A Families First Webinar
Presented by Jamie Ray-Leonetti, Associate Director of Policy, Institute on Disabilities at Temple University. Recorded April 11, 2022. About Families First.
JAMIE RAY-LEONETTI: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to this Families First event-- Legislation and Advocacy for Families. We'll be getting started shortly. Thank you.
Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome again to this Families First event. We're just letting a few more people in from the waiting room, And we'll be getting started.
Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to this Families First event. We'll be getting started in just a moment.
OK, I have the time is now 1:07. So we're going to go ahead and get started. Before we formally begin the program, do introductions, et cetera, I have a quick poll that I would like to launch for everyone who's here. The purpose of the poll is to gather some information that our funders need. So if you could all be so kind as to take the poll when it launches here in a moment, that would be great. It's one question.
And the question is, do you have a child aged birth to three years old? And your options are yes, no, or prefer not to answer. If you have any trouble with the poll, you can also drop your answer into the chat box.
Here comes the poll.
OK, it looks like everyone has participated. Thank you very much. I'm just going to capture the poll results to make sure we have them, and then we'll be good to go. OK.
Sorry about that. Shared the wrong screen. Let's try this again. There we go. All right.
Once again, good afternoon, everyone. I know many of you. It's nice to see some very friendly faces on the screen today. My name is Jamie Ray-Leonetti, and I'm the Associate Director of Policy at the Institute on Disabilities at Temple University. Before I dive into the presentation, I want to ask, could someone let me know? Are you currently seeing a cover slide that says Institute on Disabilities at Temple University, with pictures on it?
DENISE BECKETT: Yes. We also see the note slide.
JAMIE RAY-LEONETTI: Oh, you do? OK. Well, that's not what I want. So let me see if I can fix that. Thank you, Denise.
DENISE BECKETT: Sure.
JAMIE RAY-LEONETTI: This is my colleague Denise.
DENISE BECKETT: Hi, everyone.
JAMIE RAY-LEONETTI: And she'll be in the chat and behind the scenes for anybody who might need assistance during our webinar today, like me. Oh, here.
And how about now, Denise? Do you just see the cover slide?
DENISE BECKETT: You got it, Jamie, just the slide.
JAMIE RAY-LEONETTI: Awesome. OK, here we go, folks. Just a quick announcement. Today's webinar is being recorded, and it will be made available later. If you have friends who were not able to attend today, or if you yourself would like to listen to it again, it will be shared on the Temple Institute on Disabilities website. It will take us a little while to get it up there, because we'll need to do some cleanup. But we can let when it's available.
So for those who may not know, the Institute on Disabilities is Pennsylvania's University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities Education Research and Service. You might also hear us call that a UCEDD-- University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities.
Our vision is a society where all people are valued and respected, and where all people have the knowledge, opportunity, and power to improve their lives and the lives of others. As you can see from our mission statement, we work directly with individuals with disabilities and their families to promote self-determination. And this webinar that you're participating in today is part of our family leadership and engagement work.
Today's webinar is Pennsylvania Legislative Process and Advocacy Tips for Families. Again, I am your presenter, Jamie Ray-Leonetti. This is a Families First event. So it's part of our Families First portfolio. And we want to offer some thanks to Ark of Pennsylvania today, because I borrowed some of their slide images for use in this presentation, with their permission.
This presentation today is being brought to you by our Families First funders, which is a Philadelphia Interagency Coordinating Council activity, PICC. You see their logo there. This is funded by Philadelphia's Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual Disability Services and Elwyn Early Learning Services.
Just a quick overview of the information that we're going to be covering today-- we're going to talk about why legislative information and why advocacy is important for families.
We're going to do a quick overview of the Pennsylvania legislature, how it's set up, and how the process works. Then we're going to talk about the legislative process in Pennsylvania. I'm going to give you a couple of examples of bills that you might want to keep an eye. On those would be Senate Bill 924 and House Bill 726. We'll talk more about those as we get there. And then we have a few key advocacy tips that you can take with you today as family members.
Just want to say very quickly, as we get started, if anyone needs captioning, you should see a message on your screen that will allow you to enable live transcription during this session. Again, a reminder announcement-- the session is being recorded. And if you have questions or comments, I would ask that you please place them in the chat. And we will have a period for questions and answers at the end. This will help us with our recording process. Thank you.
So why is it important for families of young children to know about the legislative process and to be involved in advocacy? Well, legislation that gets introduced today can be something that impacts your young child tomorrow, and it can have a long term impact on your child or your family as well. So that's one reason it's important.
