Disability Power Series Featuring Vesper Moore

CLARE KILLY:
Hello, welcome to the Disability Power Series hosted by Disability Lead. I'mClare Killy, the Education and Learning Services manager at Disability Lead. Iuse she/her pronouns, and I'm a late thirties white woman with brown and gray hair,and I'm sitting in my home office with a blurred background. We're so pleasedthat you joined us today to kick off our 2025 Disability Power Series, ourannual program series featuring powerful disabled leaders and bringing togetheran international audience. Today's program includes ASL Interpretation and CARTservices. You can access captions in Zoom by clicking show captions at thebottom of your screen. And we're also providing a stream text link in the chatwhere you can access CART in a separate browser if you choose. If you have anyaccess issues or require assistance throughout the program, feel free toutilize the chat box to message any disability lead staff for assistance. The Qand A is also enabled, and we welcome your questions for our guests using the Qand A feature throughout the program.

This webinar is being recorded and will be made availableafter the event. For those of you not familiar with Disability Lead, where anonprofit organization working to increase civic engagement and diverseleadership by developing and building a network of leaders with disabilities.At the core of our work is making connections to opportunities for our networkof over 250 disabled leaders. I'm absolutely thrilled to welcome one of ourvery own disability lead members to join me on screen, Sadaf Ajani, who we'rehonored to have join us as the moderator of today's program. Sadaf is a globalsocial impact consultant, transforming the vision of people and organizationsworldwide into measurable impact. They have over 20 years of experiencecreating more inclusive and equitable spaces and systems for marginalizedpeople across Asia and Africa, as well as in communities on the peripheries ofpower in the United States. Sadaf is non-binary and neurodivergent immigrant,excuse me, Sadaf is a non-binary and neurodivergent immigrant with invisibledisabilities that uses their creative problem-solving and fluency in multiplelanguages to enhance projects and public health, education, community building,and conflict resolution.

Welcome, Sadaf. I'll hand it off to you to give a programoverview and introduce our featured guest.

SADAF AJANI:
Thank you, Clare. I'm Sadaf Ajani and I'm pleased to be here with you all as adisability lead member and today's program moderator. I use they/them pronouns,and I'm a South Asian non-binary femme presenting person with long black hair.I'm wearing a purple shirt and long earrings. The Disability Power Series is anopportunity for disabled professionals and allies to join together and hearfrom incredible disabled leaders doing amazing work in our communities. First,we'll hear from our featured guest, Vesper Moore, and then I'll join you againafter their presentation to facilitate an intimate fireside chat, where we'lldive into the rich discussion using your input and questions. Please utilizethe Q and A feature to begin submitting your questions that you'd like to hearus discuss, and we'll get to them as many of them as we can. Right now, I'mhonored to welcome our featured guest. Vesper Moore is an Indigenous activistand leader. They have contributed to the establishment of mental healthorganizations worldwide.

Vesper has been an advocate for civil rights in the UnitedStates. Through their advocacy, they have brought the perspectives of peoplewith mental health challenges and disabilities to both national andinternational platforms. Collaborating with the United States government andthe United Nations, Vesper shapes strategies around trauma, intersectionality,and disability rights. They have been featured on NBC News, PBS NewsHour,Political and the White House. Vesper is at the forefront of legislative reform,striving to shift the societal paradigm surrounding mental health. Vesper overto you.

VESPER MOORE:
Thank you, Sadaf, for such a wonderful introduction and thank you disabilitylead for having me here for your Disability Power Series to, it's really suchan important time to continue to talk about disability rights when we'rethinking about where we are now and where we are going. There's so much interms of how much, when we talk about invisible and visible disabilities,physical disabilities and otherwise, how these communities need to cometogether, work together, collaborate together, advocate together. And that'sreally a focus of today. Though we will be talking about it from theperspective of mental health justice. So, thinking of our guide to mentalhealth justice and kind of here as the subtext we're talking about fromawareness to action. My name is Vesper Moore. Once again, I use they/thempronouns. I am a brown Indigenous person. I'm wearing glasses. I have shoulderlength black hair, and I'm wearing a black v-neck t-shirt. And I'm really gladto be here with you all as we talk about this idea of mental health justice.

