Goals and Priorities

2023 - 2024

Each year, Disability Rights Oregon surveys the community for what issues are most important to you. Based on the input we receive from our community, the Board of Directors and Mental Health Advisory Council work with Disability Rights Oregon’s staff to determine what issues will be prioritized in the year ahead. We prioritize issues that will have the greatest impact on the lives of the greatest number of Oregonians. These priority areas of work are listed below.

For issues not included in our annual goals, Disability Rights Oregon provides tools and advocacy strategies to Oregonians with disabilities. These tools are meant to help you know your rights and advocate for yourself.

Ensure Full Integration of People with Disabilities throughout Oregon

  • Facilitate effective discharge and release planning from facilities and institutions to prevent re-institutionalization

  • Facilitate effective community placements and advocate for sufficient resources to prevent institutionalization

  • Decriminalize disability through pre-arrest or pre-booking diversion and by reforming Oregon’s Aid and Assist process

  • Promote community-based supports, healthcare, housing, and crisis response

  • Promote accessibility of sidewalks, crosswalk improvements, and public transit

  • Advance and retain employment for Social Security recipients by addressing legal barriers to employment goals

  • Promote equitable and equal access to healthcare services for individuals experiencing multiple disabilities

  • Integrate and collaborate across DRO programs on systemic issues in order to demonstrate necessary policy changes

  • Advance employment, financial stability, and independence by offering work incentives planning and assistance to SSI and/or SSDI beneficiaries residing in Oregon and Washington State who are employed or seriously considering work

Ensure People with Disabilities are Free from Abuse and Neglect

  • Investigate allegations of abuse and neglect with probable cause when not adequately addressed by state and local authorities

  • Enforce the rights of people with disabilities to be free from abuse and neglect by investigating assaults and deaths in facilities, and monitoring and buildings relationships in facilities

  • Decriminalize disability through pre-arrest or pre-booking diversion and by reforming Oregon’s aid and assist process

  • Prevent abuse and neglect, seclusion and restraint, and inappropriate use of forced medications in facilities and institutions

  • Investigate allegations of abuse and neglect with probable cause when not adequately addressed by state and local authorities

  • Promote community-based supports, healthcare, housing and crisis response (excluding facilities and institutions)

  • Verify that representative payees across Oregon are appropriately using the financial benefits of the Social Security beneficiaries through quality assurance monitoring and providing educational visits to ensure representatives payees fully understand their duties and responsibilities

  • Investigate allegations of abuse and neglect with probable cause when not adequately addressed by state and local authorities

  • Enforce the rights of children with disabilities in the foster care system to ensure children with disabilities are living in the most integrated setting, free of abuse and neglect

  • Ensure equal access to justice by assisting crime survivors with disabilities to understand and participate in the criminal justice system

Promote Self Determination

  • Provide people with disabilities the tools they need for self-advocacy

  • Provide information and referral services to victims of crimes regarding the criminal justice process, victim rights, and how to obtain notifications

  • Provide self-advocacy assistance to Oregonians experiencing a disability that are victims of crime when Disability Rights Oregon is the appropriate agency for services

  • Advise and inform clients, client applicants, and other individuals with disabilities of all the available services and benefits under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and of the services and benefits available to them under Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act

  • Intervene when the civil rights of a respondent or protected person are being violated due to guardianship, including abuse or neglect

  • Provide education, training, and assistance to promote full participation in the electoral process for individuals with disabilities

  • Protect beneficiaries by educating representative payees about their responsibilities and identifying cases of financial exploitation

Enforcement of Disability Rights Law

  • Ensure due process rights of individuals with disabilities that are in the process of civil commitment

  • Enforce Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act related to reasonable accommodation in the workplace, including applying Olmstead and Lane to employment settings

  • Prevent barriers to further employment or self-employment in Social Security Overpayment Cases where the overpayment is due to earned income

  • Advocate for people who have been denied medically necessary assistive technology

  • Ensure all students with disabilities in the K-12 setting have access to a full day of educational services by preventing the use of shortened school days and inadequate behavior supports