The Independent Living Network Union with Jane Johnson
Jane Johnson is back on the podcast this week for a special State Of The Union episode on what the independent living network has been up to within this past year and what we can expect, as we’re gearing up for the end of the year and the beginning of the legislative session.
For those joining us for the first time, Jane Johnson, the Executive Director for the Florida Association for Centers For Independent Living. She is an advocate for the centers; Jane works on regulatory issues, serves as a liaison with the state agencies in Tallahassee, Florida, and works with the legislature- either on public policy issues that are important to the centers or funding issues.
Despite the division and discontent we saw a result of the ongoing pandemic, Jane shares how centers for independent living stayed focus on working towards making things better for people with disabilities. Centers for Independent Living worked to increase capacity at the centers and received approval for increased funding to provide more transitional services for people with disabilities. Through their efforts to inform the community about the legislative process and updates they were able to provide insights to new legislators about who the centers of independent living folks are and what they do. An example of the kind of impact made from this outreach, is a bill that has passed requiring every school to provide information to students and parents about centers for independent living so they can take advantage of this resource in their community. Jane also shares a very important project where she is leading the charge in looking at what she calls the social determinants of employment success and is working with the department of education to provide required training to inmates; the goal behind this training is to increase people’s employability by working on soft skills and hard skills, such as how to create a resume, job interview skills, how to conduct yourself in a workplace, etc.
Centers within the independent living network have benefitted tremendously from her leadership, ingenuity, and hard work. Jane shares that one of the biggest things she’s learned so far, is that she did not fully appreciate independent living when she came into her role, in the way that she does today.
For helpful general information and links to the House and Senate websites, statutes, the Florida Constitution and a directory of Florida lobbyists visit “Online Sunshine” at http://leg.state.fl.us/Welcome/index.cfm
The House website is: https://www.myfloridahouse.gov/
The Senate website is: https://www.flsenate.gov/
The Florida Channel website is: https://thefloridachannel.org/
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