First of all - a big THANK YOU to all of you! Wow - we are almost at 1800 signatures already and that is amazing. Many of you have paid to promote the petition here on the change.org platform. When any of us promote the petition it gets featured placement to attract attention of prospective supporters. I get to see the breakdown of exactly how many signatures come from each one of your donations - literally hundreds of signatures are from your donations!
Yes - May 11 has come and gone, so did the Public Health Emergency and with it the flexibilities that allowed us as parents and spouses to care for our special needs loved ones. What hasn't gone and will never expire is your voice and our efforts - we will accomplish this because we won't stop. Here's what we have been and are doing, and how you can help:
- We've been pressing Secretary Becerra and President Biden to declare the nationwide caregiver crisis it's own public health emergency so that the family caregiver flexibilities can be extended to us while we work on permanent fixes.
- We've begun to reach out to Congress to help us fix the problem.
- We've been reaching out to media outlets seeking national media attention on the issue.
- We are in discussion with disability law organizations exploring the possibility of taking this into the federal court arena.
Ways you can help:
- Pass this petition around, share it with everyone you can - the more signatures we have the bigger statement it makes to the Whitehouse and federal agencies we send it to!
- Join our facebook group and work together with us emailing federal officials, making phone calls, connecting with organizations, etc. The link is in the petition details.
- Contact your congressmen and senators in Washington and share how this affects you (or someone you know), tell them what changes we need, and share this petition with them. If you're unsure of what to say, reach out to us in the facebook group, we can help you.
- If you have ideas, suggestions, or experience we want to hear from you, reach out to us please!
Thank you everyone - let's keep our efforts up, together we will get this done!