C/M Lawyering to Improve Health Equity for People with Disabilities in Communities of Color

Grantee: Disability Rights Washington
Timeframe: October 2019 – September 2020 | Amount: $15,000

Nimble Grant funding will be used to train staff and develop an action plan to integrate Community and Movement Lawyering into organizational practices to more effectively address healthcare disparities and access impacting disabled people of color. This grant will augment a grant to complete this work from the Legal Foundation of Washington Race Equity Grant program, and, will ensure that DRW has all the necessary resources to carry out this work, including dedicated staff resources to develop a plan to implement this training on a programmatic level.

DRW will engage two experts in Community and Movement Lawyering to improve their ability to partner with people with disabilities in communities of color, to better identify barriers to health care and advocate for change.

Community lawyering is “the integration of the lawyer into the community the lawyer serves, the use of multifaceted approaches to problem solving, and the investment and empowerment of community members in the lawyering process”. Movement Lawyering is “lawyering that supports and advances social movements, defined as the building and exercise of collective power, led by the most directly impacted, to achieve systemic institutional and cultural change”.

Program activities will include:

• Complete an in-person training for all DRW staff on Community/Movement Lawyering to better serve disabled people of color in King County and throughout Washington.
• Develop an action plan to implement what DRW has learned in the training and take further steps to integrate Community/Movement Lawyering into DRW’s organizational culture and practices.