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Cathay Liu, Co-Chair, Parent
Cathay Liu has a B.S. from the University of California Los Angeles, and received her Master’s degree in cross cultural mental health counseling from the University of Western Washington in 1991. Prior to joining parents and professionals in the field of developmental disabilities, Ms. Liu was in the field of mental health counseling. She worked as a crisis counselor in Sacramento County from 1991 to 1993.
A mother of two children with developmental disabilities, Ms. Liu has worked at the Family Resource Center in the East Los Angeles area (one of 55 statewide), since September, 1999. As the Outreach and Training coordinator, she is a parent mentor to the Peer Support Staff, develops parent training materials, and conducts staff and parent training and development activities. Ms. Liu leads the FRC's efforts to conduct meaningful outreach to one of the largest Chinese constituencies of the 21 regional centers statewide.
In 1998, Cathay became a member of the Chinese Parents Association for the Disabled (CPAD), when her first child was diagnosed with developmental disabilities. A firm believer in supporting individuals with developmental disabilities and their families, Ms. Liu focuses her work on community awareness and family-centered care. It is her life long goal to see that the systems and policies grow and reflect the needs of the diverse communities they serve.
Ms. Liu comes from a long line of educators and social activists dedicated to serving the underserved. Her father was a Professor in Linguistics at Taiwan’s Teachers’ Academy. Her paternal grandmother started the first school in her village to offer a literacy program for young women; her maternal grandfather, a journalist and the publisher of Tsingtao Daily at the turn of the century, was committed to the independent reporting of news.
Ms. Liu provides consultation to the Center on assuring access to services for families of Chinese origin. She is an active member of one of the largest Chinese parent associations in the state and over the years, has been a key liaison between CPAD and the USC UAP to expand the capacity of CPAD to meet the needs of its members and to assure that the disability and generic service systems understand and provide an appropriate continuum of services for Chinese families of children with disabilities across the lifespan.
Brigitte Ammons
Brigitte Ammons has special education credentials and many years of teaching experience in special education, working with a wide range of children with severe and multiple disabilities. She was lead teacher and program coordinator for Centro de Niños y Padres early intervention program at California State University, Los Angeles for five years. Throughout her career she has been a strong child advocate and has particularly focused on parent training in the area of special education. For the past twelve years Brigitte has held a position as an advocate with the Los Angeles Office of Protection and Advocacy. In this capacity she works closely with families of children with disabilities and participates in activities related to special education and least restrictive environment.
Theresa Cooper, Parent
Theresa A. Cooper is the parent of a child with a learning disability and a sibling of an adult person with a developmental disability. She is executive director of Loving Your Disabled Child (LYDC), one of 55 family resource centers statewide, located in south central Los Angeles. She is co-chair of the Family Resource Center Network of Los Angeles County (11 of the 55 family resource centers in the state), and is a founding member of the Grassroots Consortium on Disability. She is known for her frankness on disability awareness in the inner-city. Ms. Cooper and the work she does with LYDC have been featured in Families, Professionals, and Exceptionalities, (a textbook used in many colleges and universities nationwide by Ann and Rudd Turnbull, noted special education and disability experts), Exceptional Parent Magazine, and Tapestry Journal.
Before Ms. Cooper became the executive director of LYDC, she volunteered for 5 years as a childcare provider during LYDC's parent support group meetings, provided transportation for parents to attend the meetings and provided general support the LYDC office. As a result of her volunteer work and working with parents, she has developed an eye for identifying strengths in families, and has become an advocate for families of children with disabilities who live in underserved minority communities. Like many family members who work in the system, she has attended numerous training and seminars on a variety of topics, including special education law, how to operate a state-of-the-art family resource center, and disability awareness. Ms. Cooper resa lives with her husband Lionel and her three teenage children Krysten, Ashley and Eric in Hawthorne, CA.
As one of the few executive directors of color in the Family Resource Center network statewide, Ms. Cooper provides consultation to the Center on identifying the needs of minority families of children with disabilities, culturally appropriate community outreach, education, and service modalities. She also assists the Center in providing consultation to other family support programs on topics ranging from grantwriting, cultural competence, and faith-based service delivery.