Another reason is that you as a parent are a constituent of your Pascal legislators and your Pennsylvania senators. Your legislators, your senators and representatives, they work for you and your family. So because they work for you, that's another important reason to be aware of the legislative process and to even consider being involved in it when you can.
Another reason is that some people may not know this. But a lot of the legislation that we see-- so for example, the two bills that we're going to talk about a little bit later today-- the first draft, and sometimes even the second draft of that legislation, is written by moms and dads and other regular people, just like you and me. Now, I know that may seem strange. But that's how a lot of legislation starts.
Somebody has an idea. And they write it down in their own words, their own language. And they take it to their senator or their representative, or the staffer, more likely, for that senator or representative, and say, this is my idea. And if it's an important issue that the senator or rep can get behind, sometimes, from that, a piece of legislation is born.
So one of the pieces that we're going to look at today, House Bill 726, which is a disability inclusive education bill-- the first draft of that was written by a coalition of people with disabilities and family members. It was written in plain sentences and paragraphs that doesn't look anything like a bill that we would typically see. But with the help of the legislative office, they now have a bill that's been introduced and is hopefully going to go for a vote.
And then the last reason why this is so important is because, as with many things, knowledge is power. So if you understand how the legislative process works, if you understand how to contact your senator or representative, and if you have a little bit of an idea of what's going on in Harrisburg, that can be very helpful to you and your family.
So, I'm just going to give a very brief overview of how the legislature looks or works in Pennsylvania. So we have what's called a bicameral legislature, which means that it has two parts. The first part is the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, and the second part is the Pennsylvania State Senate.
In terms of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, there are 203 Pennsylvania House members, and each of them runs on a two year term. So every two years for the House of Representatives, there are elections.
On the other side, in the Pennsylvania State Senate, those folks run on four year terms, and there are 50 members of the Pennsylvania State Senate. Of course, we also have an executive branch of the government, which is over both the House and the Senate. And that is our governor and lieutenant governor-- so Governor Wolf and our lieutenant governor. And those folks run on a four year term.
So this is just a general overview of the workings, so like the inside track of the legislature. So every legislative session-- and a session lasts for two years. In Pennsylvania, there are over 4,000 pieces of legislation introduced between the house and the senate. And this is just bills. That does not include resolutions.
Resolutions are formal proclamations that often, a representative or Senator will introduce, typically to honor something. So for example, there might be a resolution to declare March as Intellectual Disability Awareness Month or April as Autism Awareness Month.
When you get involved in legislation, you should know that the process can be long and arduous. But that doesn't mean it's a bad process. It just means you have to be persistent and sometimes patient. Normally, it takes a couple of terms for a piece of legislation to go the whole way through the process. So that means it might be a couple of years. So you have to be in it for the long haul.
After every legislative term-- again, two years-- if the bill that you're looking at is not voted on, it is considered dead by the legislature. And then in order for it to move forward, it would need to be reintroduced in the next session. We will be talking about an example of that today, the same bill I mentioned earlier, House Bill 726.
It was introduced in a prior session, back in 2021. And it didn't make it all the way through the process. And so it died or was considered dead.
But then, this year, it was reintroduced in the House by Representative Joseph Hohenstein, excuse me. And this time, he was able to introduce it with a Republican colleague so that it had bipartisan support. So this time, this term, it looks like it may make it through.
Between legislators, staff, agencies, and stakeholders, there are more than 500 people who play a role in the legislative process for just one bill. And I would add that those people who play a role in the legislative process include all of us-- so maybe all of you on the call today, other their family members that you who are interested in politics and legislation.
And then there's just a note here that Pennsylvania's legislature and the process really is a smaller version of our federal process, or what we would see in Washington, DC. So that's why we have our elephant and donkey symbols there.
Getting from an idea to a piece of actual legislation in Pennsylvania and a bill that gets passed is a seven step process. And we're going to go briefly through each of the seven steps.
The first step is that the legislation gets drafted. The second step is that either a representative or a senator will introduce the legislation. It then goes to committee. And sometimes, it goes to more than one committee.
Then in the fourth step, there is a vote on the floor. Then, in the fifth step, the bill has to go to the other chamber, meaning either the House side or the Senate side. So if it began in the House, once it gets through there, it will go to the Senate side. If it began on the Senate side, it goes over to the House side. So you just have to make sure you cover both sides.
