Session Transcript
STACY PHILLIPS: OK, good morning, everyone. Thank you so much for being here. Just to let you know, this session is being recorded. So if you don't feel comfortable being on camera, please keep your camera off. We ask that you remain muted unless you have a question. If you have a question throughout the presentation, our presenters would love to hear from you. They are very interactive in their presenting.
And you can use the Raise Hand feature on Zoom, or type that question in the chat. Or if you come on camera and just raise your hand, that works too. We'll make sure that we call on you. Any questions that are typed in the chat, we will go ahead and stop them and try to read them as we go along. And they also have access to the chat.
So again, thank you for being here for our Families First session. My name is Stacy Phillips. I am a project coordinator for Family and Educational Leadership at Temple at the Institute on Disabilities. Families First is a Philadelphia Interagency Coordinating Council activity, which is funded by Philadelphia's Behavioral Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual Disabilities Services, or DBHIDS, also Elwyn Learning Services.
Today I have the great pleasure of introducing Latoya Maddox and Domonique Howell for our session entitled Momma Chronicles, Too. Again, the session is being recorded. All of our Families First sessions, after we record them, are professionally captioned and then will live on the Institute on Disabilities website. So you can go back at any time and watch any of those sessions.
Right now we have, I think, 12 sessions uploaded. We have today's session, which should be up there in about four weeks. And then we have another session in June, if you're interested, by Jamiel Owens on June 11, which is a father's perspective raising a son with autism. And Jamiel was also a recent recipient of a Brighter Futures Award, which was sponsored by DBHIDS. And that was a wonderful event.
OK. I think that's that. I'm going to introduce Latoya and Domonique so you know a little bit more about them. And then I'm going to turn it over to them. Latoya is a mother with disabilities. She is currently studying for her master's in public administration at Penn State World Campus and received her BSW from West Chester University. Latoya is the senior independent living specialist at Liberty Resources for Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery counties. And she is the co-founder and co-facilitator of Momma Chronicles, Too.
And then we have Domonique Howell, Miss Former Pennsylvania Wheelchair. Wait a minute. Miss Pennsylvania-- wait, can I--
DOMONIQUE HOWELL: Miss Wheelchair Pennsylvania 2023.
STACY PHILLIPS: That's it. That's it. I had it backwards. Yes. Domonique is from Philadelphia. She is also a mom, has cerebral palsy, is a full-time wheelchair user and a disability and family advocate. She currently works as an independent living specialist for Liberty Resources. And her advocacy specialties include homelessness, accessible and affordable housing, the rights of parents with disabilities, and medical systems advocacy.
She is also a member of the national grassroots organization ADAPT and is the developer and founder of Momma Chronicles, Too. So I'm going to turn it over to them. And they, I think, will share their slides. Thank you so much again for being here. And take it away.
LATOYA MADDOX: And so good morning. Thank you, Stacy, for the introduction. Dom, you ready? You're muted if you're-- I can't hear you.
DOMONIQUE HOWELL: Yes, I am about to share my screen. Let me share it. So let's see. Can everyone see the slides? OK.
LATOYA MADDOX: So we're going to just go through a lot of what we do as Momma Chronicles, Too and what we do with our group. And then I'm going to do the first five, and then Dom's going to finish up. So this is our Families First presentation for Momma Chronicles, Too. You can go to the next slide. If I'm talking too fast, please let me know.
So who we are-- Momma Chronicles, Too is a advocacy group to provide support to each mother and child that we serve as well as the communities that we surround. Our primary goal is to shed the stigma that society has placed on disabled parents and children.
So Momma Chronicles, Too, honestly, was thought out in my second bedroom in my apartment with Dom and another mother of ours. It was my son first, then another friend, and then Dom's baby came last. So we were just sitting there, and we was like, we should start a group. Plus, Dom will get into more why she really, really started-- why the group was needed.
But we saw that there wasn't enough support for parents with disabilities who were not necessarily on the autism spectrum. So that's why Dom, myself, and another colleague started the group. And then the group was brought to Liberty Resources in 2018. Next slide. You're muted.