So, just for a brief overview, today, the goal is to reallytake a moment, try to increase your skills as a leader and as an advocate,thinking about some of your own work and your own contributions, trying tobetter understand the intersections between mental health justice, disabilityjustice and human rights, and as well as challenging the limitations ofawareness campaigns and taking it a step further, gaining a betterunderstanding of mental health and disability justice from a local, national,and global perspective. And in some of the images here, I have an image ofLouis Curtis featured here. She was crucial to the Olmstead decision, which isimportant for the broader disability community and movement for us to be livingin community desegregated from institutions as well as an image of Brad Lomaxspeaking next to Judy Heumann. So, I wanted to start from this perspective,which was, mental health justice is fundamental to human rights and publichealth. That being that it impacts people across various sectors, such as allpolitical spaces, social spaces and people of all economic backgrounds.

I like to think when we talk about mental health rights, itis nonpartisan. It's not necessarily of one political idea or another, butrather that human rights are the fundamental basic need for all people. So,when we talk about mental health rights and its specificity is a fundamentalneed for all people. Just as a little bit more of a specific introduction, Iwork as the Chief Operating Officer for a great organization called the KivaCenters, where a peer run mental health organization that really started from amental health civil rights space. We started as an advocacy group calledEmpower in the 1980s, founded by activist Pat Deegan and Judi Chamberlain. Andwe later evolved into another organization called The Transformation Center,where we started doing some mental health peer support work and training andcertification. And today, we are the Kiva Centers, an indigenous led, peer runorganization focused on promoting things such as mental health rights, traumainformed peer support, and a lot of these other ideas.

I'm also a board member at the Bazelon Center for MentalHealth Law. The Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law is the premier importantcivil rights organization when we talk about mental health. Bazelon has foughtfor disability rights broadly for so many years and is continuing to do suchimportant work in the community. I am also an activist, a trainer orconsultant. I do some of this work in many different spaces such as like theUnited Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which Ihope to talk a little bit more about that work, some important decisions thathave come from that in recent years. And hopefully that we could take some ofthat, some of those guidelines and some of the things that we've learned backhere to the United States because it's so important. Right here, this is myselfand another person from our Kiva centers team. We're gathering with our friendsfrom the Oglala Lakota Nation, particularly from the Lakota People's LawProject. We're meeting in New Mexico for a conference and an event.

And I think the reason why I have this picture here isreally when we talk about the idea of disability justice and mental healthjustice. It's also steeped in the idea of intersectionality, right? We'retalking about indigenous disabled leaders, brown and black disabled leaders,and continuing to share some of these ideas. I also wanted to start with thisquote, 'cause I think it grounds us in the right place. "If you have comehere to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come here because yourliberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together." This quoteis often attributed to one particular activist and educator, but actually isbroadly broadly encompasses a lot of the ideas of the Maori in New Zealand. Andthe idea is, is that if our liberation is bound up together, let us movetogether. It's not about helping, right? But it's about that idea ofself-determination, autonomy and the things that are so important to disabilityjustice, such as leadership of those most impacted.

So, a little bit about my story. My mother is from theDominican Republic. She immigrated to the United States before I was born andbecame a citizen when I was four years old. As you can see in the top corner,that's a picture of me younger. That's actually my great-grandmother next to meand my mother. And she worked hard for me to have opportunities here in theUnited States. And I think it's an integral part of my story because withouther, in a lot of ways I wouldn't be here. But as a young adult struggling withmy mental health, she often had the struggle of, OK, how do I support a childwho is growing up in the United States, particularly growing up in a worldthat, that I might not be as familiar with. So, I think in a lot of ways,although she was supporting me, there are a lot of things I had to figure outon my own. I struggled going in and out of the mental health system for aboutfour years. It wasn't until I really got out and was in the community that Ireally found things like peer support, community-based mental health services,a lot of the things that we know today, and it'd be way later till I found theDisability Rights Movement and the movement for Disability Justice.

