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Awards To Be Presented at the Community Imperative Conference - January 25, 2002 The reception on Friday evening is both a celebration of more than 35 years of progress in California and the nation, and a recognition of the early participants that created the history of today’s powerful disability rights movement.Lanterman Pioneer Award: This award is being given to the early leaders who helped lay the foundation for our community service system through securing passage of the Lanterman Developmental Disabilities Act. Through their tireless and continuous effort in the 1960s, the Lanterman Act created the vision and put into place the entitlement to community services and created the first pilot regional centers in Los Angeles and San Francisco. This has since led to the present 21 regional centers covering every area of California. Receiving the Pioneer Award are:
Visionary Leadership Award: This award is being presented to the original California endorsers of the 1979 Community Imperative declaration. They were among over 400 parents, professionals and other leaders from around the world who, with their signature, took a clear and principled stand against the segregation of people due to a disability. They will each receive an award for their visionary leadership then and now. Receiving the Visionary Leadership award are:
Lifetime Achievement Award
Art Bolton is being given the first Community Imperative Lifetime Achievement Award for his original and continuous leadership in promoting community services for everyone. As the first chief of the Assembly Office of Research, he worked closely with Frank Lanterman and drafted the original language in the Lanterman Act. He has continued his leadership by consulting with governments for the past thirty years, writing major amendments to the Lanterman Act in the 1970’s and 1980’s, and recently wrote the language of AB 896 with Assemblywoman Dion Aroner. This bill, currently before the legislature, would finally combine the community and state hospital budgets and protect current hospital assets for future use for persons who have a developmental disability. Disability Rights Award
Ed Roberts has long been recognized as the father of the disabilities rights movement. He was the former Director of the California Department of Rehabilitation and one of the founders of the nation’s first Center for Independent Living in Berkeley. He had been a visionary and inspiration to many of today’s leaders. Together with Judy Heumann, also an original endorser of the Community Imperative, he founded the World institute on Disability, which has contributed nationally and internationally to the struggle for the rights of all people with disabilities. Ed was living proof of the skills and talents inherent in everyone and he was a strong advocate for natural community supports for all. The Disability Rights Award will be presented in Ed’s name to Deborah Kaplan, Executive Director of the World Institute on Disability. |