DOMONIQUE HOWELL: You can do your story first. That's how I wrote it. But you can--
LATOYA MADDOX: OK, and I think I gave a little bit of the Momma Chronicles, Too story as well. So, Dom, if there's anything missing, you can fill that in. But my story was-- or is that when I was pregnant with my son-- my son was my third pregnancy, first birth-- and honestly, the hospital system, they could do majority of the vitals, but the main vital that you need done when you're pregnant is to get weighed. They did not have any accessible scales in the office.
And I ended up getting gestational diabetes, which puts me at a higher risk for later on in life to being diabetic. My son was perfectly healthy at birth. The hospital system-- I went to Hahnemann Hospital before they closed.
And they supported me throughout my whole pregnancy. They let me guide them through my pregnancy and treatment and ultrasounds and the stress test. Anything they wanted to do, they made sure they had my input first on it to see if it would affect me and my disability and best ways to get certain things done.
And as I got-- as the pregnancy went along further and I got bigger, it kind of got harder for me to transfer to from my chair to the table that they use to examine you. So I used to have my family members come with me to transfer me because the hospital system, too, did not have a transfer board or a Hoyer lift. Honestly, at the end of the pregnancy, I was at the Hoyer stage of things.
But because I couldn't get weighed, I didn't know how much weight I was gaining. Or they would say you need to eat these type of foods or stay away from this stuff, but they weren't giving me the list of things until I became-- until I became diabetic. And once I became diabetic, then they gave me a list of foods that I could have, what I should stay away from. I had my days where I could cheat.
I had a nurse that came out to visit me in between my appointments. And she would let me know, your sugar levels have been really good. During my baby shower, she was like, have at it, have fun, and make sure you check your sugar after. But yeah, that's a little bit of my story.
I had to have a lot of family stay with me after I had my son because the way the society and the system is set up with Department of Human Services, if you don't have the support in your home or the hospital system-- if you don't have the support in your home to assist you with your child, the hospital will swoop right in and try to take your baby away. Stacy, you have a question?
STACY PHILLIPS: Yeah, I have a question. When I had my children, I had home births. And afterward, I used a doula. I'm wondering if there's doula services for people with disabilities or moms with disabilities that you're aware of?
LATOYA MADDOX: Yes. So we do have a doula who we are in network with. And she honestly started her own organization. It's called A Place for Ummi. I could send that. And Dom, you can put that information in the chat if you want to. She does work with parents with and without disabilities.
And honestly, if I would have had that when I had my son, I probably would have been more willing to breastfeed and have other supports besides having my whole-- a lot of my family members fall into my two-bedroom apartment for assistance. Dom, you could go to the next slide when you're done.
You're muted.
DOMONIQUE HOWELL: I see that Brianna has a question, and I'll answer it as soon as I tell my story. But I also put in the chat that A Place for Ummi can be found on Instagram and Facebook. And she actually is a former colleague of our support coordination agency, Liberty Community Connections. So her primary focus is to work with people with disabilities and provide the education and the services that they need.
And actually, two of our moms will be serviced through her organization that just had a baby, and one is still expecting a baby. So it's really a great partnership that we've had.
So my story for Momma Chronicles, Too actually begins when I got pregnant with my daughter. And I went to a hospital. They will remain nameless, but if you guys want to know-- after a time, if you want to email me and ask what hospital system that was, I don't mind sharing because I don't know if anybody will see that in this hospital system.
And I'm trying to do work with them to keep educating them on what to do for folks with disabilities. So I don't want to burn that bridge, so to speak. But I was in a large hospital system here in Philadelphia, which I had been a part of throughout my life.
But when I became pregnant, I noticed that there were so many medical disparities that I was facing that I never noticed before. Because as a person with a disability, I have a team of doctors, right? So I have a specialist at other departments. I have a gynecologist, all these different things at other departments.
But I particularly had to work with family medicine and internal fetal medicine at this particular hospital and realized that there were no accessible skills and no lower exam tables to the point where, at the time, I only received a little bit of home and community-based service PAS hours, which for people that don't know are Personal Assistance Services through attendant care.