I think a lot of these, these ideas weren't readilyavailable. They weren't things that I had learned right away. But as soon as Iwas in a lot of mental health, peer support, peer-run spaces, and I was able totalk about struggling with thoughts and feelings of suicide, what I was goingthrough, and I realized that, oh, my goodness, I'm not in any type of dangerfrom sharing these things. Nothing's going to happen to me for sharing thesethings. I'm actually genuinely in a safe space with people who understand. Ithink it was that idea when I started to understand leadership of those mostimpacted, I started to understand the value of that. I think it would be a fewyears later till I decided that I wanted to support other folks just like me. Ithink it wasn't till I really started to get more involved in peer runcommunities like the recovery learning communities in Massachusetts and manyother spaces that I would realize like, oh, wow, OK, maybe I want to do thisfor work. Maybe I want to do this advocacy.

Maybe I want to be more involved in this activism. I thinkfor me, initially, it was, it was the piece of, OK, at first I thought I wantedto promote or just singularly promote better access to mental health care,right? Later on, realizing and thinking of my own experiences, I was like, OK,it's not just about the access to mental healthcare, but it's also about is itvoluntary? Is it based in the community? And I think it wasn't until later thatI had learned that there had been a whole civil rights movement. You know, whenwe talk about the disability rights movement and the consumer survivor,ex-patient, ex-inmate movement, and all of these different groups that werefighting for people to live in the community desegregated from institutionsthat I realized, oh, wow, I'm building on a whole body of work. Fast forwardinga few years, as you can see in some of the other images here, me meeting otherindigenous communities of people in places like New Mexico or this black mentalhealth peer support training here in the corner or demonstrating for housing asa civil right and many other things or gathering in the United Nations.

My work kind of evolved over time. And I think when I talkabout what is a guide to mental health justice today, I think I'm sharing mystory as a way of saying there is so much we can learn. I think when we talkabout campaigns for mental health awareness, often the notion is, OK, how do wefind the signs when talking about awareness of a mental health condition? Howdo we understand it? How do we do a lot of these things? And I think when wetalk about mental health justice, instead, we're talking about the rights ofthe people most impacted instead of talking about them or trying to figure outwhat's wrong with them or what might be going on with them, instead of, insteadof attempting to come to those conclusions, just trying to understand theperson. I think that that in some ways, when we talk about mental healthjustice is what it seeks to achieve. So, there's a broad history of rights.There's also a broad history of violence and civil rights abuses. When we talkabout some of the history here, for example, from 1867 to 1974, there werethese laws called ugly laws, which were unsightly beggar ordinances, whichbasically ordered that if you were poor, disabled or unsightly, you needed tobe out of the public view, you needed to be out of public spaces.

You weren't allowed in those public spaces. And I think alot of people don't realize that these laws once again, lasting till 1974, it'spretty recent history. And for example, in this image here, you see folks whoare in this institution called Willowbrook in very poor conditions. And a lotof that has to do with the legacy of eugenics and the policies ofinstitutionalization that lasted from the 1800s to the 1970s. Then during the1970s, having a movement for deinstitutionalization. What that movement soughtto do was a lot of what I've been talking about throughout and what I willcontinue talking about, which is that idea of, you know, we were talking aboutsegregation when it came to black, brown, Indigenous people of color,particularly African Americans in the United States. And then that very idea ofsegregation didn't translate in the same way when we talked about thedisability community, mainly that there was still an aim to institutionalizepeople with intellectual or mental health disabilities.

