Vermont Community of Practice

The Center on Disability & Community Inclusion (CDCI) is committed to promoting equity, diversity, and inclusion in all of our work. In 2017, we started a partnership with other Vermont disability organizations. This partnership is called the Vermont Community of Practice on Cultural and Linguistic Competence in Developmental Disabilities.

Our goals are to:

  1. Develop understanding and commitment to cultural competency in services and policies for people with disabilities.
  2. Identify how services and policies do (and do not) help people with disabilities from culturally and linguistically diverse groups.

Specific activities have included:

  • Monthly meetings
  • Leading trainings on racism and ableism.
  • Hosting screenings of the film Intelligent Lives around the state.
  • Developing an organizational assessment using plain language.
  • Sharing what our community of practice partners are doing to promote equity, diversity, and inclusion.
  • Recommending revisions to Vermont Department of Aging and Independent Living (DAIL) to include cultural and linguistic competency in the Vermont System of Care Plan.
  • Providing data and information to the Vermont Racial Equity Panel.

Part of this work includes looking at data.

  • CDCI wrote a report with data on disabilities and disparities (PDF) using Vermont and national data.
  • CDCI has also done on a Community Needs Assessment in partnership with Vermonters and Vermont organizations
  • We have also been following racial disparities in COVID-19 cases in Vermont.

Who We Are

The Community of Practice includes members from 10 Vermont organizations:

Together, we applied to get help from Georgetown University’s National Center for Cultural Competence. Vermont and 9 other states were chosen to work with the National Center for 5 years (2017-2022). They provide our team with trainings, resources, and advice.