And so a lot of times when I had a doctor's appointment, I would go by myself. And so what ended up happening was-- just because my hours would be done at that time-- so what ended up happening was I would have to get my ultrasound in my wheelchair, which, as you all know, is not really safe or the proper protocol to do. I never got weighed during my whole entire pregnancy until I had to go on hospital bed rest.
I only received two ultrasounds because of the fact that it was difficult to do an ultrasound in a wheelchair, and I couldn't access the exam table. And so I thought to myself, well, if this is happening to me, imagine how many other people that they serve that have disabilities, which with this hospital is a large population. I need to do something. I need to do something.
I don't know what I need to do, but I need to do something. And I had already been an advocate for quite some time but in different spaces and worked in different agencies. And so I said, well, I could write to these folks. So I end up writing to the director of obstetrics and the director of internal fetal medicine and saying to them, this needs to change. And the ADA law says that we're allowed to have these things.
And why is it that in these particular offices-- also the director of family medicine, excuse me. I did three. Why is it in these particular offices where you are serving people with disabilities you do not have access to the things that they need? How are you saying that you have-- are giving proper care if we're not being able to get examined properly and we're not being able to get weighed properly?
And so because of this, I end up having complications, and I had to go on hospital bed rest at six and a half months pregnant. And I stayed in the hospital until I had my child, which ended up being 41 weeks and two days. She just didn't want to come out.
And in the midst of that, I was told, we think that you need to go into a nursing home, and your child needs to go into the system. And so I said absolutely not. That is not happening. And my daughter is 10, so this is in 2014. So this isn't that long ago. And so I said, absolutely that's not happening.
And so the Department of Human Services came after my daughter was born. The hospital came into the room, and they said, this is the plan, and this is what we're doing. And I said absolutely not. I want to be a breast fed mother. My daughter's getting breast fed. We're not separating.
You don't understand what the baseline is. You're assuming that you understand what the baseline is because you're basing it off a textbook. You don't know how independent I was before walking into this hospital, so you can't assume that I can't take care of my child.
And so with my self-advocating, my former boss and my sister and my friends, we rallied together, and we came to an agreement-- which now that I think about it, I should have fought more, but I wanted to bring my baby home-- that if my sister and my then attendant, who is no blood relationship to me or my child, sign this paper to say that they will be like the overseers of myself and my daughter for the first year, I can bring my daughter home.
And I was so tired and just so frustrated, I just agreed. Now, if I hadn't agreed to that, we probably would have been separated, and I would have went into a nursing home. And then she would have went into the system. And so that is really my why of starting this. Because I said, if I'm experiencing this, if Latoya experienced what she experienced with not being able to get weighed, even at Hahnemann-- and Hahnemann is a great-- was a great hospital-- always was great, always was patient first.
But if all of these people that I know are experiencing this, then I need to create something that has peer support and advocacy and tells our stories so that people know that we're out here just like everyone else, parenting, raising our children, having families. And so that is really the creation of Momma Chronicles, Too. And I'm going to go to the next slide. So now I'm going to answer Brianna's question.
So unfortunately, the hospitals across the country-- because I actually know who you are; hi, Brianna; thank you for joining us-- are biased because they go off of textbook things. And so they don't understand the things that we have in place like home and community-based services.
And so the law actually says that if a person has a disability, it automatically deems them unfit to parent. It's a law. We learned this from the legal clinic for the disabled last year, which was in August of 2023, that this is still the law.
And so they look at it as, what are you physically able to do for your child? Are you physically able to wash your child, feed your child, clothe your child? And instead of understanding what adaptations are and modifications and also understanding that our children and even people who are able-bodied, children adapt-- instead of understanding that, they go off of what medical model is.
And medical model says that we are the problem, that we are the barrier, instead of society and the barriers that are placed on us. And so they are unfortunately still allowed to make these decisions, even if they don't provide the proper care. And it's unfortunate. But you have places like Center for Independent Living and Disability Rights Network of wherever your city and state is to make sure that these things aren't in place.