And the idea behind that was that they would never live fullor meaningful lives in the community that they needed to be in these places.So, I think when we talk about some of the civil rights work that came afterthat, it was really, it really took a long time and it took a lot of work. Forexample, you have the 504 sit-ins, which one such taking place in a federalbuilding in California. You had many other demonstrations on, you know, such asblocking transportation and entryways. You had former patients from mentalhealth institutions demonstrate for 30 days in Governor Jerry Brown's office inCalifornia as well speaking out about some of the horrible conditions in theseinstitutions. So, you see, you have policies that first seek to take members ofthe disability community, take us out of the public view, institutionalizationpolicies that enforce that, as well as social perspectives on eugenics really apseudoscience that was being perpetuated as, this is what a superior race lookslike.

This is what a superior body will click, or superior health.You have to look this way. You have to be this way. And the impact of eugenicson the world, I mean, we can see that historically. We could see that now. Andthen again talking about that lack of civil rights protections. It really tookso many different efforts to say, OK, we are not doing right by disabled peoplein the United States. They're not able to access education because a lot ofthese buildings and spaces are inaccessible. They weren't designed for us. Andat the very least, you know, even having policies that, that really consideredus or even gave us a seat at the table. So, I think when we talk about a lot ofthose civil rights protections and a lot of the things that, that came alongthe way, a lot of that came with later decisions and our approaches when wespeak of integrated healthcare and community-based behavioral healthcare.Something that was also a challenge and continues to be a challenge today'causeI wanted to share a contemporary example, something that we're going throughthat people with mental health challenges and disabled people are at asignificantly high risk of being killed as a result of police violence.

A lot of statistics say 16 times more likely thannon-disabled counterparts staggeringly high. And I think when we see this,particularly for black, brown, Indigenous autistic community, a lot of that is,is that there's not a lot of ways in which someone can communicate when they'rebeing detained in those moments. There's a lot of struggles for families whenthey're talking about access to care and what to do when someone isexperiencing emotional distress, you know, the first, the first inclination isto call 911. And the response can at times lead to this as we're talking about.People being killed as a result of police violence. And I think when we talkabout a lot of the civil rights that have been fought for access to communityservices was at the aim of preventing things like this from happening. So, thevery civil rights that we have today, we have to ask the question of how arethey being enforced in the community? How are we utilizing them today? So, Iwanted to take a moment to focus on some of the civil rights that we do haveaccess to, or the services that we do have access to today.

Many of which are being challenged right now. We are seeingcuts when we're talking about Medicaid. We're seeing 14 different states herein the US that are challenging Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. We'reseeing the guidelines on the Americans with Disabilities Act that, you know, 11guidelines that were recently removed from the public record and even withHealth and Human Services, you know, a declination of public comments, cutsand, and a potential closing down of the Department of Education. So, we haveall of these different things that poses a challenge to mental health anddisability rights today. And a lot of the work around that is to really, Ithink, share a lot of our stories when we talk about things like, likeMedicaid, both in our advocacy locally and nationally. So, for myself, I grewup receiving Medicaid services, MassHealth, specifically. The things that I hadaccess to as a young adult struggling with a wide variety of, not justtraumatic experiences and several other factors, but also health issues.

I struggled with very severe asthma. I also had had had a,on a few occasions, some physical issues that, that resulted from severalinjuries. And I think, I think having access to, having access to Medicaid formy family, especially, was really important. My mom worked as a personal careassistant, and we didn't have a lot in terms of what we could afford. So,having services like this support everyone. And I think, I think that's one ofthe key importance that's when we talk about disability rights and justice, alot of the efforts to design and think of a society that is, that is moreaccessible, more inclusive, where it ends up working for everyone, even as wegather at on this presentation, and we have closed captioning, you know, thatthat's an accessibility tool that benefits everyone. When we talk about theRehabilitation Act and some of the challenges with the Rehabilitation Act, thishas been through a case called Texas versus Becerra. And this lawsuit againstHHS has really been challenging the idea of the inclusion of gender dysphoriain the Rehabilitation Act.

