Epilepsy Foundation of Central and South Texas — Developmental Disabilities Policy Fellow

Project Goal
Provide mentorship and professional experience to a Developmental Disabilities (DD) Policy Fellow to engage in disability policy activities, including epilepsy-related activities

Project Summary
DD Policy Fellow projects increase the number of people with the knowledge and skills needed to engage in public policy activities to help people with DD become fully included in their communities and exercise control over their own lives. Policy Fellows work at national, state, and community levels on issues that address major social and health conditions facing people with DD.

The Epilepsy Foundation of Central and South Texas will hire and train a Policy Fellow to support the foundation’s advocacy activities and public policy priorities, including:

• create a safer and more inclusive school environment for students with epilepsy;
• encouraging health care providers to discontinue of the Quality Adjusted Life Years economic model and instead rely of other quality-of-life measures when evaluating the value of health care services and treatments for people with disabilities;
• monitoring Texas driving laws that affect people with epilepsy and ensuring the rights of drivers with epilepsy are protected; and
• partnering with state agencies to ensure people with disabilities have access to COVID-19 vaccines.   

The foundation’s mission is to lead the fight to overcome the challenges of living with epilepsy and to accelerate therapies to stop seizures, find cures, and save lives. The organization’s service area includes 79 counties in Central and South Texas.