However, without us as advocates telling our stories and moms and fathers coming up, no one will know that it is happening. And so that is why we continue to do what we have done. All right, Latoya, next slide.
LATOYA MADDOX: No, you go to the next slide, Dom. Thank you. So for peer support, our group meets monthly on a Saturday via Zoom. And we discuss our children, our emotions, our self-care, and much more.
We even-- well, recently, we changed the structure of how we run the group because before, we'd just get on and just have a conversation. Sometimes questions would come up, and we would do a roundabout of answers. But now we do the roundabout-- we do questions. We pick one word. Everybody has to pick one word about themselves or about their child, depending on the theme that we're using for that Saturday. And we go from there.
And we have strict questions that we develop for the moms. And we give-- not as much guide them through things because I don't like to use advice that much because everybody's entitled to do things the way they want to do it. And although we do provide some sort of advice to moms, we just let everybody march to the beat of their own drum or just roll in their-- roll in their purposes, as Dom says a lot.
So we also do monthly mental health check-ins via our Facebook group, which all that information is at the end. And I don't know if you all know, but May is Mental Health Awareness Month. So we have been doing some stuff around that as well. Next slide.
And then our events. So we posted and participated in many events. This includes barbecues, which we had pre-COVID. We recently had a baby shower for two of our moms. One recently had her baby last Thursday, and the other one is still holding. The other baby is still holding strong in the womb. It's due next month.
We've had back-to-school drives where we collect all materials for children going back to school. And we give all the donations. We have given them to the Office of Homeless Services. But if you all know of other organizations that could use the support with back-to-school drives or anything, just let us know.
We participated in Jamiel Owens' Autism Playdate last year at Smith Playground. It was wonderful. My son loves the slide over there. He'll do that all day, and he's nine weeks from being 13.
STACY PHILLIPS: He also made sure that he collected all of the swag that everyone was giving out.
LATOYA MADDOX: Yes, he did.
STACY PHILLIPS: I had the pleasure of being at the table right next to you guys. And he was just like, can I have that? Can I have that? Can I have that. I was like, sure, take it all. He has plenty of Temple swag now.
LATOYA MADDOX: Yes, my son is a collector of things. But he also has invisible disability. So the more stuff he has to do with his hands, the less likely he is to get into stuff that he's not supposed to be getting into.
PA Center for Independent Living Conference, which was early on during the pandemic, we had attended that virtually. And then we do parent-- we have attended DHS's in the Philadelphia School District's Parent Cafes, which they posted at either the school district or another location in the city, and more stuff. Dom, do you want me to take over and share the slide?
DOMONIQUE HOWELL: Yes, please. I'm going to stop sharing my screen so that you can share yours. Why won't it let me?
STACY PHILLIPS: While Dom and Latoya are switching, does anyone have any questions at this time that they would like to ask?
DOMONIQUE HOWELL: We are open books, so have at it.
STACY PHILLIPS: I guess I have a question. How are you spreading the word about your groups and your Facebook group? Is it a private group? How can other-- how can we let other people know if they're interested, other moms?
DOMONIQUE HOWELL: So our contact information is at the end of the slides, but our Facebook group is open to everyone. We are based in Philadelphia, so we-- or PA. So we really have-- our group is basically PA mothers as far as what we do on Saturdays. But we do allow anybody to join us because it's on Zoom.
But when we go to do Philadelphia events, because we're attached to the Center for Independent Living, which is Liberty Resources, we focus on mothers in Philadelphia County, Delaware County, Chester County, and Montgomery County.
So you can find us on Facebook at Momma Chronicles, Too. That is just a Facebook page. And then the Facebook group page is Momma Chronicles, Too-- T-O-O-- 2.0. So there's that.
So why we really took it from peer support to advocacy is because of some of these statistics that I've found over the years from just trying to stay on top of everything so that we as advocates, Latoya and myself, can always know what other parents like ourselves are facing.
So according to Inside Edition, as of 2020, between 40% and 80% of parents with intellectual disabilities have lost custody of their children because of their disabilities. According to the National Council on Disability study done in 2021, pregnant women with disabilities are 11 times more likely to die at childbirth.