And again, that, that, that, that really speaking to howthis is an intersectionality kind of issue as well. When we talk about the needfor enforcing 504 that, that enforcement of 504 in different states is reallyfrom the Department of Education and the Americans with Disabilities Act. So, alot of the guidelines that really say, OK, this is a violation on the basis ofsomeone's disability, that goes back to the Americans With Disabilities Act andthe Department of Education. We talk about the Rehabilitation Act and itsapplication to educational institutions. It's also so important. And a lot ofthis goes back to the idea of when we talk about community access, it goes backto the Olmstead decision. And I'd be remiss if I didn't, if I didn't talk aboutLouis Curtis' story. Louis Curtis was a black woman institutionalized inGeorgia when she was 11 years old. She fought for her independence when she was21. She succeeded in that case, along with another plaintiff. And it reallybrought up this question of, wow, have we been segregating people withdisabilities in the United States for this long?

And again, this is a recent decision. This was in 1990. So,when we talk about community services and building access to community care andhaving things like Medicaid and Medicaid covered facilities and Medicarecovered facilities, a lot of this comes back to the very idea of us being ableto receive services in the community in the first place. And even thoughdeinstitutionalization and institutionalization, even thoughdeinstitutionalization wasn't fully realized, and institutionalization hascontinued, we do see, and we have seen an attempt at investing more incommunity behavioral health and community services in general. And I think whenwe talk about what we can do now, protecting the funding for these entities isprobably a top priority in that way. A lot of this does go back to particularlywhen we talk about behavioral health. That goes back to the Mental HealthParody and Addiction Equity Act. Again, having the right to have access tothese things. It also aligns well with the United Nations Convention on theRights of Persons with Disabilities.

Later on, I will be discussing some of the guidelines thathave come from the UN CRPD that really tie into this. I also wanted to quicklydefine what is the difference when we talk about mental health awareness versussome of the ideas of mental health liberation? Mental health awareness refersto the ongoing effort to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health conditionsand promoting and understanding education for mental wellbeing. While mentalhealth liberation is a concept where we can center liberation with the visionof ending institutional and social forms of discrimination on the basis ofmental health and disability. It is also about ending all forms of oppressionwithin mental health care. A lot of the things we see. And again, you know,more of a goal, it might, on the day to day, it may seem like a struggle whenwe're moving towards something like liberation. It often seems like, OK, well,it seems like we can't move past a lot of these mental health awarenesscampaigns.

But there's definitely been a broadening effort and morepeople speaking to the importance of fighting against discrimination andableism, especially as we've seen several different impacts from long COVID andother forms of disabling impact broadly here in the United States. So, I think,I think the discussion is really emerging of, OK, what are some of the thingsthat, that we can do to fight a lot of these institutional and social forms ofoppression in our society on the basis of disability? I think it's becomingmore evident. And I think a lot of communities, especially aging communities aswell, who are impacted by this, are also thinking, OK, what are some of thethings that, that we can do to continue to promote not just awareness, but alsopromote the changing of policy, the changing of practice to better promotethings that, that may be in line with things like mental health rights,liberation and justice. One, to share some of the more recent examples ofglobal mental health rights achievements.

For example, just recently, two months ago, Kenya's HighCourt delivered a landmark ruling declaring section 226 on the penal code,which criminalized attempted suicide unconstitutional. This was a huge win forthe people of Kenya. I think when we talk about a lot of the punishments, andespecially the conditions of some of the institutions, it's really movingtowards a direction of how can we promote community-based approaches and bydecriminalizing the very idea of attempting suicide or people attempting suicide,that, and saying that by criminalizing this, it is unconstitutional. We'restarting with a base or starting with a base of, OK, what can we do in ourcommunities to address this issue? And what can we do to avoid criminalizing orothering people who are struggling with emotional distress? Then a few yearsago recently, not as recently, 2022, but we're talking about the United NationsConvention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. They implemented theguidelines on deinstitutionalization including situations of emergency.

