Category: Lutheran Community

July 26 will mark the 30th anniversary of President George H. W. Bush signing into law the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a hallmark piece of legislation that calls for equal treatment for people with disabilities in America. The 1990 act safeguards the ability of people with disabilities to live independently and with dignity by expanding access to opportunities in the workplace, in transportation, through government programs and services, and in other important aspects of daily life.

This groundbreaking law was a long-overdue extension of civil rights to one in four Americans. Using the 1964 Civil Rights Act as a model, the ADA has been described as the most comprehensive disability rights legislation in U.S. history. The ADA affirmed that the skills Americans with disabilities bring to their jobs are no less valuable. According to the Department of Labor, the ADA explicitly prohibits discrimination in job application procedures, hiring, advancement, termination, compensation, job training, and other terms, conditions, and privileges of employment. More importantly, the act was the first of many key decisions over the last three decades to advance the rights of people with disabilities by asserting the value of every human being within society, from the landmark Olmstead v. L.C. ruling in 1999 to IDEA just two years ago.

The ADA was, fittingly, drafted in the United Methodist Building in Washington, D.C., where the offices of our national network are currently located. The 21 member organizations of the Lutheran Services in America Disability Network seek to continue the protection and advancement of disability rights each day by working together to advocate for person-centered support and improvements to long-term services and supports for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Our national network actively works with individuals with disabilities — from rehabilitation services and work programs to respite care and independent living — in dozens of states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. They passionately strive to promote the recognition and respect of the many people they serve.

Thirty years on, the ADA continues to act as a cornerstone for working toward equity for Americans with disabilities, today and in the days to come. Its provisions become all the more important in times of upheaval, such as what we collectively find ourselves immersed in during the COVID-19 pandemic. To this end, we must go even further than the ADA in the days ahead. We call for the U.S. Senate to take several actions in its next relief package that focus on the needs and priorities of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, including:

A 10 percent increase in funding for home- and community-based services
Classification of direct support professionals as essential workers, thereby making them eligible for increased wages through the “Heroes Fund”
Additional funding for the Public Health & Social Services Emergency Fund to ensure appropriate relief for community disability providers.
Such much-needed improvements will help ensure that people with intellectual and developmental disabilities throughout America can thrive and reach their full potential.

In his new book “My Journey from Boxing Ring to Boardroom: 5 Essential Virtues to Life and Leadership,” Lutheran Social Services of Wisconsin and Upper Michigan president and CEO Héctor Colón outlines the guiding principles for achieving greatness — while serving the needs of others. Achieving greatness takes courage, Colón stated recently, and as a former boxing champion, he knows all about courage. “There is no greater courage than entering the ring.”

Colón would take the bravery he needed to stare down fear in the ring and bring it with him to make a difference in the nonprofit sector. After all, it takes courage as a leader, he said, to do the right thing in making tough decisions that will ultimately serve people with better outcomes and ensure greater viability for the organization. His advice for his fellow CEOs in the nonprofit sector: strive for greatness with humility and magnanimity, do something honorable and serve others, and be willing to fail along the way. “Failure is okay, as long as we learn from it.”

Colón’s book is available to purchase on his website HectorColonMKE.com and on Amazon (paperback or Kindle ebook).

By Héctor Colón, President and CEO of Lutheran Social Services of Wisconsin and Upper Michigan

On a summer day in 1982, when I was nine years old, I came home crying and with a bloody nose.

The blood still drying on my chin, my father demanded to know what had happened. With tears in my eyes, I repeated what a neighborhood boy, Adam, had told me: “We don’t want you here. Spic, n―. Leave our neighborhood now!”

The challenges I faced as a young Puerto Rican boy in Milwaukee — racism, bullying, gang violence — could have easily pushed me in the wrong direction. My family’s struggles — my father leaving to Puerto Rico when I was twelve and my sister’s addiction to drugs — changed me in ways that I will never fully understand. As a result of these and other factors, my Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) score is six. According to research, this would indicate that I have a 1,200 percent likelihood of having depression and a 200 percent likelihood of committing suicide.

