's identify formation and that's why I got to thinking on this trip that I never thought before, even though we've worked together quite a while, is that we both grew up with chronic mysterious illnesses and lived through a lot of  medical examination and judgment because when doctors are not succeeding, it kind of looks sometimes like it's your fault that they're not succeeding.
They don't really mean it.
But you're so sensitive to looks on people's face when you're naked and they're examining you, you know what I mean?  
And how much that affected us growing up.
And then when we were in our 20s, we got slammed or she was more like 18 with a big progression of it.
And so somebody who lives with a disability their whole life, that's why there's a controversy about people with disabilities versus a disabled person.
Many people who were grew up with a disability had a disability since birth, they proudly say they're a disabled person because that is who they are.
They never were anything else.
Whereas, somebody who gets a spinal cord injury at 18 or 45,  they were living this life and now they're living this other life and it's a big identity change.
But for me same thing.
I didn't identify as disabled until Neal Marcus pointed it out to me.
And I was working for the liberation of other constituencies at that point.
And someone said to me, you should do a workshop about disability 
liberation because of the stereotype about what fits into disability.
So that whole issue about what whether we accept it and.
Like, for me now, sounds a little bit similar to you.
I've done a million things over the years to live a healthier,  more comfortable life with my psoriasis and my arthritis.
And here I am 40 years later, 50 years later, I've lived 50 of my 66 years no, I got it when I was 9.
I can't count any more.
Forever I have lived with this skin condition that gets redder or less redder, flakier less flakier, blisterier or less blisterier and it's changing all the time and I'm watching my husband who has a newer chronic illness every day three times a day giving me feedback about what's 
going on with it because he's waiting to get better.
Well, you know, I waited to get better for a lot of years and if nothing else  maybe I'd grow out of it and then I didn't and I had to go through that anger and all these different things.
And then I started meeting more people with disabilities.
And that's what we see when people get together getting a perspective on my disability and thinking well, at least I can breathe.
You know? 
And they even role modeled to me how I could get married.
I was a single person for 20 years.
I had somebody say to me, oh, you should be able to your disability is a good thing because it will help you screen out the bad guys.
Hmm.
It helped me screen in the bad guys, you know what I mean? 
Because I had low self-esteem and I didn't feel lovable and touchable and how do you date and talk about you know, of course somebody's question is always, do you have it all over your body?  
So yeah, you go through these emotional adjustments and for me  that's similar to I didn't adapt to my disability although I've done adaptions to how to do it.
You know, TV is a good pain killer for me,  
better an aspirin because I have problems with aspirin.
But accepting who I was and then to get a job where I get up in the morning and I'm red and flaky looking and I still, like, don't look and always feel like I'm beautiful.
I dress fun, you know?
I wear rings on my bent fingers now purposefully.
It's part of my liberation, you know? 
But I get to wake up and go oh, I have to go testify today.
Good.
I actually look disabled.
They wouldn't believe me if I actually have a job where it's a good thing.
And that's another benefit to people being advocates with their disability.
Anybody here ever know Ken Heard, he was a long ADAPT person.
His favorite thing was to get in his power wheelchair, had he trouble speaking.
He had a fog horn on his chair and he'd been all over the country demonstrating with ADAPT and his favorite thing was to get in the doorway of an elevator, tilt his chair back, take a nap while everybody in the hallway is chanting.
You know? 
He taught me how to use power.
He's the one who drug me to those demonstrations, you know? 
You got to go.
You don't know.
Because all of a sudden your disability is a symbol of power and usefulness, right? 
People wouldn't believe me when I do some of this stuff if I didn't have it.
So I don't I'm not trying to get rid of it the same way that I did so long or be different from it.
So thank you for bringing that up.
Yeah.
You're working with people, going through rehab, they have this thing of adapting.
Because we taught that grieving process and you go through all these stages and one of my first mentors and teachers was a 50-year-old man in a wheelchair that had been who had been a sports fiend and still was and was an ex cop and he was never really accepting and he will tell you that.
He never accepted being in a chair, but he would like the word adapt.
So that's important for us to ask people and have those conversations.
What word feels empowering to you and really fits for you?
We can't take it for granted that we're disabled.
You know, we always have that conversation also in the disability, do you like challenge?
We get to the S word, you know what the S word is on the list of things?
The one that I already made fun of our Parent Education Training Center.
Special.  You are so special.
I love Chrissie Hinds, I always think of that song of hers whenever I hear that.
So special.
I'm going to get you, I want you, I want you.
Oh, man, first time I heard that song, I hated that song.
Now it's a great thing to play when you want to rev the troops up.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: I was just going to back up.
I totally understand what she's saying there.
I'm a when I was 22 I had a spinal cord injury.
I'm 34 now.
We work with a couple of awesome ladies, one with Spina Bifida and one who had a tumor on her spine early on like right away.
So they both grew up using a wheelchair or having that disability the whole time so there's no adaption.
