Logan Park resident Sareen Dunleavy Keenan has been selected to train with Partners in Policymaking, a program funded by a grant through the Minnesota Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities. Keenan, who recently started the training, is diagnosed with anxiety and ADHD, and has advocated for herself as well as her family for the past 40 years. Since 2009, she has been the primary caregiver for her mother and until recently her sister, as well as her four children who have varying disabilities – all in one, multi-generational household.
Keenan applied for Partners in Policymaking after hearing about it in a parent group. She was motivated to find ways to access services efficiently and effectively for her family because although she is their primary caregiver, she needed to also manage her own disabilities and full-time work as a Senior Program Manager at the Greater Twin Cities United Way. Keenan, who manages a portfolio of work specifically focused on wealth building for BIPOC young people, manages her job, family and household needs every day.
Applicants to the Partners program either have a disability or take care of family members with disabilities. The Partners program trains participants how to advocate for themselves and their family members by providing tools that strengthen communication and leadership. Keenan says the program provides a safe space to work with others she can identify with and learn from.
“I have been seeking more and more spaces with affinity groups,” Keenan said. “Being able to be in a disability-centering space is phenomenally comfortable. It brings peace to be able to speak and share what your lived experience is, how that’s impacting you, and to be able to say, ‘I’m tired’ and not hear ‘Everybody’s tired.’ When you are in a disability centered space and you can say you are tired, everyone knows that and feels that in a different way.”
Keenan, along with approximately 35 other attendees, started training in September 2021 and will graduate in May 2022. Each month, the participants learn new advocacy and persuasive speaking skills, as well as state and federal program navigation taught by professionals from around the nation.
Keenan hopes to teach the skills she’s learning to her family so they can advocate for themselves first, and then others. “I hope to allow people to step into their space of their own independence and learn their own relationship boundaries to be able to really take care of themselves well,” Keenan said. “Our number one family rule is your number one job is to take care of you, and once you are well-seeded and settled, you can reach out and take care of someone else.”
As for navigating federal, state and county systems, Keenan hopes to learn more to ensure she can access services for her family with efficiency. “Making sure you know you’re bringing the right issue at the right level to the right person is really important so that when you are making an ask it is discrete, specific, persuasive and someone has the ability to act.”
Partners in Policymaking
Since 1987, more than 1,100 state-wide participants have graduated from Partners in Policymaking. The Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities obtained a grant that enabled program development and Dr. Colleen Wieck, executive director of the Council, helped create the Partners in Policymaking training and curriculum. Over the past 35 years, the program has expanded nationally and internationally with 29,000 graduates worldwide.
Dr. Wieck says this person-centered program is important because many people living with disabilities like Keenan don’t know what is available to them. “Since 1987, almost every participant has told us they didn’t know about services in Minnesota,” said Dr. Wieck. “This program is so critical because first it teaches people what [services] exist. Then, it teaches what we can strive toward and the best practices. It teaches people to effectively tell their story so that policy in the future is based upon the experiences and expectations of the people being served. The concept would be that we listen to the customer. We learn from these individuals and act upon what they tell us to create supports that are effective, efficient and useful.”
The training for the program is highly interactive with the intention to empower and build confidence in each participant. The coursework facilitators bring a diverse set of strategies and knowledge from varying backgrounds and their own disability stories to the participants. “It is a transforming and educational experience,” says Sherie Wallace, who handles public relations for Partners. “They are taught by folks who have either raised children with disabilities, or who have become academics and they themselves have disabilities – people who really understand the importance of being an advocate. That’s the key word for this program – being an advocate.”
Some graduates from the program advance into high-level positions such as county commissioners, school board members or state legislators. Others may attend additional higher education and become experts in different areas that pertain to communication, legislative action and advocacy.
Recently, the Partners in Policymaking program won the State Government Innovation Award sponsored by the Bush Foundation and the Hubert Humphrey School of Public Affairs after several past participants from the Partners program taught anti-bullying techniques through storytelling to over 1,000 fourth graders.
For more information on Partners in Policymaking and how to apply: https://mn.gov/mnddc/pipm/index.html.
Below: Sareen Dunleavy Keenan in a training session. (Photo provided by Sherie Wallace of The Wallace Group)