These were published and were really, the idea of havingthese published really serve as a guideline for a lot of nation states who areseeking to build better community services, and also what can they do whenthere's not enough services in the community and they immediately turn toinstitutions. It's like, OK, here's how you can close them. Here's how you caninvest in community. Here are some of the things you can do. So, having these,these guidelines published are so important when we talk about the promotion ofmental health rights and disability rights across the world. And then theUnited Nations, I'm sorry, the United Kingdom last year had a mental healthbill. This was their mental health bill 2025 'cause they had a Mental HealthAct back in 1983. And this bill basically amended some of these things and wasjust introducing ideas such as choice and autonomy for patients and peoplereceiving services. This is a huge step forward for the United Kingdom whichhas some of the oldest institutions in all of Europe and in some parts of theworld.

I think I wanted to just share this quote, which was oftenwhen we're struggling with what can we do next in fighting for mental healthjustice and disability justice. I think of this quote often, which is the ideaof, they tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. We've been herebefore and we're not done fighting. There's so much that we can do on the locallevel whether if it's going to your city or town council to say, hey, we needto focus on mental health priorities in our community, that center consent andautonomy. There's so much we can do. When we talk about on the state level,promoting legislation that really fosters ideas centered around mental healthin the community run by people who are most impacted. And there's so much, whenwe talk about the Freedom of Information Act, people being able to requesttheir information, access to their information, you own your data and how muchwe can voice when we speak out against, we shouldn't have our services cut. Wedeserve full dignity and access to services in the community and continuing,continuing to remind our society that we shouldn't go back to a time wherepeople with mental health and disabilities are segregated in institutions.

This is how we continue the fight for mental health justice.And I'm excited to continue our conversation with Sadaf. You could join us

SADAF AJANI:
This other speaking. Thank you, Vesper, for sharing a brief history of thedisability rights movement and your inspiring journey. I really connected withthe ongoing violence that is done to disabled people and people who express theneed for help dealing with their mental health concerns and the violence that'sinherent in the treatment and medical spaces that we need to access. But I alsoappreciate that you highlighted so many wins that we have made and that we arecontinuing to fight for better and more inclusive spaces. So, many folksconnected with your story and work. We had questions rolling in from theaudience. And we're gonna get to as many as we possibly can. Our first questionis about hope. Mariame Kaba, a prison abolitionist and educator views hope as adiscipline that must be practiced daily. How do you keep hope as a practice?

VESPER MOORE:
That's a very good question. I think I do a couple of things. So, I think each day,I think about all of the challenges that we have in front of us, but I try tonot allow them to necessarily become hopeless. I think sometimes, I have to, Itake a moment, I take some space and I'm like, OK, I'm gonna write my thoughtsdown. And as soon as I write some of these thoughts down or get them down insome type of way, I then take a moment for myself. And I think actions likethat sometimes help me. But I think overall, what does give me hope, when I seechallenges to mental health and disability rights that we see today, Idefinitely feel the hope of the few, even if it's few people who really careand want to promote and continue to fight for mental health and disabilityrights on a daily basis. I see people from all walks of life, whether ifthey're advocates, activists, policymakers or otherwise just coming togetherdespite all differences and continuing to fight for these things. I think thatgives me hope.

SADAF AJANI:
That resonates with me. I think it's so important to keep that as a practiceand so that other people who are with us on this journey can continue keepingthat hope alive, especially as we keep learning new things every day that needour attention right now. What strategies do you use to maintain your wellbeingamidst the chaos? What are, with so many things happening at the same time, howdo you balance your self-care and your activism for long-term success?

VESPER MOORE:
Yeah, no, absolutely. I think sometimes I know it might sound very simple andpeople might be like, I'm already doing that. But taking time to like, likeeven if it's the middle of the day, just making sure that I've had some timewhere I'm not, again, thinking about a lot of these things, but just maybe I'llgo outside for a walk, the sun. Sometimes I will, I use a lot of breathingtechniques. Sometimes it's like a 464, like, I count in for four when Ibreathe, count out for six, count in for four. Sometimes they do things likethat. And I think, again, we, this is so personal for us because this impactsus directly, our families, people, we know our friends. And it's hard to not beimmersed in it. And I wouldn't say that I completely remove myself from that'cause that's impossible. However, I do take the time to go like, OK, the morethis drains my energy, the more, the more, I may be struggling with things likemy wellbeing and it won't be sustainable in the long term. So, I realize I haveto prioritize these things and that, that helps me.