According to PubMed, a study done in 2023 shows that only 8.44% of pregnant women are receiving prenatal care. And so these particular statistics are very astounding to me. And it's a shame that even in 2023, which is nine years later after I had my daughter, people are still not receiving prenatal care or the proper prenatal care.
It's more astounding to me that because of the medical disparities that pregnant women face that have disabilities, that they are 11 times more likely to die in childbirth. So we are not even given the chance to be parents because we either have society saying let's take away the children, and we have society saying, they don't deserve prenatal care, and they don't deserve to live. And it's all based on the medical model instead of the social model. Next slide.
As our mission, it's our advocacy. So now we're going to just go into our advocacy piece. As said in our mission statement, our primary goal is to shed the stigma that society places on disabled parents and children. We want to help end those statistics. We advocate to make sure that the stigma and disparities that families with disabilities experience do not continue to occur. Next slide.
In November of 2020, we partnered with City At Large Councilmember Kendra Brooks to testify about the rights of parents with disabilities at a resolution hearing. The hearing included the following city agencies, DBHIDS, Philadelphia Department of Human Services, PA Department of Human Services, and Community Behavioral Health, which is also known as CBH.
And so we wanted to do this resolution with Kendra because Kendra Brooks is known for working with people with disabilities. And so she understands our issues. And she's always been at the forefront. But we wanted to let the city and the state know that these are the issues. Those statistics that I mentioned earlier are the issues that we are facing and that it isn't fair and that people need to know what we are experiencing and how to help change it.
And instead of being enemies and working in silos, let's work together and advocate so that these experiences we no longer face as parents with disabilities. Next slide.
Our advocacy efforts-- with statistics and stigmas that we have seen as parents, but more importantly as advocates, we have decided to educate systems about parents with disabilities and the independent living philosophy. Those systems include Philadelphia Hospitals, the Department of Human Services, Family Division-- we have an RFP training for them-- and we also have included the Community Umbrella Agencies. We have an RFP training with them because they're connected to the Department of Human Services.
And so that training just looks like the IL training, the Independent Living philosophy training, but focused on parents with disabilities. Because Latoya and I have served many parents throughout our years of being independent living specialists that have lost custody of their children because of their physical disabilities, lost custody of their children because the state and the city and the hospital system says they can't communicate with their children.
And so because we have become their advocates, we thought, let's get to the root of the problem. So the root of the problem, unfortunately, for many years before was the Department of Human Services and their community umbrella agencies because they are the ones that are determining and making the decision that our parents cannot parent the children.
And so we wanted to educate them, to make them aware that just because someone has a disability does not mean they are not able to parent-- and also what the services look like. So what services are, what home and community-based services are, what home modification and adaptation looks like, and how one can advocate, and what one should do, and what are the proper things that you should say and do for someone who has a disability, and what the dignity of the right to risk looks like.
And so you wouldn't say that to a mom that doesn't have a disability. You wouldn't just automatically assume that they can't have a baby. So why would you assume that we as people with disabilities the same? And so we have experienced great, great feedback. And so we have done a training last month-- or was it this month? It was this month, I'm sorry. All the trainings I do, I get confused.
So it was this month we had done our first training. And we will do our next training in a few weeks. And then we will continue it on for 2025 as well. So we just want to continue to educate the Department of Human Services and their community umbrellas.
But our ultimate goal is to make sure that this is a mandated training for the people that come out so that they before making discriminatory assumptions and before removing a child, they at least give the family the proper services and support needed in order to parent if those services are needed. Next slide.
So our contact information is just here. I'm Domonique Howell, again. I'm a disability and family advocate and also an independent living specialist for Philadelphia Liberty Resources Inc. My email is Dominiquehowell@LibertyResources.org.
You can reach me by phone as well, 215-713-8982. And that's a typo. I'm going to-- I just realized that. And 215-634-2000, extension 286.
And then Latoya's information is Latoya Maddox, disability advocate, counties senior independent living specialist. LatoyaMaddox@LibertyResources.org. And her telephone numbers are 237-291-4772 or 215-634-2000, extension 114.
