BIOGRAPHIES

Audrey Coccia is Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of Vision for EQuality, Inc. She has been active in the disability movement for over 35 years. She is well respected and regarded as a major force in upholding the rights of people with disabilities. She is a Governor appointed member of the Developmental Disabilities Council, a member of the Pennsylvania Planning Advisory Council and a past board member of the Board of the Pennsylvania Protection & Advocacy Agency. She is presently Chairperson of the Pennsylvania Community Advocacy Coalition, a statewide advocacy network. Mrs. Coccia serves on many additional State and County committees representing the issues of people with disabilities. She is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards for her advocacy efforts and has appeared publicly on National and Local TV and radio shows discussing disability rights. Mrs. Coccia has fought for social change, while bringing the ·view· of people with disabilities and their families to the forefront.

Mrs. Coccia is married, the mother of two daughters and grandmother to three grandsons. Her daughter, Gina, is at the heart of her work. She has been the catalyst in her life that brought her to the field of disabilities and motivates her each day to continue the work that she does.

Maureen Devaney is presently the Co-Executive Director and co-founder of Vision for EQuality, Inc. and Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Waiting List Campaign, PA WL. She has volunteered and worked for over 30 years as an advocate in the disability movement and has served in numerous capacities on Boards and local and state planning and policy making committees. She has received numerous awards for her leadership, advocacy and work around waiting list initiatives. She has extensive experience in community organizing, networking and building coalitions. She served in various capacities on committees and councils dedicated to: Self Determination, Inclusion, Systems Change, Early Intervention, Education, Family Support, school to adult life Transition, Waiting Lists, Closing Institutions, Recruitment/ Retention, etc. She is presently the Co-chairperson of the Pennsylvania OMR Planning Advisory Committee, Chairperson of the PAC/OMR Recruitment/Retention Workforce Development Committee and member of the Philadelphia Supports Coordination Steering Committee. She has been recently appointed by Secretary of Public Welfare Estelle Richman as a member of the Stakeholders Planning Team and People Stat.

Maureen and her husband, Tom, are proud parents of their 3 children, Jim, Tom and their daughter Colleen. Colleen has been Maureen's main inspiration to help create a better service system for all.

Loretta Mongi is the Administrator. Her personal experience includes an extremely diverse background, which encompasses, corporate, private sector and entrepreneurial experiences. She has spent the past several years of her career with an emphasis on all aspects of Human Resource including benefits administration, recruiting and employee relations. Loretta enjoys her role at Vision as she truly gets to know each employee, which also includes the volunteer network.

Her favorite "hobby" and how she spends her free time is devoted to her husband and two children.

Emilio Pachecot Emilio is an Hispanic parent who has many years of experience in the disability community. He is the proud parent of Joel, a young man with intellectual and physical disabilities who has significant special health care needs. Emilio works at Vision for Equality as Senior Manager of Programs and heads a training unit to train Latino people in Spanish on how to navigate the disability system. He overseeing the PHAN program; which provides HIV/AIDS prevention and risk reduction training to people with developmental and intellectual disabilities. He is an appointed member of the Governor’s Cabinet for People with Disabilities and the Bureau of Autism Services Advisory Board. He Co-Chairs the Philadelphia Supports Coordination Advisory Committee, is a member of the Community Advisory Council/Temple University Institute on Disabilities, a member of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission/Disability Stake holder’s Group and a member of EPIC/Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.. He has over 20 years experience in successfully finding resources and services for his son and other people with lifelong medical conditions that require special needs care. In essence, he is not only committed to meeting the needs of his son but he is also very committed to making service systems and the community more responsive to individuals with special health care needs. His background of reaching out to the Hispanics community to help them navigate, access, and understand the support system for a person with disabilities has started to bridge the gap in assisting these needy families in obtaining services that in the past they have been unable to obtain. He has been the recipient of many Awards for his outstanding leadership. He also just received his Master in Human Services at Lincoln University Pennsylvania. He is uniquely qualified to make recommendations on policies, procedures, regulations and legislation that affect people with disabilities and special health care needs. In his many roles, he is in a unique position to share information with multiple organizations of which he supports and is a member.

Sheila Stasko coordinates PA WL and directs the PA WL Campaign Training program. She has been an outspoken advocate and organizer for the rights of persons with disabilities for 25 years. Sheila founded Parents of Down Syndrome in 1978 and served as President for 8 years. She served as chair and co-chair of the Right to Education Task Force for 19 years. In 1991, Sheila created "Life After High School." Sheila is a member of the PAC and served as co-chair of the Planning Advisory Committee of the Office of Mental Retardation 2001-2002. She was a member of the Multi-Year Plan, Waiting List Planning Committee. She is currently co-chair of the Waiting List Committee, a sub-committee of the PAC and the Waiting List Oversight Committee.

Sheila is the mother of six children; her youngest son John works in the community. He has intellectual disabilities.

Patricia Armstrong joined Vision for EQuality in 1999 as the Program Administrator for Independent Monitoring for Quality, IM4Q. She is now the Senior Operations Manager. Through the years she has advocated on behalf of people with disabilities and served as a founding member of the Philadelphia Police and Fire Association for Handicapped Children. She's honored to have received The Leona and Marion Fialkowski Award and TASH Distinguished Parent Award. Patt and her husband John, on behalf of their oldest son, Gary, were plaintiffs in Armstrong vs. Klein and were successful in implementing the Extended School Year program which benefited children with regression/ recoupment difficulties across the nation.

On behalf of their son Gary, along with their two surviving sons, feel privileged to have had a small part in his short life.

Sheila McLeod is the coordiantor of the Consumer and Family Satisfaction Team. She has served the disability community, for over twenty years, in the capacities of Parent Training Coordinator, ICF/MR Residential Supervisor, Red Cross Trainer, Customer Satisfaction Specialist. She has participated in individual and systemic advocacy on a variety of levels including the person centered planning process with individuals and the self determination planning processes. She has extended her support on the MR advisory and planning committees as well as State-wide focus, planning and policy efforts.

The McLeod Family has been enriched by the presence of a wonderful young lady who joined our family through the Life Sharing program and decided to remain and enlighten us all for over eighteen years. Additionally, she is the mom to two other spectacular young women both of whom are on there own extraordinary journey.

Barbara Nattile started working and getting involved with the Disability Community over thirty years ago because she was the mother of her son Derrick who was born with a Physical and Intellectual Disability and who wasn’t able to speak or walk. Derrick Nattile sadly passed away at the age of 34 years in 2003 and he is dearly missed by his parents and brother.

Besides Barbara’s years of volunteering she worked as a Family Driven Support Services Resource Facilitator and Family Driven Support Services Coordinator in a previous Base Service Unit for seven years. Barbara, her husband and other son were honored to received the Leona and Marian Fialkowski Humanitarian Award for recognition of her work and her family’s loving care of Derrick at the annual Philadelphia Brighter Futures Awards Day in 2003. Barbara has worked at Vision For Equality, Inc. since 1999. She has coordinated and managed the Parent Support Groups which represents families from across the City of Philadelphia since she organized the groups in July 2004. In 2011 Barbara was appointed Administrative Services Manager at Vision for Equality’s Philadelphia office. She also is a member of the Philadelphia Intellectual Disability Support Coordination Advisory Committee. She continues to advocate on behalf of families as she did for her son for 34 years.