NCIL - The National Council on Independent Living

Centers for Independent Living

Short Answer:

Centers for Independent Living (CILs) are grassroots, advocacy-driven organizations run by and for people with disabilities. They focus on civil rights, the independent living philosophy, and inclusion. All Centers provide individual and systems advocacy, information and referral, peer support, and independent living skills training.

note: the words "Independent Living" have been appropriated by the nursing home industry. CILs are not residential facilities and are opposed to segregation and forced institutionalization of people with disabilities.

Long Answer:

An outcome of the national Disability Rights and Independent Living Movements, Centers for Independent Living were founded to embody the values of disability culture and serve as the organizational backbone of grassroots initiatives for the civil and human rights of people with disabilities. Centers for Independent Living vest power in people with disabilities by ensuring they control the services, management and direction of the organization.

The Independent Living Movement creates a new social paradigm for people with disabilities, emphasizing consumer control, achieved through the staff and Board of Directors of each Center for Independent Living being comprised necessarily of at least 51% people with significant disabilities.
Their mission is carried out in a wide variety of ways, according to the priorities and needs of local communities.

Centers for Independent Living envision a society in which people with disabilities are valued equally and participate fully. In order to accomplish this vision, they advocate for individuals facing discrimination in employment, education, housing, transportation, and healthcare to ensure equal opportunity for people with disabilities as citizens of our democratic nation.
CILs base their priorities and actions on the belief that people with disabilities have the right to decide how to live, work, and participate in their communities and that we must organize for social change, so that we may as a society do away with the biases that will support a cure, but often not an accommodation that would allow us to participate on an equal basis. In practice, creating an organization for people with disabilities run by people with disabilities changes the value system, the implementation, and the direction of an organization overall.

The organization is so named because the first CILs were quite literally the only place a person with a disability could go to escape the institutions in which they had been warehoused by a society that believed institutionalization of people with disabilities was essential to a functioning and polite social order. People with disabilities face similar and often identical battles for their civil and human rights today. Centers for Independent Living include all people with disabilities, regardless of our differences and emphasize the common experiences that unite us as a community and a culture. Acknowledging that disability is an expected and natural part of life, Centers for Independent Living believe that a fundamental aspect of disability as we understand it concerns equality and inclusion, and thus values and supports the benefits of integration of disability culture.

The Four Core Services of Independent Living:

Individual and Systems Advocacy: CILs carry out their mission in a wide variety of ways, according to the priorities of local communities. Centers can provide disability awareness training, advocate for improved accessibility, or assist people transitioning from a nursing home to independent living in their community. Center staff advocate on an individual and system-wide basis to ensure the civil and human rights of people with disabilities.

Information and Referral: The Independent Living community provides disability-specific information and referral to ensure people with disabilities have access to information needed to achieve or maintain independence in their community.

Peer Support: To preserve their integrity as grassroots organizations, CILs implement peer support to achieve objectives set by the disability community itself. The value placed on peer support in the Independent Living Movement is paramount and unique, and the significance of a system that values the peer-to-peer relationship is often overlooked by a society that is accustomed to valuing the opinion of professionals and "experts" over the goals and needs of consumers.

Independent Living Skills Training: CILs implement peer support to provide training on the very specific set of skills needed to achieve independent living, ensuring that people with disabilities achieve and maintain their independence.

Ten Principles of Independent Living

Civil Rights - equal rights and opportunities for all; no segregation by disability type or stereotype.

Consumerism - a person ("consumer" or "customer") using or buying a service or product decides what is best for him/herself.

De-institutionalization - no person should be institutionalized (formally by a building, program, or family) on the basis of a disability.

De-medicalization - individuals with disabilities are not "sick", as prescribed by the assumptions of the medical model and do not require help from certified medical professionals for daily living.

Self-help - people learn and grow from discussing their needs, concerns, and issues with people who have had similar experiences; "professionals" are not the source of help provided.

Advocacy - systemic, systematic, long-term, and community-wide change activities are needed to ensure that people with disabilities benefit from all that society has to offer.

Barrier-removal - in order for civil rights, consumerism, de-institutionalization, de-medicalization, and self-help to occur, architectural, communication and attitudinal barriers must be removed.

Consumer control - the organizations best suited to support and assist individuals with disabilities are governed, managed, staffed and operated by individuals with disabilities.

Peer role models - leadership for independent living and disability rights is vested in individuals with disabilities (not parents, service providers or other representatives).

Cross-disability - activities designed to achieve the first five principles must be cross-disability in approach, meaning that the work to be done must be carried out by people with different types of disabilities for the benefit of all persons with disabilities.

"Ten Principles of Independent Living" by the Statewide Independent Living Council of Illinois.