Then it may go back through the committee and the floor vote again on the other side of the building, basically. Because the House is on one side in the Capitol in Harrisburg, and the Senate is on the other side. Once it gets through both sides, it goes to the governor's desk for a signature. Or sometimes, it passes on what we call concurrence, which means that both sides are in agreement, and so is the governor. So he doesn't need to sign off. And then the last step is the governor signing and putting it into action.
So the drafting process-- the first step-- as I mentioned before, all policy changes-- and legislation is an example of a policy change, in many cases. But all policy changes begin with an idea. And that idea can come from a member of the House or the Senate. It can come from a government agency. Or it could come from a stakeholder. And you, as family members, are all included as stakeholders.
So again, to use House Bill 726 as an example, a coalition was formed of people with disabilities and family members. And that coalition was focused on the idea that we need to teach disability history in our schools. And so they had an idea for a disability inclusive education curriculum bill.
And they met with Representative Hohenstein and members of his staff. And basically, they were able to sell that idea, through having their statistics, through having their research done. They looked at other states that had similar inclusive education bills. And through their passion for disability inclusive education as an issue, they were able to sway Representative Hohenstein and his staff to say this is important enough for us to take it up as a cause. This is a bill that we should get behind.
And they began working on it and redrafting it. And it's been through several stages of redrafting.
So during the drafting process, members of a committee and the staff will discuss how the bill should go, what direction they want to take it in. And they may reach out to various stakeholders for information.
So for example, at the Institute on Disabilities, we may get calls from a legislator or a staffer to provide data. Because one of our functions as a University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disability is to collect data on a lot of different disability related issues.
So, for the disability inclusive education bill, for example, we were asked for data on the number of people in special education in Pennsylvania schools. We were asked for data about what other states were doing around disability inclusive education curriculums. Those are just some of the examples.
And this drafting process is a place where you, as stakeholders, can have a lot of influence over the legislative process. Because the input that you give, or the support that you give or don't give, can actually frame what a piece of legislation ends up looking like. I just need to get rid of this little-- there we go.
So once the legislation is drafted, then there is a process for introducing the legislation. And a lot of times, right before a bill is introduced, a member of the House or Senate may circulate internally to their colleagues on the House or the Senate what's called a co-sponsorship memo. And there's an example of the co-sponsorship memo here on your screen.
What a co-sponsorship memo basically is-- this member of the House or Senate who's interested in this legislation, saying to their colleagues, here's a piece of legislation. Here's what it's about. Here's why I think it's important. Can I count on you to co-sponsor it with me? So can I count on you to be a supporter? And this is just sort of like putting a feeler out, to see if you're going to get support for something.
Then, after the co-sponsorship memo, you have the actual bill here. This is an example of what an the actual text of a bill looks like when it's introduced in the Pennsylvania legislature.
Then, once a bill is introduced, eventually-- and again, this could take several months. Remember, we said the process is long. You've got to be ready for the long haul. But the bill will go to committee.
A committee is a subgroup of the legislature that narrows things down around particular issues. So for example, there's an education committee. There is a health and human services committee. So these are places where disability related bills might go to committee.
A bill must be voted out of the committee before it gets to a full chamber vote. And a chamber is either the Chamber of the House or the Chamber of the Senate, so the two sides.
When the bill is in committee, the only way that there can be an Amendment is if that amendment is proposed by a member of that committee. So not all members of the House or all members of the Senate are on every committee. But for example, if Representative Hohenstein is a member of the House Education Committee, then he can offer an amendment to the disability inclusive education bill, for example.
And then each committee is broken down so that there's a split between Democrats and Republicans on each committee. And they determine that ratio by looking at the number of people in the chamber. So right now, on the House side, there's 26 people. And that means that there are 16 Republican committee members and 10 Democrats. And on the Senate, there's 12 committee members-- eight Republicans and four Democrats. And that would be because the Republicans control the Senate, and the Republicans also control the House.
So, myths and facts about bills-- it's a myth that the leadership dictates what bills get voted on in committee. The truth is that leadership of a committee can suggest that a bill be run. But it's the discretion of the chair to decide whether a bill actually gets run or not.
The majority committee chair has complete discretion over the bills that run out of their committee. So sometimes, you may need to find out who the chair of a particular committee is, to go and talk to them and educate them about a bill that's important to you. Because it may be them who has the control on whether this bill is going to move, not necessarily your member of Congress.
So your member of the legislature may be behind you all the way. But sometimes, you need to get other people involved as well.