Stephen Day, Consumer
Like many people with disabilities, Stephen’s been an advocate for his peers most of his adult life. He spent 13 years in a skilled nursing facility (CP home) in Santa Barbara. He moved into his own apartment in 1982, after receiving Independent Living Skills training from the local Independent Living Resource Center (a member of the California Foundation of Independent Living Centers, and the ‘Independent Living movement’, started in Berkley in the 70’s.) He later volunteered there as an ILS trainer, and served on their Board of Directors.
In 1973, Stephen joined ToastMasters Inc. Three years later, he was successful in getting an ‘official’ chapter chartered at the facility where he was residing.
After 18 years in college, Stephen graduated from Santa Barbara City College in 1993, with an Associate of Science degree in Computer Information Systems. He has extensive experience tutoring individuals with developmental disabilities in computers.
His formal work as an advocate within the DD system began in 1983 as a Governor’s appointee and primary consumer on Area Board IX, where he served for 6 years. During this time, Stephen worked with the local chapter of the United Cerebral Palsy Association to start up 3 local Self-Advocacy groups. He has served on many consumer conference planning committees, including being the MC at a conference in 1993. He served on the panel that interviewed and hired their current Executive Director, and was the first local consumer to serve on a joint Area Board/Regional Canter “Request For Proposal” selection committee. Stephen was also involved at the State Level by being appointed to the first State Consumer Advisory Committee (CAC), a sub-committee of the State Council. He was also on the State level Quality Assurance Advisory Group (QAAG), a group of professionals, parents, vendors and consumers who looked at developing a statewide quality assurance system, part of which includes the 'Looking At Life Quality' (LQA) handbook. Stephen is also on the State’s LA training video, illustrating ‘How to have conversation with a non-verbal consumer.”
In 1992, he became a member of the Tri-Counties Regional Center Board of Directors where during his 17-month tenure; he was on the Executive Director interview panel, chaired the Governmental Affairs Committee and was the Board’s Vice-President for a brief time. It was here that Stephen began to advocate that a Consumer Advocate position be created and funded at TCRC. It was met with some initial resistance but Stephen persisted and when the new and current Executive Director was hired, he too realized the potential of this position.
Stephen left the State CAC in January 1994 to accept the new full-time position of TCRC's consumer advocate. Several innovations that Stephen has brought to the Self-Advocacy portion of the job includes having each CC or SAG choose a consumer laison to keep Stephen informed on what their group is doing and having group officers choose an 'Officer's Assistant' or 'Co-Officer' with different skills and abilities then what they have. In conjunction with TCRC, started a Consumer Leadership Council; a group of consumers who receive professional training on a variety of Leadership topics. Then in turn, they provide trainings to other consumers. CLC members and other consumers are paid when presenting at a conference or training.
Linda Landry, Parent
Linda Joy Landry is a native Los Angelino. Linda has been married to Pierre 23 years, they have 1 child: 21-year-old son, Pete, an Eagle Scout, Junior in Mechanical Engineering at Cal Poly Pomona and works at JPL, she is also the proud Grandmother of 8-year-old Ashley.
Linda and Pierre's 13-year-old daughter, Eveline, had a constellation of challenges: severe physical, medical and cognitive disabilities. Eveline was enrolled at the neighborhood school in a special day program, a consumer at Lanterman Regional Center and received her medical services at USC Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. Eveline passed away in her sleep December 26, 1999, she now watches over her family and guides them.
Linda is committed to families being acknowledged as equal partners and supported by "the system" in having their concerns and needs addressed. She participates on several advisory, policy and program development committees, including those at: Children's Hospital of Los Angeles' University Affiliated Program; Lanterman Regional Center's Koch-Young Family Resource Center; Los Angeles Unified School District's Modified Consent; and the Family Resource Center Network of California.
Roberta Newton, Area Board X
Roberta Newton has been the Executive Director of Developmental Disabilities Area Board 10 for the past nine years. During the previous 28 years she worked in a number of different capacities in the field of developmental disabilities in both California and Pennsylvania. She has experience as a behavioral psychologist, service coordinator, family therapist, regional center quality assurance specialist, sex educator and early intervention specialist.
Among her areas of expertise, Ms. Newton cites a strong interest in providing parent and consumer education; in advocating for a consumer- and family-friendly service system and development of public policy initiatives that will increase the integration and productivity of persons with developmental disabilities in their communities.
Ms. Newton represents one of the 13 Developmental Disabilities Boards in the state, monitoring agencies established under state law, the Lanterman Developmental Disabilities Services Act, and administered by the State Council on Developmental Disabilities.