Focus on Vermont’s Self-Determination Project
John O’Brien
June 1998
This report summarizes a focus group discussion held on 22 June 1998 in Killington, VT as part of The Center on Human Policy’s support to the learning community for Vermont’s Robert Wood Johnson funded self-determination project. About 60 people participated in the focus group, which met from 9:30 AM to 3:00 PM. The majority of participants were people involved with the Vermont Peer Support Network and family members and members of the self-determina- tion project staff. DDS staff and UAP and DD Council staff involved with the project advisory group were represented. While a number of people who work as case managers or support staff attended, the perspective of people with adminis- trative responsibility for designated agencies and other provider agencies was largely missing from the focus group. John O’Brien facilitated the group and prepared this record based on large charts prepared during the meeting and checked with participants for accuracy.
The large size of the group may have made participation difficult for some people, as did the fact that some people attended the focus group as their initial orientation to the self determination project. A few more than half of the partici- pants spoke or contributed through vivid gestures. Because the goal of the meeting was to collect as many different points of view on the self-determination project as possible, there was no expectation that the group would reach consen- sus and not everyone who attended would agree with all of the points in this summary.
