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What is the Center for Independent living?

Centers for Independent Living are a different kind of organization in the human services arena. Creating an accessible and integrated community where people with all sorts of disabilities can live independently and receive the support they need is the basic goal. This is one of the original self-help movements where those with disabilities helped each other. The “IL Movement” is referred to as the Civil Rights Movement for Persons with Disabilities. Title VII of the Rehabilitation Act spells out the very specific requirements for being designated as a Center for Independent Living.

Centers were never meant to be social services organizations. Typically they are not funded to provide emergency or case management services. They were meant to work with the community to ensure that services, programs and structures were accessible and welcoming to all people with disabilities. The four core services that Centers traditionally provide include information and referral, peer support, independent living skills training (either the center could do the training or would find it in the community) and advocacy-both systems and individual. Centers differ from traditional social services organizations in that CILs seek to empower their consumers to help themselves not create a dependency.

This does not mean Centers don’t provide services but it does mean that services are carefully considered against the mission, particularly the question of, “Is there someone else in the community who more naturally does this service?” Given this new perspective, the Board decided to spend time in the very near future re-examine the organization’s mission statement to guide the strategic planning implementation.