And so I've made this presentation short because I wanted to have a conversation with the people that joined us. And so you can find us on Facebook at Momma Chronicles Too. And then this is the link. I'm not going to read it off because it's long. And then our Facebook group is Momma Chronicles Too, 2.0.
So now for the next hour and a half, if you guys have any questions or are experiencing anything, we're here to talk to you guys. Thank you, Adrian. Did I miss anything at all?
STACY PHILLIPS: Just a couple of comments praising. And Tawanda said, well said, when you were talking about the statistics and the need for reaching out and doing the outreach, which I think is fantastic.
I will just say before we get into questions that, over the last six years, I think-- I shared this with Domonique before-- our policy director and myself-- Jamie Ray-Leonetti and myself have done some presentations and guest lectures for Temple University School of Medicine for their physician assistant programs.
And we were really surprised when we went in there to talk to them that disability studies and any kind of conversations surrounding working with patients who have various disabilities really isn't part of the programming.
And there's obviously a very strong need for all medical professionals to have training on best practices working with people with various disabilities, making sure that they at least have one room for accessibility. It's really surprising that they don't have tables that go up and down and things like that. And many places, that is the case, even for senior citizens. Like, how are you supposed to climb up on a table?
So I'm really glad that the two of you are doing these outreach opportunities and talking to different medical professionals because there's obviously such a great need. I'm just wondering, how else can we advocate to support your efforts?
LATOYA MADDOX: I had a comment towards the rooms. So some hospitals, they have the room, but they use them-- they let the other patients go in those accessible rooms and then don't move them to another room. That happened to me once when I was pregnant. And I was sitting in that room for almost an hour waiting for a doctor and to be moved. They eventually-- they were like, we don't have another room. And the doctor was just so busy.
But the hospital system, when it comes to the education piece, they need to be aware that we have this patient who is coming in for their monthly, weekly checkup being-- for their pregnancy. Let's not use this room during these specific hours. After 12 o'clock, go ahead and use it.
But if we're scheduled to be there at 9:00 AM, there shouldn't be nobody in there at 9:00 AM. That room should be open for us so we can get in and get out. Because when you have underlying health conditions while you're pregnant, you need to be able to eat. And if they're telling you have to fast in the morning, you're only supposed to fast for a certain amount of time.
DOMONIQUE HOWELL: To answer your question, Stacy, one of the ways that we say not even just our efforts, just in general, to be an advocate and to speak up is to ask your doctor's offices and your hospital systems, do you have accessible scales for people who utilize wheelchairs? Do you have lower exam tables? Do you offer ASL interpreters for folks who are deaf?
Those are things that we are constantly seeing with our parents that come to us and ask us for assistance. That's the best way. And then just to say that there is a group of mothers that meet every Saturday via Zoom to talk about these issues. And we have a mom who had her own child and then decided she wasn't going to have any more, and she adopted a child.
And then she ended up having to adopt her nieces. And so we have family dynamics of all types in our group. And so we just want to show that and make sure that people see that family is not a one size fit all. It's not a linear thing. And so just to start there, to know what hospitals are doing, to know what other systems are doing if you're not in Philadelphia.
If you're in a different county, because we're just-- we're getting started in those counties to figure out what the parents need, what they're experiencing in those hospital systems, how it looks for them.
And so if you know anybody, anywhere that is pregnant or going through a medical disparity, whether it's a physical access need or an attitudinal access need or an accommodation need that they're not receiving, we would like to know about it. And so we just ask that you email us and call us directly, and we'll do our best to make sure that it gets handled in a way that it--
I would like to say, and I didn't think to put it in our slides, but Latoya and myself have been successful in reunifying children with their mothers. So we have had success in making sure that our moms and their families are reunified with their children. It took a very long time for both of our moms to get their children back. But we are two advocates that stay in the fight and understand the importance of children being with their mothers and fathers.
And really quickly, I want to make clear that we also just don't help moms. If a father came to us in need regarding custody or anything with medical disparities, we would help them, definitely. And we have helped them.
