Simply stated, the Key Campaign is a statewide coalition of supporters, friends, and advocates of children, adolescents, and adults who experience developmental disabilities, and their families. It is sponsored and operated by the Key Coalition of Alaska – a statewide not-for-profit 501 (c)(3) organization.
It is a rural and urban network of community providers of services, consumers, parents/guardians of persons with disabilities, parent organizations, protection and advocacy groups, independent living centers, infant learning programs, and private citizens who share a unified belief in the power and necessity of community – FOR ALL HUMAN BEINGS!!!
As a united body of hundreds of individuals from across Alaska, members of the Key Campaign are aware of a historic tragedy – that persons who experience developmental disabilities have endured countless decades of oppression and segregation and have been the societal victims of prejudice, bigotry and discrimination.
It was not very long ago when costly institutions were the only prescribed methods of doing business for children, adolescents and adults who experience developmental disabilities. These environments were characteristically large warehouses that enslaved human beings in denigrating, dehumanizing conditions, physically removed from any semblance of family, friends or community. For a time, Alaska paralleled the trends of the “Lower 48”, shipping people with disabilities out of state to institutions in Oregon and other parts of our nation. There was even a unit at Alaska Psychiatric Institute for those labeled as mentally retarded.
After national attention was drawn to the atrocities of many state institutions, a new vision began to take form. It became obvious that individuals who experienced a disability lived behind a locked door. On one side was a mountain of myths, attitudes and professional ignorance that barred human beings from the assumption of their rightful role as equal participants in an open society. On the other side was meaningful opportunity, experience, belonging, independence – things like personal choice and decision and individual empowerment: a thing called
The vision is clear. The oppressive door of the past must open wide. Families must be reunited. Our displaced, our discarded must return home to Alaska. Those Alaskans who have been removed from their rural communities to receive services in urban communities must be returned to their communities of birth and family. Those Alaskans who now wait for services must be given services. And, the horrors of the past must never be repeated. It is obvious that the KEY to unlock the doors, to reverse outmoded trends, to preserve and protect our families is a simple one – it is the Key of Community.
“Community is a place for all of us to live our lives, forger our lifestyles, plan our future, experience friendships and love, share joy and pain, recreate, work and dream! Community is the key that makes it all happen.”
And so, the symbol of the Key Campaign is the key, and the key represents community and the unlocking of doors that have blocked the way into community for so many of our brothers and sisters. It is a way of saying that the time for institutionalization of human beings is long since past. The time for building community that includes all human beings is here and it is now.
The Key Campaign believes simply, strongly and concisely that:
- Community is truly a place for everyone;
- Individuals who experience a developmental disability have a need and a right to live in community;
- Individuals and their families must be empowered to assume a meaningful role in neighborhoods of their choosing, in either urban or rural Alaska, and;
- It is a primary responsibility of government to provide realistic, non-intrusive community/family supports to facilitate and maintain the building of community for all of its citizens and not just a select few – to empower individuals toward full inclusion, to preserve the family unit, to promote and enhance independence.
The Key Campaign is a strong advocate for the equal rights of children, adolescents, and adults who experience a developmental disability, and for their families. We believe that it is , indeed, a proper function and inherent responsibility of government to assist people who cannot legitimately assist themselves, and we believe that the most appropriate and person-centered way to provide this assistance is through community programs. We believe that community programs should be funded at levels which keep pace with inflation. And, we believe that the funding of programs to meet the needs of persons with disabilities must be a legislative and administrative priority.
“It is Alaskans caring for Alaskans – forging the way toward equal opportunity, accessibility and fundamental rights and dignity for each child, adolescent, and adult who experiences a developmental disability.”
WHY IS THERE A KEY CAMPAIGN?
In March of 1988, the Key Campaign was about to be born. The parents of the first Key Campaign were Need – a need primarily created by a chronic pattern of insufficient funding, and Indifference – evidenced by an apparent lack (then and now) of a clearly defined and implemented commitment to equal opportunity for all citizens of Alaska.
Back then, in 1988, the Key Campaign instantaneously reacted to two major events in Alaska:
First – In the mid to late 1980’s the budgetary axe of the Sheffield Administration cut swiftly, deeply (and perhaps mindlessly) into the heart of the budget request unit (BRU) for community programs that served children, adolescents, and adults who experience developmental disabilities. Almost 17% of all funds were slashed from the community support system with the impossible mandate from the administration, “Decrease your budgets, but maintain both the quality and quantity of your programs!” This was followed by yet another typical year of no increase in our community budgets.
Second – As community programs were rocked by such devastating reductions, the State of Alaska (Department of Health and Social Services) published a long list of over 350 individuals (at that time) who were in need of a wide array of community supports: housing, jobs, respite, in-home supports, foster care, and shared care. Both rural and urban areas of Alaska felt the pressure of the constantly growing list of people who were in need. Our children, adolescents, and adults who experience a developmental disability might continue to wait for years before their cries of need would be heard and answered, if they were ever heard and answered at all!!!
The Key Campaign is the very focal point of our annual attempts to evolve a state that has no wait list and has a developed rural and urban system of community programs that are fiscally healthy, programmatically innovative and consumer-driven. We meet in Juneau, once a year to deliver this challenge to the Legislature and Administration. We are joined, across Alaska, by united rallies in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Kenai, Mat-Su Valley, and many other sections of the state