DRW Priority Focus Areas
How do we develop our priority focus areas and how do they inform our work?
Disability Rights Washington (DRW) engages with disabled Washingtonians, families, community members, DRW board members, and DRW advisory councils to establish agency priority focus areas to guide DRW’s work. These priority focus areas are designed to support long-term efforts toward disability justice.
DRW seeks to advocate in ways that shift power from oppressive systems to people with disabilities who are multiply impacted by systemic oppression. We center the stories of disabled people, amplify these voices, and work collaboratively across movements to reach sustainable solutions. We aim to work in partnership with impacted communities to build systems designed, led, and implemented by people with disabilities in furtherance of our collective liberation.
How do we use our priority focus areas?
DRW’s priority focus areas assist DRW as we face a demand for representation that exceeds our resources. DRW provides multiple types of services: information and referral, self-advocacy assistance, monitoring, investigation, educating policy makers, systemic legal advocacy, other types of systemic advocacy, and some individual representation. The level of representation DRW provides depends on a variety of factors, including an assessment of alignment with disability justice principles, alignment with DRW’s priority focus areas and objectives, availability of staff and funding, as well as the factual and legal merits of a case.
Fiscal Year 2026 Priority Focus Areas
- Enforce the right of people with disabilities to live free from abuse and neglect
- Support people with disabilities to live in the community of their choosing
- Protect and increase compliance with established constitutional rights and accessibility laws and standards
- Challenge discriminatory use of the legal system
- Increase access to good, meaningful education free from segregation and violence
- Ensure access to voting
- Increase access to employment and self-employment supports
Inform our advocacy priorities by taking the survey here.
Haga clic aquí para enviar este formulario en español (click here to submit this form in Spanish).