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Next Council Meeting: August 7-8, 2025 (Location TBD)

Five Year Strategic Plan

The Five Year Strategic Plan determines how the Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities (GCCD) will allocate funding to create systems change for individuals with developmental disabilities (DD) and family members through advocacy and capacity building activities.

This plan is the foundation of how the Council does its work across the state. GCDD gathers input from individuals with DD, family members, caregivers, siblings and the community-at-large to set the course of what the Council works on during the five years.

All GCDD efforts aim to ensure that people with DD are independent, have greater economic self-sufficiency, integrated and included in their respective communities, and leading self-determined lives.

2022-2026 Five-Year Strategic Plan

Goal 1: Systems Change

With support from allies, advocates, stakeholders and communities, people with intellectual/developmental disabilities and their families, will have increased access to and benefit from equitable quality supports and services that increase self-determination and meet their needs and preferences.

Objective 1.1

By 2024, GCDD will conduct four assessments of different ecosystems comprising housing, employment, transportation, and healthcare in urban, suburban, and rural Georgia and produce reports with recommendations for plans with outcomes that reflect equitable access to services and healthy communities. ("Ecosystem" refers to groups of people, organizations, government, geography, and systems that either live in a specific area or work together around a specific issue.)

Objective 1.2

By 2027, GCDD will increase the number of rural and historically marginalized communities that bring people with and without disabilities together to address housing, employment, transportation, and healthcare.

Objective 1.3

Annually, GCDD will strengthen capacity by investing resources in housing, employment, transportation and healthcare projects that are sustainable and can be replicated.

Objective 1.4

By 2027 GCDD will increase the numbers of new state and local advocates to at least 2,000 who feel equipped and who practice advocacy for legislative, regulatory, policy, procedure and/or practice changes around housing, employment, transportation and healthcare.

Goal 2: Self-Advocacy

GCDD will provide more opportunities for the voices of individuals with intellectual/developmental disabilities to be heard by strengthening capacity among Georgia self-advocacy organizations and initiatives, supporting cross disability coalitions and leadership development programs for and by people with intellectual/developmental disabilities.

Objective 2.1

GCDD will strengthen a statewide self-advocacy organization led by people with intellectual/developmental disabilities, with a focus on supporting the growth and sustainability of Georgia's self-advocacy network. 

Objective 2.2

By 2027 GCDD will increase the number of advocates with intellectual/developmental disabilities who either conduct and/or participate in leadership trainings on issues that impact their lives for people with intellectual/developmental disabilities, cross disability entities and non-disability specific.

Goal 3: Targeted Disparity

The Council’s activities and those done in collaboration will be conducted with a focus on equity that increases the access of marginalized communities with particular emphasis on racial and ethnic minorities and those in rural areas.

Objective 3.1

By 2027, GCDD will partner with the DD Network, civil rights, and other organizations throughout Georgia to increase by 4 the number of school districts that develop and implement activities that dismantles the School to Prison Pipeline.  

Objective 3.2

By 2027, GCDD will engage in activities that increase access to technology in order to decrease barriers to education, employment, housing, transportation and healthcare for people with intellectual/developmental disabilities in rural and underserved areas.

Objective  3.3

By 2027, in partnership with state and local civic engagement organizations, GCDD will increase access for people with intellectual/developmental disabilities in rural and/or historically marginalized communities to be civically engaged and vote.