STACY PHILLIPS: Thank you. Are there any other questions or comments? Victoria.
VICTORIA WILMORE: I don't have any questions, because you guys did a thorough job explaining. I just want to commend you guys. And I'm sitting here, so over gratefully-- I can't even explain the emotions that I'm feeling right now for what you guys are doing because it takes a lot. And you are living proof that, hey, just because I have a disability doesn't mean that I can't do something.
Now I need you to get on TED Talks and spread the word a little bit more. So I don't know how you're going to do it, but I'm grateful that I came on. You shared information that I didn't even think about. Individuals who have not experienced this, such as myself, don't think about the things that you guys are talking about.
But it is something that everybody needs to get on board. So I'm going to share your information. I'm going to try to follow you. Oh, my gosh, this is just phenomenal. I'm proud of you guys. And I just want to say keep up the great advocacy work because it's something for me to say I appreciate it.
Sometimes you do the work, and you don't even realize that you're touching people. But I have to let you know that you really did touch me. And Stacy, thank you for this. Because Stacy said, they're phenomenal. I said, OK, Stacy, I'm going to sign up. I'm going to sign up. I had no idea the content, the depths that you guys are going through.
And I listen to the disparities. Not only are these disparities for you guys as individuals living with challenges-- because I don't like "disabilities," I like the word "challenges"-- but even as Afro-American women, that adds to it as well. So whatever I can do, just let me know because I'm grateful. And thank you. Thank you so much for that.
LATOYA MADDOX: You're welcome.
DOMONIQUE HOWELL: You're welcome. Our mission is, each one, reach one. Each one, teach one. And somehow, in the recent years, I've just been talking about rolling in my purpose. And so I've often said and continue to say I became an advocate by an accident. I was always doing disability work.
And it's funny that you mentioned that thing, Tracy, about-- Stacy, I'm sorry-- about going into Temple Hospital School of Medicine and doing that work. I used to do that work for 15 years. I used to be a standardized patient. And so what we would do is we would simulate a doctor's office visit for a primary chief complaint with the PCP.
And then we just were supposed to go through the systems with these second and third-year medical students. And most of them, in the beginning of the trainings wouldn't even ask about the disability. And so that means that they wouldn't ask about, Do we have sexual history? those kinds of questions.
And so I did that just because I knew what I was experiencing but I didn't expect to be an advocate because of it. It was more like, I'm going to be a writer, I'm going to be doing newspaper articles, journaling. That's what I studied. But then this happened, and I'm like, OK, every time something happens, the door just keeps knocking. It just keeps going, going, going. And I kept ignoring it.
But when I got pregnant with my daughter, I said, listen, I can't be the only one experiencing this. This is just ridiculous, especially happening in a city as large as Philadelphia is with the population that it serves of 17% being disabled, which equates to 246,000 residents that have a disability. So let's imagine that 246,000 people are experiencing medical disparities.
And let's cut that in half and say that half of that population are women that are trying to get pregnant and have families. Imagine what that looks like. So that means that all of these children and all of these families are experiencing this. And so I said I've got to do something. But then I said, well, who better to do it with than Toya? And then who better to do it with than this other person?
And then because we are both blessed to work at Liberty Resources, it just made great sense. And so we really take pride in this work. And I really appreciate you all for coming and wanting to hear our stories and listen to us rant about the joys of advocacy.
STACY PHILLIPS: That was really well said. Thank you, Domonique and Toya. If there's no other questions, I am going to just drop the evaluation form link in the chat. We do ask that people complete that and just let us know your thoughts. I am so, so happy that we were able to do this today and really enjoyed hearing from you both.
It is extremely important for us to spread the word and help advocate. And really, we're the only ones changing policy. The politicians don't know what they don't know, and it's our job to educate them. And hopefully, with what you're doing and some of the work that we're doing, and IDS, all of us are trying to make systems change. And I'm really thrilled that you were able to be here today. So thank you so much.
LATOYA MADDOX: You're welcome.
STACY PHILLIPS: If anybody else has questions or comments, please feel free.
ADRIENNE REDGUARD: Good morning. So I'm--