And then, one more fact that's important-- if you need to make an amendment to a bill-- so if you need to propose a change-- the easiest place to do that is when the bill is in committee.
There are some rules the committees have to follow. One of the biggest ones is that there needs to be a quorum to conduct any voting meeting. So that means that you need at least 50% of the members of the committee present in order to actually take a vote and do business.
These committee meetings are public. So you can actually sit in on a meeting if you wanted to. And right now, at least, many of the committee meetings are still held virtually, as well as in person. So you could actually be sitting in your living room or sitting in your office and decide that you want to tune in on the education committee meeting. And can actually watch that.
In order for a bill to pass out of the committee, there needs to be a 2/3 majority vote. And if we're making an amendment to a proposed piece of legislation, that just requires what we call a simple majority, or 51% of the committee members being in favor of it.
Then, once we get out of committee, there is a vote on the floor. So this is a vote in front of the full Senate or the full House. And you need 51% or a simple majority to get this passed. If it doesn't happen on the first time, it can be considered a second and a third time if necessary. So that's why you see second consideration, third consideration. We won't go too deeply into that, because this is just supposed to be introductory.
During that floor vote, you'll hear the Speaker of the House or the Speaker of the Senate say, will the House agree to the bill? And then the members need to vote by either aye or nay. The speaker will then say, the bill is agreed to if you get enough nays. And if no one objects, the bill goes directly to the third consideration process.
The third consideration, if it's needed to get that 51% vote, is the final place where the bill is considered. In order to get out of that third consideration, you need a majority vote, except for any bills that relate to the budget. And for those, you need a 2/3 majority.
Then, if the bell started in the House, for example, it goes to the other side, to the Senate, to repeat through the same process. And then, once that takes place on both sides, then we are ready for step six, which is either a concurrent vote or the governor's consideration of the bill.
So concurrence is a situation where you had a bill that was amended. And if changes were made, then the bill needs to go to the chamber for a vote. However, if no changes were made in the process, then it can go directly to the governor's desk to be considered. With governor's consideration, if the bill was not amended, then it can go right to the governor's desk for his or her decision.
Then the bill-- and see our friendly bill here-- goes to the governor's desk for signature. And the governor has three options. He can either sign the bill, and it becomes a law, he can veto the bill, and it doesn't, then, become law, or he can allow the bill to become law without his signature by allowing a certain amount of time to pass.
Now, you might think, why would the governor, who has the power to sign the legislation, why would he just let it sit there and become signature-- become law without his signature? Well, there could be a few reasons for this. One of the most popular reasons is that the governor may want the bill to become law. But there may not be as much bipartisan-- Democrat and Republican-- support for the legislation as what he would like. Or there may be some real opposition to this bill, even though the governor thinks it should pass.
So, by allowing the bill to become law without his signature, this is a way for him to get the business of government that he needs to get done finished without making a public statement that he supports the bill by signing it. So it's just another option that is often used when there is not as much bipartisan support as what is hoped for.
So, these-- we're now at the place where we're going to talk about a couple specific pieces of legislation as examples. The first piece is a piece of legislation that many of you are probably familiar with, Senate Bill 924. This Senate bill-- and can tell that it originated in the Senate, because it has the letters SB in front of it-- proposes a moratorium, or a stop, on the closure of state intellectual disability centers, so our state ID centers, like Polk, Whitehaven.
It was introduced by Senator Michele Brooks, and it passed on a party line vote out of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee on October 27, 2021. When we say a party line vote, we mean that when it went up in front of the committee, things went exactly as we thought they would. And in this case, the Republicans, who introduced the bill, voted in favor of it. And the Democrats, who did not introduce it, voted against it.
This is a particular piece of legislation that is not favored by many disability advocacy groups. But there are many different viewpoints on this.
So the next piece of legislation that we're going to take a look at is the House Bill 726 that I've mentioned a few times. So this starts with HB. So that tells you right away that this bill originated in the House. The 726 is the bill number. And I'll say something about this bill number, because it's a little bit unusual.
Typically, whenever a bill is introduced, it gets a bill number that is assigned by the printer. And at the beginning of a legislative term, it starts with the number 1. So on the House side, there's going to be a House Bill 1. And it's going to keep on going until the end of the legislative term, at whatever the number is. So it could be 1,000. Could be 900, however many pieces of legislation are introduced.
