Speaker: Nathan Turner, Board Member, Lucas County Board of DD
How can people with disabilities get involved with county boards of DD to ensure they can be appointed when seats become available?
Nathan Turner: In order to become involved with leadership opportunities through my county board, I really had to focus on my strengths and I took advantage of a lot of the free supports that were offered through the community inclusion department. I knew that I had extensive advocacy and policy expertise in the disability community and one of the ways I started to grow those rides and develop my professional network was participating in a free leadership training called project stir and it had built off of previous education that I had through my local Center for Independent Living, specifically a trading they offered called partners in policy making and project stir was similar to this and from there I really got started building my relationships with Kerry board staff and this resulted in my being asked to help found an advocacy organization called salute self advocates Lucas Toledo. And in that position I was very generous with my time and essentially grab the bull by the horns. I was able to have so many opportunities to present to providers um community organization, particularly the Toledo Regional Chamber of Commerce or competitive employment and the Lucas county commissioners a few times. So I had opportunities to build relationships with policymakers in general, but then especially with the county commissioners, they're appointing authorities for the county board so they already knew who I was and I was well positioned to take on a vacancy when it came for my county board