Whereas, I've got to adapt and somebody who has acquired it.
AMINA KRUCK: And there's no tragedy of loss.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Exactly.
There is a tragedy of loss when you're 22 and you know, this is a whole new life.
So yeah, there is acceptance and adaption for those who acquire it.
Absolutely.
It's different set of eyes.
And that's something to think about you know?
Because there's going to be these niches to start where you're going to relate immediately with another one, another person who is who's grown up with it and lived it.
The whole time whereas, I'm going to have a connection with somebody in a rehab hospital that boom, it's that drastic change.
That catastrophic
AMENA KRUCK: And we think about that when we're matching mentors.
That's one of the things to think about.
And it was being at the center for independent living and so I had gotten I used to smoke pot and did a few things.
Because I could not be intimate sober.
Are you kidding me in this body?
No way as a young girl.
So I got out of that culture and once I had a child, she was born at home.
It was the best my body had ever done, ever, it was completely useful, all parts of it that I had thought had been toys for other people.
And I this child relied on me and I think those chemicals that went through me, I was too afraid of the doctors so that's why I had her at home.
And because of other problems I had with all the cancer drugs and really heavy meds that they tried on me, to get rid of the psoriasis.
So after she was born, I just needed to become more responsible because I had those hormones in my body just full blast, you know?
Every woman was a goddess to me at that point because of the power of life.
So it took me a few years to get my act together.
And once I did, which means I didn't need that relationship any more, I was okay.
I started pursuing my career, went back to school.
She told me very bluntly it was not going to take me 14 years to get my bachelors degree like it did you.
It took me 14 years to get that confidence and do that and build my way out of poverty and get off Social Security.
That's why I do love WIPA even though I hate it because I didn't have WIPA when I was doing that and it was scary as all get out.
Anyway, so then for 20 years I was single.
And I learned disability liberation stuff and I lived it and I learned to take on leadership by the way, what is one of the ways to get out of that oppression is to take on leadership.
You're a targeted person in an oppressive culture.
The best contradiction is to take on leadership and discharge off all the terror that comes.
And have a support system that lets you do it.
And encourages you and eggs you on.
That's what I had.
I was very lucky before I got to the independent living movement that I had a cheering squad that said you're terrified, great, you must be doing something right.
Let me support you.
I'll go with you.
And egged me on in that area.
But it was after I'd been at ABIL, like, 10 years that I met couples who were married and they had different disabilities and they role modeled for me and as I was teaching disability liberation class, I thought wow, the one thing I haven't done I had achieved things I never knew I could achieve in my life and felt really good but one thing I hadn't figured out is how to be two.
I was really good at being one and I had raised my daughter on my own and everything, but being a couple was terrifying to me.
And I had never dated, really.
Back in the '60s, '70s, you didn't have to date if you were smoking pot.
You just I grew up in the Bay Area, okay? 
enough said.
You didn't date.
So I had never dated or any of that.
And it was but I the wonderful thing about identifying on that list what you've really swallowed that isn't you, then you have then you have a path to set goals of what would contradict that?
What are you not doing because of that that you actually want to do?
And it became clear to me that what I hadn't done is get in a relationship sober.
You know?
And so I rationally decided to figure out how to do that.
And discharged a lot along the way.
So within a couple years I did meet my husband and I did get married and we've been married now for 14 years.
It was rough the first few years I'll say that.
Venus and Mars and everything.
Turned out he had a disability and I'm like what do you mean?
I'm the one who has a disability?
I'm the special one.
So anyway, you use that information to help people plot their path to liberation.
And I just love those words.
We all love the word "empowerment" that was a word that came out a lot when you filled out your thing.
Why? This is a war we're in, folks.
And some people die from it as we know, or lead miserable lives.
And it helps to have a real rational path and know why you're aiming in that direction and then get a cheering squad to do it.
So everybody doesn't use the same language as me.
This is a recipe that works for me to pass it on.
And to kind of get people thinking in a different way that I just am sharing with you.
It's not the only way.
In fact, I hope as I come out more with it outside of my small circle of friends, I'll hear what other people are doing.
I you know, I just recently met a kindred spirit and now we're e-mailing.
I did a presentation at our transition conference and I didn't know he was out there and he didn't know I was out there so now there are two in Arizona willing to come out and talk to helping professionals and other people, City of Phoenix employees, whatever.
I throw this at everybody when I get the chance.
When I get the time.
So I just wanted to say that because we didn't talk about and there are certain statements of contradiction you develop in the liberation class too.
And you practice saying our designs to make you discharge off the distress of feeling less than or whatever however, you're distress runs.
And they have these contradictions probably on the Web site for reevaluation counseling and they have them for all constituency groups.
So they've done this work for all different kinds of constituency groups.
So maybe I'll look it up and send it to Tim.
I haven't looked it up in years.
I haven't been doing co-counseling for years, I've been doing other things.
But it certainly moved me forward in my life.
Any other questions from last week?