And it normally goes in sequential order. This bill, House Bill 726, is a little bit different. This is an exception to the rule, where the coalition who helped to draft this bill made a request that they be given a specific bill number. And they requested number 726, because July 26 is the anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
So this coalition wanted a number that was significant in the disability community. So through a little bit of advocacy from Representative Hohenstein and his Republican colleague, they were able to get 726 assigned to their bill.
We've already talked about this legislation. But it would require the teaching of disability history in K-12 schools, public schools in Pennsylvania.
So now that we've learned a little bit about the process of legislation and how it moves along in Pennsylvania, we're going to talk a little bit about advocacy and give you some tips for doing that. So there's many definitions of advocacy. Here's one definition that I kind of like. It's the art of pleading or arguing in favor of something, such as a cause, an idea, a policy, providing active support for that idea, policy, law, whatever.
So once you know what advocacy is, maybe you want some tips to help you try it out. So these are my tips.
Tip number one-- become an advocate and an educator. So how do you do that? Well, you can take action. You can take action by contacting local legislators through email, letter writing, phone calls, or in-person meetings.
Now, I saw a couple of you on here, I know, are graduates of our Competence and Confidence Partners in Policy Making family leadership course. So I know that you guys know how to do this. Because it's something that we practice in C2P2. So if you see another family member on here who may not have been through our Competence and Competence class yet who has an interest in contacting their legislature, I encourage you to reach out to them, connect with them, and help them through the process, because you have experience.
Another way that you can become involved is to send Action Alerts. And this would be particularly for any of you who work at an agency. I know I saw a couple of you, maybe from Vision for Equality on here. And I know Vision for Equality does a great job of this, sending Action Alerts to other stakeholders in the community.
So for example, when there was an opportunity to support House Bill 726, Vision sent an email to everybody, letting us know why we should support that.
Another way to take action is to attend community meetings, or town halls. So if your local representative or member of Congress has a town Hall to discuss community issues, show up. That's why they make it open to the community.
You can also share information with other people. So if any of you run a family support group, for example, you can share a copy of this PowerPoint presentation with them.
You can also invite officials to participate in meetings or special events that your group or support group might have. You want to stay involved with advocacy. It's not a one and done deal. Because things change often and rapidly.
And here's just a little reminder. What is maybe not relevant to you right now, while your child's birth to three, might become very relevant to you at the future. So I think House Bill 726 is a good example of that.
Eventually, your child's going to be ready for kindergarten and all the other grades up through 12th grade. So if you have an interest in disability history being taught to your child in school, you may want to take a look at that piece of legislation.
Tip number two after becoming involved is to build a relationship with your legislator. How do we do that? We want to stay positive. So don't just contact your legislator's office when you have something to complain about. But contact them when you have something to thank them for also.
Use every chance you get. So if there is a town hall, sign up. If you know that your legislator is going to be in their home office, call them and schedule a meeting.
Get to know your legislators. It's perfectly OK to request a meeting with a legislator or a staff person, just to introduce yourself and say hi. I'm Jamie. I'm in your district. I'm a person with a disability, and these are some of the issues that's important to me.
Get to know the member of Congress or a member of the House's staff. Why? Because staff make things happen. Staff are the people who get ideas and pieces of legislation in front of the member of the house or the senator. Because as I'm sure you can imagine, they have a lot to do. So the staff person might be the person who's there, prioritizing something, or getting it five minutes on the schedule.
And if you can, and if you're interested, get involved in the political process. And use your network. So if other people who attend Families First events from time to time, you can use them. If you run a family support group, you can reach out to other members in the family support group to support the work that you want to do.
Tip number three is educate your legislators. Why? Because as I said, legislators have a lot on their plate, and they have to know a little bit about a lot of things. So if there's a particular disability related bill that's really important to you, it's really important that you learn about that bill and share what you learned with your member of the House or Senate.
Because if they don't serve on the education committee, for example, they might not really know a lot about House Bill 726. Or if they're not on the Health and Human Services Committee, they might not really know about much about Senate Bill 924. But you can make that difference by putting the information in front of them.
How do you do that? You can use the mail, either email or handwritten letters. I would encourage email, because it's faster, and it's easier to ensure that it's getting to the legislative office. You can pick up the phone and call. You can make an in-person visit, schedule an appointment, and make an in-person visit.
Or you can make a virtual visit, using Zoom, just like what we're doing today. And that's becoming more and more popular with a lot of the senators and representatives and their staff members. COVID made that happen.
And then, last, do your homework. So here is a list of helpful websites that you can use when you're doing your advocacy work. And each one of these blue links is a live link. So when we send out the PowerPoint to those who registered after this session, you'll have access to each of these.
