JOHN ANTON
A Seat at the Table
Nicki Pombier: John Anton is a self-advocate and public speaker who works in politics. Here he shares an example of a recent meeting for his individual support plan, or ISP, to illustrate the importance of having a seat at the table.
John Anton: If you’re not at the table, you’ll be on the menu.
Nicki: Has there been a time when you’ve wanted to be at the table but you haven’t been able to?
John: I’ve got a perfect example of being at the table. After I had my ISP, I had a lot of people. We had this at DDS. I’m right in the center of the table right here. We had a whole crowd of people who are talking about what I needed in my life in general. Basically, they’re all talking around the table. I spoke up and I said, This is about me. It was about me and my life, what I wanted in my ISP. It was aggravating for one thing, because I’m watching the people go around the table, gabbing away. It made me uptight. It got me angry a little bit, and I was emotional at the time. I started crying right in the middle of that meeting. I got up and went out the door. If I don’t get what I want in my ISP or anything in my life, I need people to hear what I need, not what other people think I need.
ABLE Act
Nicki Pombier: John Anton is a self-advocate and public speaker who works in politics. Here he describes his efforts to get then-Senator John Kerry to sign onto the Achieving a Better Life Experience Act, known as the ABLE Act. Sara refers to Sara Weir, Vice President of Advocacy and Affiliate Relations for the National Down Syndrome Society.
John Anton: I’m excited about the ABLE Act, which we finally got John Kerry signed onto. That was the hardest part. I realized John Kerry was so busy. He didn’t sign onto the ABLE Act right away. We finally got him to sign. I got people in their districts to make phone calls. Mass. Advocates Standing Strong and everybody. What I did is I emailed Sara. I said, We need to get John Kerry going on this. There was somebody that she worked with who went to Kerry’s office and said, How come they haven’t signed onto the ABLE Act yet? The next day, we found out they signed on.
Real Lives
Nicki Pombier: John Anton is a self-advocate and public speaker who works in politics. Here he talks about his advocacy work with Mass. Advocates Standing Strong, and how his advocacy is informed by his experiences at the State House, where he works in the office of State Representative Tom Sannicandro. Rep. Sannicandro is the lead sponsor on House Bill 984, or the Real Lives Bill, which seeks to improve the delivery of services for individuals with intellectual disabilities and their families, giving choice and control of supports to individuals and their family caregiver members.
John Anton: Every year when there’s a Mass. Advocates Standing Strong conference, they’ll vote for people to run for chair, vice-chair, secretary, and treasurer. A lot of people had a lot of faith that they wanted to have me as chairperson for the regional group. So I got voted for, and what I tried to do with Mass. Advocates Standing Strong is to get people to become members, to come to the table, because it’s about their lives, what they want to see happen.
Plus, there’s stuff that I do at the State House for the state and with Mass. Advocates Standing Strong, my advocacy groups, MDSC. I bring all the legislative issues to them, where the bills are, what they’re doing, how to move them, how to put them into law. That’s where the legislative process comes in. It’s constant emails, it’s constant phone calls, it’s following up on things. And when I was working on the Real Lives Bill, I went around to talk to all the Senators and all the Representatives within the whole State House, to get people signed up on it, to help get it passed. Now it’s stuck in third reading, and I realize that it’s still alive. I’m still looking to get more information on it so I can bring it back to share with the groups. I’m the one who’s educating other people at the table. This is where my passion is. Making things better for people, I could talk nonstop about this stuff, because it’s not about the people who want us to do things, it’s not about the agency, it’s not about the place where they work in the community. I realize, we’re the ones who have to make it happen at the advocacy table.
MR. ANTON GOES TO WASHINGTON
Nicki Pombier: John Anton is a self-advocate and public speaker who works in politics. In 2013, with the support of the National Down Syndrome Society’s Vice President of Advocacy and Affiliate Relations, Sara Weir, John completed an internship on Capitol Hill with Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers. Here, John describes how he took the initiative to get to Washington.
John Anton: There was a conference in Boston, and then I hooked up with Sara Weir. It was just a little hors d’oeuvres type thing. I sat with Sara for the first time. I had my resume with me, to build my interest in working in DC. So I brought that. I gave her a copy of my resume. She said, I’ll look around DC to see if anybody’s interested in working with you. Got back and she’d talked to people in Cathy McMorris Rodgers’ office. They were interested. They got me going. This was the year, when January comes, I’ll be going to work in Washington DC with Cathy McMorris Rodgers, and I have a lot of people to thank. I can thank Sara, I can thank my support advisor, my mother. I can’t wait to go to get all these issues into effect.
