Hey Cenk!
I have a great idea about who we should target in finding people to support the fmla bill.
My partner has a 6 year old autistic son. He has tantrums and other random emergencies that if he didn’t work remotely, he feels that keeping that job would be impossible because of all his sons needs. He is not the only person with this problem. I see parents all the time who are scared they are going to loose their jobs because they are missing too much work because of their child’s intellectual disability. I know when people think of fmla they think it has to be a physical disability, but it should cover any care of a family member.
I think there is a pretty solid niche of people who are raising children with intellectual disabilities and they REALLY need help because a lot of them live in a world where they don’t even know these benefits existed to them. I think people with children with intellectual disabilities will be more open minded to picking a candidate based on their actual personal needs because they actually have to because it is very demanding.
I don’t know how to do this, I am just one person. I wish I could tell everyone about FMLA, Medicaid, Home healthcare and walk them through the process of getting it. It would greatly increase the chances of many children on the autism spectrum to grow into fully independent adults. One in every 44 births is a child with autism and the rates of diagnosis are growing every year.
These people will be happy to know that they can take advantage of the current FMLA options, so why wouldn’t they want to help and support a candidate that wants to give them more FMLA?
How to reach them? There are autism non profits all over every state, but this seems to be the last place distressed parents go. I think that posting conversations on Facebook and Reddit asking other parents how they deal with navigating their work and home life to get the conversation going and more people talking about it.