So that brings us to the end of our tips for advocacy and understanding legislation. And at this point, I'm going to open the floor for any questions that folks might have. Going to check first to see if we have any questions in chat.
DENISE BECKETT: Jamie, there aren't any questions in the chat right now. But I did drop the evaluation in there.
JAMIE RAY-LEONETTI: Thank you very much, Denise. Yes, at the end of this, if everyone could please take a few moments to complete the evaluation that Denise dropped in chat, that helps us to decide what programs we will offer in the future, and also to improve our programming.
Melissa has a question. Where can we find out about house bills or the process for legislation in our area? That is a great question, Melissa.
If I can just go back here on my slides-- one second. There we go.
So this first website that's here-- www.legis.state.pa.us, you can go to that website. And can put in keywords-- so for example, disability or education. It'll pull up bills that have those words in it. So you can see legislation that way.
You can also join certain groups to become more aware of legislation. So for example, I'm part of a group that's called Policy Information Exchange, or PIE for short. And that group, Policy Information Exchange, keeps a pretty up to date spreadsheet of legislation in Pennsylvania and makes it available to its members.
So it's a free group to join. If you go on the website for the Pennsylvania Developmental Disabilities Council, you will find a link there If you want to join PIE. So that's a couple of ways.
Thank you, Denise, for dropping that in the chat. Other questions?
All right. You mentioned that bills go to committees. And sometimes, they go to multiple committees. How can we tell where a bill is in the legislative process, and how do we know when to vote on these?
I'll answer that first, and then I'll go to the second question. Because it's a little bit-- it's sort of a separate topic. So, how do you know where the bill is? You can use the same website that I pointed out. Because once you identify a bill that interests you, you can also track where the legislation is on this website.
So if I want to track House Bill 726, for example, all I need to do is put House Bill 726 into the tracker on this website, and it will tell me where that bill is in the process.
Also, so I want to answer the second part of the question. I'm sorry. The second part of the question is-- and this is a really good one. It seems kind of awkward to introduce ourselves to legislators. Any tips on how to be less awkward?
So, my number one tip is to be yourself. Because many of the people who are serving as our legislators are the same as us. They're just people who happen to decide that they wanted to become involved in politics.
So just like we have family members, and we have interests outside the office, our senators and representatives are the same. So one way to try to be less awkward is to just be you.
Another way would be to practice and prepare before you go to introduce yourself. So if you think you're going to be a little bit nervous when you make that phone call to schedule your legislative meeting, maybe you write out a little script of what it is that you want to say when you call and you're talking to the staffer on the phone. It's perfectly OK to do that. It's practice, until you get used to it.
My third tip would be, try to use personal stories. So if there's a personal reason why, for example, House Bill 726 is important to you, if it's important to you because you are a person with a disability, and when you were in school you didn't get to learn about important people in history like Judy Heumann and Justin Dart, and want it to be different for your kid, tell your legislator that. Because they're going to respond to that. Personal stories are the things that make what you want and what you're asking for memorable. In the big pile of stuff that senator or legislator is hearing every day, your personal story is going to be the thing that may make them remember and act on your issue.
Melissa says, will it tell us how many committees it has to go through or when it'll be dead? So, if you see that something is on third consideration and it doesn't pass through the vote on that third consideration, then it's going to be considered dead. And similarly, if we get to the end of a legislative session-- so the end of a two year period, and something has just sat somewhere, whether it be in committee or elsewhere, and it hasn't been voted on, it's dead. Because everything dies at the end of the session and would need to be reintroduced.
I'm not seeing any additional questions. But the ones that we had were really good, and I greatly appreciate them. I'm going to just go forward to the end of our slides here. If anybody has any questions that they think of later, there's my contact information.
And again, we'd like to thank our funders and remind you that this was a Families First event today. If you liked this information, please let us on the evaluation. If you didn't like it, let us know that also, so that we can make changes in our programming moving forward.
For Families First, we have another event coming up this month, on April the 20th. My colleague, Stacy Phillips will be presenting on assistive technology for young families. Again, that's going to be April 20th, and I believe she's presenting at 11:00 AM. So if you'd like, register for that. And we hope to see you all again soon. Thank you so much.
This session is an activity of the Philadelphia Interagency Coordinating Counsel (PICC), funded by Philadelphia's Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual Disability Services (DBHIDS) and Elwyn Early Learning Services.