And I think sometimes we have to support each other in that.I mean, I can't tell you how many times I'm on a call or I'm in a meeting orI'm talking to someone and I'm just like, I'm like, hey, like, have you takenany time for you today? Or they might remind me, have you taken any time foryou today? And that's been very helpful.

SADAF AJANI:
Thank you for the reminder that we are all basically plants with a bit more, abit more (CROSSTALK) We all need water and sunlight, and air. So, thank you forthat reminder. Our next question is, what are your thoughts on navigatingcensorship of mental health conversations? For example, social media platforms,striking content that directly mentions suicidal ideation and self-harm. Ouraudience would love ideas for approaching these barriers when raising awarenessand mobilizing action online.

VESPER MOORE:
Yeah, I've seen over the years particularly when we talk about spaces of peoplewho have, who are either attempt survivors or suicide or otherwise who aretalking about these experiences or are talking about kind of the discriminationabout how people are treated in the medical system after attempting suicide,their, I've seen people change their language. There has been the use ofalternative words such as like unaliving, other things like that. But I dothink from the perspective of how to address this, it's an important place whenwe think about social media 'cause social media for a lot of people has bothnegative impacts overall on emotional and mental wellbeing, and then positiveimpacts on emotional and mental wellbeing. Sometimes when you think of a wholecommunity that's under a hashtag like hashtag disability community, you know,all of the people who are under there and the posts you find and the people youfollow, you have a lot of social connection and a social network through that.

In the same vein, there's also censorship. There's also alot of harmful content that can come from social media. So, I think overall,how to challenge it, how to speak to it, I do think that, that there needs tobe broader campaigns on social media pertaining to mental health justice as anidea. I think we often see mental health awareness and a centering of, OK, thisis how we are aware of these things, right? Versus, versus like, how do we havea conversation around this and an honest conversation around how people aretreated when they disclose thoughts and feelings of suicide? A lot of thesesocial media spaces need to be safe enough to do that simultaneously. When wetalk about privacy, privacy of information and our personal data, it also makesyou wonder how much of that you want to share on social media platforms aswell. So, I think it's a very difficult question, but those are some of thepieces that I see. I do think that there needs to be a broader normalization ofideas of mental health justice.

SADAF AJANI:
I really appreciate you bringing the balance of your personal desire of howmuch to share and the room that you're walking into, even if it's virtuallyright. We do need to have these conversations, but we also need to have a levelof psychological safety as we share these concerns. United States has a wholehyper-individualistic culture, including how we access and receive care. Canyou tell us more about community care and what that looks like? What is yourdream for how disabled folks and folks with mental health struggles can besupported by our communities?

VESPER MOORE:
Yeah. No, I think my dream first off is I think sustainable funding for a lotof the initiatives that, that already exist, and a pathway to promoting a lotof them. I think there's so much when we talk about funding, I mean, I wastalking about Medicaid earlier. Medicaid does fund some of these entities, andthen there's state funding, there's federal funding, there's privateendowments, there's grants, there's all of these, these different things. Ithink funding that, that isn't restricted to promote a lot of these, thesecommunity care environments would be a great starting point. But I think, Ithink when I talk about a vision for this, the future would be reallyneighborhoods and communities coming together. So, when I say like neighborhoods,I think of like neighborhood community centers, a lot of these, these likeEnglish as a second language facilities and spaces. And thinking of what doesit look like to have true education and support around the, around how peopleperceive people with disabilities, around struggles with ableism, around how tonavigate some of our own struggles on a day-to-day because society isinaccessible to us.