The person I am today was shaped by these trials but also by the first tentative steps I took into the boxing ring and the decade of hard work that followed. I recall being pushed in front of a mirror and shown some basic boxing combinations by my coach, Shorty. He turned to my father and said, “Héctor is a natural. He will become a Champion.”

He was right. I ended up becoming a seven-time National Champion, traveling all over the world with the US National Boxing team. I was favored to go to the 1992 Olympics until my dream was shattered when losing in the Olympic Trails to Jessie Briceno. I was devastated. What hurt most, and continues to hurt even to this day, is that I wasn’t focused for the most important opportunity of my life.

Nor did I hear from the big-time promoters. I was painfully searching for purpose. On December 27, 1992, I bought my first Bible and gave my life to Christ. Six months later, I fought Jessie Brecino; this time, I was focused mind, body, and spirit and I knocked him out in the first round for the U.S. Welterweight Championship.

At the same time, my faith was deepening. I was beginning to feel conflicted. I found myself torn by a verse from First Corinthians: “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God, and that you do not own yourself . . . Therefore glorify God with your own body” (I Corinthians 6:19-20). I pictured myself in the ring hurting someone who was a temple of the Holy Spirit. I also imagined hurting myself and I decided to leave boxing.

My journey continued with challenges, low expectations by others, set-backs, opportunities, and successes. Undeterred, I applied the same dedication, determination and discipline that it took to become a champion boxer to my new life striving for excellence in everything I do, whether it be as a husband, father, or CEO.

“My Journey from Boxing Ring to Boardroom: 5 Essential Virtues to Life and Leadership” depicts my challenging childhood, international boxing success, to my rise to the President and CEO of one of the largest non-profit organizations in the Midwest by living out the following virtues:

• Magnanimity — striving for greatness
• Humility — putting other first
• Courage — willing to face your fears
• Perseverance — never giving up
• Temperance — practicing restraint

This book is packed with actionable and powerful approaches to living and leading. I hope to inspire young people, as well as entrepreneurs, leaders and those looking for hope and direction in an ever changing and challenging word.

This book will bring out the champion in you!

Statistics tied to children and youth in foster care indicate a reality that is painfully clear: the child welfare system is producing disparate outcomes. Barely half of youth in foster care graduate from high school by age 19. Just 3 percent go on to earn a college degree. Many youth who age out of foster care find themselves instantly homeless, and the data consistently indicate worse outcomes for youth of color.

Lutheran Services in America is working to reverse these trends by seeking out new approaches that better fit the reality of the circumstances. Using new strategies grounded in data, our network is seeing tangible results through our Results Innovation Lab that address the deep inequities found in America’s child welfare system that have a disproportional—and significant—effect on people of color and their communities.

The Widening Gap

Analysis of racial disparities in the juvenile justice system paints a stark contrast of outcomes for youth of color. Rebecca Kiesow-Knudsen leads a team at Lutheran Social Services of South Dakota that is hard at work to improve end results for the BIPOC community. “If you are a Native American youth, you are 10 and a half times more likely to be arrested as a juvenile than you are if you’re white,” said Rebecca in an interview with Lutheran Services in America. “For African American youth, they are three and a half times more likely than white youth to be arrested. So, you can see that those disparities really jump out.”

Rebecca knew before joining the Results Innovation Lab that reducing racial disparities within the child welfare system would remain a key focus. “In South Dakota, 23 percent of our juvenile population are non-white, but when you look at actual juvenile arrests, you see that over 53 percent of juvenile arrests are happening for youth of color,” she said. “Our work was designed to help us look internally, but then also look closely within the juvenile justice systems where we operate to see how we can we improve outcomes and reduce existing sizable disparities.”

Examining Data through a New Lens

The practical benefits of the Results Innovation Lab became apparent during the drafting of LSS’s annual outcomes measurement report that covers outcomes from the organization’s services across South Dakota. “We’[d] never disaggregated data by race for all of our programs,” Rebecca said. That changed for the 2021 report where the team disaggregated at least one outcome measure in each service line. “This is an example of how we’re now able to take everything we’ve learned in the Lab and through our work with Lutheran Services in America, and transform how we do our work.”

