How We Operate

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). 

Code of conduct for Commission meetings

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.  

Accessibility

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.

Social media policy

The Minnesota Commission of the Deaf, DeafBlind & Hard of Hearing has established social media platforms to provide information of public interest related to the Commission’s work. The Commission primarily uses these platforms to communicate official Commission content, but may also share other deaf, deafblind, and hard of hearing related information. 

Any links, follows, references, likes, or shares to a specific entity, product, service or organization on a Commission social media platform should not be considered an endorsement by the Commission. The Commission is not responsible for content that appears on external links. 

The Commission’s official social media sites are limited public forums. The public is encouraged to comment, interact, and engage on Commission social media platforms in a respectful discourse. The Commission appreciates the opportunity to interact with members of the public and sets these guidelines for people who choose to communicate on the Commission’s social media platforms. You are responsible for everything that you post.

The Commission does not permit and will remove comments, questions, or messages that:

  1. are off-topic or do not directly pertain to the original post to which the comment, question, or message is responding;
  2. contain obscene, profane, sexually explicit, or pornographic content; 
  3. contain content that promotes, fosters, or perpetuates harassment or discrimination based on a protected class as defined under the Minnesota Human Rights Act; 
  4. infringe on copyrights or trademarks; 
  5. contain threats to any person or organization or information that could compromise individual or public safety; 
  6. communicate private personal information of any person, including home address, phone number, personal email address, or other personal identification information; 
  7. are defamatory; 
  8. incite or promote violence, violate any federal, state, or local law, or encourage illegal activity; or 
  9. contain solicitations, advertisements, or spam (including items posted repeatedly), or malware viruses.

By participating on a Commission social media account, you agree to abide by these rules.  These rules are subject to amendment or modification at any time. 

All comments and information posted on Commission social media accounts are also subject to the particular social media platform’s standards, rules, and community guidelines. The Commission reserves the right to report a possible violation of platform rules to the relevant social media platform.  The Commission is not responsible for any action that may be taken by a platform provider.

The Commission monitors its official social media sites during normal business hours. The Commission is not responsible for user-generated content on its social media sites and the opinions expressed do not reflect those of the Commission.