I think early education like that would be very beneficialto children, youth, young adults. And then I think also consent, autonomy forservices community care, right, for adults. And I think we have some of thatalready, but I don't think that we have it in such a robust way that it's like,it's built into our broader culture. It's really, it's like it's an initiativehere or there.

SADAF AJANI:
I agree, especially with seeing the changes in generations. The millennialgeneration is so much more open about mental health than the previous one. AndGen Z is so much more open about it than even the millennial generation. So,I'm excited to see how far that gets as we get more people involved. I'm sad tosay that our time is coming to a close. So, our final question for today is toprevent us from going backwards and losing the rights we have gained. What aresome small steps people can take starting today to help shift the broadercommunity perspective from awareness to action?

VESPER MOORE:
To shift the broader perspective from awareness to action. And what was thefirst part again?

SADAF AJANI:
To keep us from sliding backwards.

VESPER MOORE:
To keep us from sliding backwards. I do, I think as I was saying earlier, youknow, these are, we need to continue to share a lot of these ideas. And I thinksometimes we can get lost in like, OK, what can we do as a national movement?But I think it's important that, that we continue to think, what can you do inyour backyard? What can you do in your neighborhood? There was one person inTennessee recently who was advocating for a wide variety of things. And I heardthe statement of morals over manners. So, like considering like, like, like,like what is right for human rights today? Looking at a lot of, a lot of thedecisions that might be happening on the local level, national level orotherwise, when you consider disability rights and disability justice, what,you know, what are some of the things that are happening that are challengingwhat we have known or worked towards? I think by asking ourselves that questionand then thinking about how we can organize around that together, that's the firststep.

And as I said, there's so much when we talk about, like evenrequesting some of your data through the Freedom of Information Act meetingwith at city council meetings and town hall meetings around local initiatives.Some cities have a mental health task force that are focused around some of thepriorities. And instead of those priorities may be focusing on things likepolicing or institutionalization. Maybe it can then instead lean in on, how canthe town or the city invest on into community mental health care that is trulyled by the community, introducing some of these new ideas. I think maintainingthat consistent idea of hope, as we were talking about earlier, that disciplineof hope is an important way.

SADAF AJANI:
I'm so glad you brought up what we can do in our backyard, right? So, manypeople think you need to have a big name and need to be connected to majorinstitutions to make change, but really at the end of the day, what we havecontrol over is ourselves and what we can do on a daily basis. So, I love thefact that one of the calls to action is to be more mindful of how we areoperating and living our values in our communities, in our family spaces, inour own cities and towns. Thank you so much, Vesper, for sharing your story andauthenticity and addressing personal and thoughtful questions from ouraudience. At this time, I'm gonna hand it back to Clare for closing remarks.

CLARE KILLY:
This is Clare speaking again. Sadaf and Vesper, thank you so much. This wassuch an amazing way to kick off Disability Leads 2025 Disability Power Series.So, thank you both for being here and for sharing more about yourselves in thisprocess. Thank you also to our access providers. ASL interpretation wasprovided by AI-Media and CART services were provided by Joe Gale. And thank youall our audience for attending. What a great way for us to start the year withyou being with us. If you're a member who registered for the exclusive meet andgreet with Vesper in just a moment, you've been sent a personal calendarinvitation with a link to join. If you're not a member, but live or work in theChicagoland region and identify as disabled, please consider applying to joinour member network for access to exclusive leadership development opportunitiesand support. We hope you'll find other ways to stay connected with us as well.Check out our stories and updates at disabilitylead.org and stay tuned for informationabout our next Disability Power Series event coming later this summer.

And lastly, before you go, please take a moment to completeour program feedback survey found in the chat, which will also pop up on yourscreen when this webinar closes in just a moment. We appreciate your feedbackto help us continue these programs. Thank you for giving your time to be withus. Thank you, Vesper and Sadaf. And I hope everyone has a wonderful day.

VESPER MOORE:
Thank you all.

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