Just as we supported, in an unprecedented way, the civil rights of disabled persons in schools and in the workplace, other initiatives in health prevention, such as our immunization and nutrition programs for young children and new intense efforts to reverse spinal cord injury, must continue so that the incidence of disability continues to decline.

This year is the U.N.-declared International Year of Disabled Persons.  We are organizing activities to celebrate and promote this important commemorative year within the government as well as in cooperation with private sector efforts in this country and around the world.  The International Year will give our country the opportunity to recognize the talents and capabilities of our fellow citizens with disabilities.  We can also share our rehabilitation and treatment skills with other countries and learn from them as well.  I am proud that the United States leads the world in mainstreaming and treating disabled people.  However, we have a long way to go before all psychological and physical barriers to disabled people are torn down and they can be full participants in our American way of life.  We must pledge our full commitment to this goal during the International Year.

FAMILIES

Because of my concern for American families, my Administration convened last year the first White House Conference on Families which involved seven national hearings, over 506 state and local events, three White House Conferences, and the direct participation of more than 125,000 citizens.  The Conference reaffirmed the centrality of families in our lives and nation but documented problems American families face as well.  We also established the Office of Families within the Department of Health and Human Services to review government policies and programs that affect families.

I expect the departments and agencies within the executive branch of the Federal government as well as Members of Congress, corporate and business leaders, and State and local officials across the country, to study closely the recommendations of the White House Conference and implement them appropriately.  As public policy is developed and implemented by the Federal government, cognizance of the work of the Conference should be taken as a pragmatic and essential step.

The Conference has done a good job of establishing an agenda for action to assure that the policies of the Federal government are more sensitive in their impact on families.  I hope the Congress will review and seriously consider the Conference’s recommendations.

OLDER AMERICANS