An advocacy group that has rallied thousands of parents to press for more services for people with intellectual disabilities has a hired a new executive director — a father of a 26-year-old son with the disability and a former investment-banker who left the field to help families forge a fairer system.
Edwin “Win” Evarts, 58, succeeds Leslie Simoes, who left The Arc Connecticut recently to pursue other ventures.
Under Simoes, coupled with the work of organizer and policy analyst Shannon Jacovino, The Arc Connecticut helped parents become politically savvy, and to tell their stories in testimony at public hearings and rallies. More than 12,000 parents signed a petition for equitable funding of the $1 billion developmental-services system, which spends tens of millions of dollars in overtime operating obsolete state institutions while a waiting list of those who are underserved by the system has swelled to more than 2,100 families.
The legislature’s caucus on intellectual and developmental disabilities has grown to several dozen members, and a small group of parents has now produced two detailed reports recommending ways to expand services without adding money to the budget.
Evarts said he’s concerned about his son’s future and it compelled him to leave the banking field.
“I relate to the fears of every parent who stays up at night worrying about their son or daughter’s future, because they are my fears as well,” Evarts said.
He said he is committed to working with a wide variety of people to “increase the breadth, accessibility, and quality of supports for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Connecticut.”
Thomas Fiorentino, president of the The Arc’s board, said Evarts joins the group at a time when the rights of disabled students to a meaningful public education “are under attack … and most be zealously defended.”
Fiorentino said Evarts is prepared to demand the “kind of systems change that will result in expanded, truly integrated services.”
![By TARA COPP (Associated Press) BOSTON (AP) — There has been no final decision on whether or not all U.S. troops will leave Niger and Chad, two African countries that are integral to the military’s efforts to counter violent extremist organizations across the Sahel region, a top U.S. military official told The Associated Press on […]](https://www.courant.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Niger_US_Presence_99160_5253fb.jpg?w=467 "By TARA COPP (Associated Press) BOSTON (AP) — There has been no final decision on whether or not all U.S. troops will leave Niger and Chad, two African countries that are integral to the military’s efforts to counter violent extremist organizations across the Sahel region, a top U.S. military official told The Associated Press on […]")