The group’s participation within the Results Innovation Lab paved the way for evidence-based techniques to reduce re-arrests for black and Native American youths. Last fiscal year, there were “1,100 youth who avoided re-arrest as a result of participating in our programming,” said Rebecca. The Lab, she said, helped ensure LSS staff were on the same page when working toward outcomes for children and families. “We also appreciated how we could look at valuable data and indicators through the Lab that we knew would help us understand more fully any successes we’re having for different populations within our programs and then expand those successes.”

Building Partnerships

The Results Innovation Lab’s collaborative nature extends beyond its cohort meetings. Rebecca believes that the Lab’s greatest value stems from bringing together members of LSS’s staff who focus on juvenile justice to craft solutions together as a team. What’s more, the team is collaborating with other key stakeholders outside of the organization to make a difference.

“We’re taking a high action and high alignment approach internally, and one that’s also working in alignment with our external system partners, such as our State Attorney’s office, the juvenile defender and school resource officers, who are ‘all in,’” she said. “Working in concert with our other external stakeholders and partners to try to help make change happen is critical.”

Eye on the Prize

Ultimately, all parties are laser-focused on achieving one overarching goal: equity. The demonstrations across the country last year led LSS to double its resolve. “The events [in 2020] helped catalyze this work for us,” Rebecca said. “The Results Innovation Lab gave us a set of tools that we can consistently rely on and use.”

Rebecca and her team have measurable goals—goals she believes they can meet. “We’d really like to get to 90 percent of the youth we serve avoiding re-arrest,” she said. That would be an increase from the mid to high 80s.

LSS’s success is a success for the entire Lutheran Services in America network, each member organization working to support and help advance collective knowledge and experience through collaboration. Rebecca’s expertise and exceptional leadership opened the opportunity for her to facilitate learning and coach her peers within the Lab, for which she won a Lutheran Services in America Beacon Award alongside her colleagues Beverly Jones of Lutheran Child and Family Services of Illinois and Amanda Krzykowski of Lutheran Social Services of Wisconsin and Upper Michigan. Rebecca is well respected among her peers and the facilitators in the Lab for her experience working to transform the juvenile justice system in South Dakota, her deep understanding of results work, and her unwavering commitment to youth and families. For Rebecca, the relationships she has made in the process has been a huge highlight of her experience.

“I’ve been able to form really meaningful and deep relationships with other executives and leaders within Lutheran Services in America member organizations. And these relationships are only growing,” she said. “We share a common language, a common approach and a common passion for making a difference for youth and families . . . I applaud Lutheran Services in America for pushing in this direction and sustaining these efforts!”

Learn more about the Results Innovation Lab and the exceptional leaders moving it forward.

By the Lutheran Services in America team

Only two months ago, it seemed that life was starting to become more normal. People were getting vaccinated, families were gathering, in-person board meetings were planned, indoor dining was expanding, and there was a sense that while the pandemic was still with us, there was a growing light at the end of the tunnel.

Now we’re seeing a surge of COVID in pockets around the country, restrictions are back in place in many areas, and in-person meetings are being replaced once again by Zoom. Lutheran social ministry organizations are continuing to face tough challenges such as breakthrough infections among vaccinated staff and residents, whether or not to mandate the vaccine, and how to cope with the acute staff shortages that we face across the country.

Sometimes it can seem endless.

It must have also seemed endless to Job. His wealth and livelihood were wiped out in one day, he lost all of his children, and he was physically afflicted.  Even worse, his friends and community insisted that it was all his fault. It’s painful to read about the blame and guilt they placed on Job. And yet while broken, Job persisted in his faith declaring “though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him” (Job 13:15), and in his process of discernment, he gained a greater understanding of God declaring “For I know that my Redeemer lives and at last he will stand upon the earth.” (Job 19:25).  In the end, Job’s suffering was alleviated and his fortune was restored in abundance.

We don’t know when the pandemic will end. But as a community of faith, we walk by faith knowing that our hope is in Him and that we will not be disappointed.

By Charlotte Haberaecker, President & CEO