Tina Fitzgerald Class of '05

Tina Fitzgerald and her husband Rick

Tina Fitzgerald from the Class of 2005 puts her Partners training and her social work background to work for people with disabilities.

Since graduating from Partners Tina has worked as a Medicaid Service Coordinator and later for Americorps until health needs forced her from the workforce.

But her health has not kept Tina from disability advocacy.

Last year Tina and her husband Rick trained to be Election Inspectors and Tina completed further training to become an Election Machine Technician. They worked both the primary and general elections in 2010 in their town of Mattydale.

Tina is Vice President of Disabled in Action, an advocacy group made up of people with a variety of disabilities and people without disabilities. With this organization Tina has organized and participated in many initiatives:

• Advocacy with participants in the Consumer Directed Program with participation from the ACLU to develop oversight for caregivers that is respectful of individuals' civil rights.
• Advocacy with the local paratransit program through recent budget cuts and fare raises to maintain (not lose) current routes and to streamline the application and assessment processes.
• Hosting forums to allow politicians and people with disabilities to dialog about their positions and their needs.
• Recruiting advocates.

Tina is involved in the CNY Community of Practice and is working on compiling a Survival Guide for people with disabilities who are being forced to live with fewer service coordination supports in the current budget crunch. She hopes to make accessing community supports in her region easier for people.

In February Tina was interviewed for The Post-Standard by reporter Sean Kirsh for the article, Unshoveled Sidewalks: Syracuse flunks the 'walkability' test.

While working for Americorp this past March Tina organized a coat drive through One Warm Coat. Over 100 coats were collected for the Salvation Army.

This week Tina and DIA, along with other disability groups and local unions will hold an "Informational Picket Line" at the Federal Building in Syracuse. They will be protesting local lawmakers' efforts to replace Medicare and Medicaid with voucher programs. These program changes will cause hardship for people with disabilities.

"I pull out my Partners training A LOT!! Partners is very empowering.

Partners taught me how to wield my strength as a self-advocate beyond my friends and acquaintances. Partners gave me a lot of confidence!"