Accomplishments

Dave Farbrook

  • Success: Much of my success I can attribute to the personal vision that my parents introduced to me (more).
  • Education: My parents went to great lengths to put my brother and I in schools that emphasized free and “new” education styles (more).
  • Accomplishments

From 1994 – 2013, I worked for the state government where I invested a lot of my time learning about how I could contribute to the common good and public interest. Some of my highlighted accomplishments:

  • Challenge: Working for the Department of Health – Developmental Disabilities Supports Division I worked as a Social and Community Services Coordinator, I researched the problem of public image with state government and concluded that public opinion was not very happy with their services.

Result: I began the process of developing content that was accurate and up-to-date and with the accumulation of this information produced a website that was complete and informative and MOST OF ALL compelling.  The result was the quality of information went up and our quarterly reports in number of interested viewers of the website went from 256,000 to 3,115,748 in 2 YEARS.

  • Challenge: Meaningful Day iDEA Book: The challenge was in producing a document that supported Best and Promising Practices for assisting individuals with developmental disabilities maintain success with the local community in which they lived. Define what was a considered a Meaningful Day for the individual and support this. Overcoming stigma, provider feelings of “unnecessary government involvement in daily administration of services,” and promulgating new program contract expectations were ongoing programmatic issues.

Result: Assisted in document preparation and department website posting of resources for Employment 1st program, “And Yet More, Making Employment First a Reality in New Mexico.” Included with this document were practical success stories on individuals who enacted the goals of this program. This information was received by the New Mexico Employment Leadership Networks, a grassroots network of providers, caregivers and family.