The Commission's policy initiatives are guided by the large picture goals set by the board, called 'Ends' as well as by the Commission's strategic plan. The Commission also collects guidance by surveying community members, hosting focus groups, and meeting with stakeholder groups.
We develop public policy solutions to barriers faced in education, healthcare, technology, access to public services, and employment. We work across agencies, branches of state government, and nonprofit organizations. We have a strong history of successful legislative agendas.
We carefully plan our legislative agenda by meeting and vetting our proposals with stakeholders prior to coming to the legislature. Our stakeholders include national experts in health care, education, employment, and technology. We also collaborate with community organizations and representatives who will be directly affected by the decisions made by the legislature.
During our meetings, we provide full access to all participants. The provided accommodations include sign language interpreters, loop technology, and CART (captioning).
Our commitment to respectful communication and civility of relationships: All meeting participants are expected to treat other attendees with the utmost respect, including respecting all of the attendees' time, space, ideas, and thoughts. They are also expected to treat everyone fairly and equally, regardless of race, sexual orientation, place of origin, political beliefs, sex, or age. The Commission will not tolerate harassment or discrimination of any kind.
The Minnesota Commission of the Deaf, DeafBlind and Hard of Hearing seeks to have our social media platforms be a safe, positive, and welcoming environment. Thus, we do not tolerate any hate, abuse, threatening language, personal attacks, or spam on our social media page. The Commission will delete any comments that are not respectful to individuals or communities. For more information, please email mn.commission@state.mn.us.
The Minnesota Commission of the Deaf, DeafBlind & Hard of Hearing is committed to making its website accessible to everyone. To the best of our ability, we follow the state and federal law regarding accessible documents and websites. Learn more about these standards at Minnesota IT Services’ accessibility policies & standards.
To learn more about how to create accessible digital content, visit the state’s Office of Accessibility, which has tutorials and best practices.
For any questions, comments, or to report a barrier on the Commission’s website, email anne.sittner-anderson@state.mn.us.