Advocacy at the Northern Marianas Protection & Advocacy Systems, Inc. is something of a paradox, treading a fine line between a hammer and the delicate tongue of diplomacy\u2014ever looking for the sweet spot between our statutory standing and personal finesse. Maybe it\u2019s our small-town beings, but experience has shown that it\u2019s the positive relationships we develop with people that open doors for us and for the people with disabilities we represent. It\u2019s taken a fair share of hammering, yelling matches, and high blood pressures to come to this conclusion, but we\u2019re comfortable in saying that we achieve desired outcomes far more expeditiously and with greater satisfaction through collaborative advocacy.<\/p>\n
That said, working collaboratively is not synonymous with turning a blind eye, shying away from the hard questions, or conceding our rights and the rights of our clients to appease anyone, much less the curmudgeon, little personalities we come across on occasion. You know the ones who seem to hurt when they smile and stutter at the thought of a kind word. Obstructionists who can say in one breath that they \u201care not inclined to participate in any further conversation\u2026and will not be agreeing to meet with you\u2026but look forward to continued positive relations\u201d\u2014a true-life quote. The thing about relying on diplomacy is that in one fell swoop, the stacks and years of relational building blocks can crash down around us\u2014not that the hammer is soft, mind you, but our finesse is shaken and egos are a little worse for the wear.<\/p>\n
By and large, the majority of people we come across want to work with us, but others feel slighted just by our mere presence\u2014maybe we look at them cross-eyed or don\u2019t beat around bush enough, so often the lines of communication get shut down long before we can even say hello. Our attempts at diplomacy fall short and then it\u2019s a turf war. Inevitably our \u201caccess authority\u201d comes into question and like a bad episode of Groundhog Day, we go back to dusting off the same, worn-out pages of our federal statutes\u2014the Hammer, if you will\u2014one of which requires that we \u201cprotect and advocate for the rights of individuals with developmental disabilities\u201d [42 USC \u00a715043 (a)(1)] and the federal regulations which mandate that our office shall, among other things\u2014<\/p>\n
have reasonable unaccompanied access to public and private facilities which provide services, supports, and other assistance for individuals with developmental disabilities in the state when necessary to conduct a full investigation of an incident of abuse or neglect [42 CFR 1386.22(f)];<\/p>\n
have unaccompanied access to all residents of a facility at reasonable times, which at a minimum shall include normal working hours and visiting hours (emphasis added) [42 CFR 1386.22(g)]<\/p>\n
Admittedly, it is somewhat unique to have a relatively tiny-eyed, non-profit organization with governmental, oversight authority, but such is the case. Still, as a matter of policy, NMPASI remains partial to the course of least resistance\u2014we\u2019ll work with just about anyone to achieve our primary mission \u201cto protect the civil, legal and human interests of individuals with disabilities.\u201d We can do great things on behalf of our people with disabilities and, subsequently, for the community at large\u2014Nge inamwo schagh igha mesemwal u se su ghii asamal iimomw nge u bwe sughi asamal bwulomw… faischo [It\u2019s OK if, at first, you don\u2019t open the doors to your house, so long as you open the doors to your heart\u2026respectfully]. [B][I](Jim Rayphand)[\/I][\/B<\/p>\n
[I]For more on Protection & Advocacy Systems, contact the NMPASI Office at (670) 235-7273\/4 [tel] \/ 235-7275 [fax] \/ 235-7278 [tty] or online at www.nmpasi.org.<\/p>\n
Jim Rayphand is the executive director of the Northern Marianas Protection & Advocacy Systems, Inc.[\/I]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Advocacy at the Northern Marianas Protection & Advocacy Systems, Inc. is something of a paradox, treading a fine line between a hammer and the delicate tongue of diplomacy\u2014ever looking for the sweet spot between our statutory standing and personal finesse. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-158508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158508\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}