The Going Home Coalition is a diverse statewide network of self-advocates, families, community service providers and allies. We purposefully advocate to create systems change, transition away from institutional living through increasing community capacity, and empower fair and equal choices and opportunities for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
The Going Home Coalition’s vision for people with disabilities in Illinois is to live in a truly individualized person-centered system with the supports and services they choose. Everyone, no matter what challenges they may face, has the right to live a full life in the community. Community is strengthened by diversity, inclusion, and accessibility.
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Going Home Coalition Director
Rio (they/them) is an artist, educator, and organizer who is passionate about creating equitable spaces.
Rio most recently worked to help develop the Home and Community Program at Arts of Life, an art studio for professional artists with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. The Home and Community Program focuses its efforts on creating integrated arts spaces for people with and without disabilities by partnering with local arts centers. Rio previously wrote and designed social justice oriented elementary school curriculums for private schools in the Metro Nashville area.
As an organizer, Rio worked with Freedom Arts Collective, a group of local artists that provided artistic support for the worker’s rights organization Worker’s Dignity/Dignidad Obrera. They also organized with the Metro Nashville Educators Association on their Community Schools campaign. Rio also has extensive mutual aid organizing experience including leading fundraising and donation drives for families affected by the 2020 earthquakes in Puerto Rico.
Rio is an accomplished visual artist whose work has been shown throughout the United States including at the National Puerto Rican Museum of Arts and Culture and the Design Museum Chicago. They have had one solo show at the Chicago Center for Arts and Technology. Rio is an amateur archivist who studies their family’s dispossession from the island of Puerto Rico. Their artistic practice centers around forgotten and hidden histories, buried memory, colonization, and diaspora.
Rio offers a unique perspective as someone with lived experience as a disabled person. They believe strongly that disability advocacy efforts should be led by disabled people and their goal is to keep these voices at the center of the movement towards de-institutionalization. Their vision for the Going Home Collective is to foster and expand its diverse and resilient network of advocacy, building upon already existing infrastructure. They hope the Coalition will grow its work among communities who are the most marginalized and develop prospective advocates who have a desire to create systems change.
Senior Community Mobilization Manager
Jennifer is an advocate, educator, and mobilizer. She is passionate about supporting self-advocates, families, and allies to speak up and speak out, educating the public and positively impacting public policy. Areas of special interest include person-centered planning, customized employment, accessible communication, trauma-informed care, civic engagement, and community mobilization.
She has experience advocating on the federal and state levels and within healthcare systems for needed medical care, supports, accommodations, as well as other legal and educational rights. This experience comes from being the child of a parent with hidden disabilities, home educating five children who have a wide variety of disabilities, and personally having disabilities that are sometimes hidden and other times apparent.
After graduating from Illinois Partners in Policymaking in 2020, Jennifer continued as a faculty advisor supporting participants as they learned about best practices, our state and federal Developmental Disability systems, and how to engage with legislators. She also supported class members in completing advocacy projects that help improve the lives of people with disabilities.
Jennifer is in the final stretch to receive her Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Southern New Hampshire University. She focused her coursework on disability and disability rights. She also has training in person-centered planning, customized employment, Trust-Based Relational Intervention, Plain Language, and Cued Speech. She is excited to use all of her education, training, and personal experience to partner with other advocates, together creating better systems and truly inclusive communities.
Going Home Coalition
