Shared Support Stories: Cody Drinkwater

Cody Drinkwater didn’t mean to be an activist, though you wouldn’t think it today.

“I wasn’t seeking advocacy, it just kind of happened,” he said. 

Cody first went to Maryland Developmental Disabilities Administration (DDA) looking for help getting and keeping a job. That job ended up being a regional self-advocacy specialist for the Maryland DDA. It was through his role at the DDA that he got connected with Shared Support Maryland founder Gail Godwin, who put his budding advocacy skills to work on SSMD’s Expectations Matter: My Life, My Choice, My Plan! program.

“Through the combination of doing self direction and then also by helping Gail, I learned more about my own person-centered plan. It made me learn about how essential it is to everything: not only advocacy, but just basic human rights and people basically getting the opportunity to control what's important to them in their life,” he said.

At Gail’s encouragement, he got connected with the Expectations Matter mentorship program, and took a mentee under his wing, “It was cool to see them succeed after facilitating that process.” he said. “After being similarly taught the same stuff, and being able to take what I learned then use it to teach someone else, is probably one of the coolest things.”

He said it hasn’t been easy going  from struggling to be accommodated, to fighting for others’ accommodations, especially with the continuing stigma against people with disabilities. But connecting with people doing the same work has been reinvigorating, helping him stick with  the work.

“There's this constant sense [like at SSMD] that we're trying to build something that will improve the system. And even if it doesn't work all the time, it's the fact that they're going to keep trying.And being part of that is very inspiring,” he said. “And I honestly think it's what keeps me going. At my core, I'm somebody that wants to improve things.”

His lived experience, and his core purpose of seeking a better world, lends a valuable depth to his work as an advocate. But not everyone along his path has thought that having lived experience was worthwhile. Plenty of stigma, even within the field of disability advocacy, has attempted to hold him back, “I do think there are a lot of individuals in disability organizations that don't have disabilities, and one of the things that we need to consider and improve upon is to make sure that the organizations that are supposed to help us, represent us, and that they have people with disabilities in pathways to leadership. There's a lot of great organizations that do that, like People On The Go and Shared Support. They reflect what they preach. Representation is important.”

While Cody’s story of success is unfortunately still too uncommon in today’s world, he doesn’t think it’s been any one thing he’s done that sets him apart. Instead, he says, “I'm just lucky to be in a situation where I have an ability to make a difference. I don't really think I'm that different compared to a lot of the other people that are going through the same things or that have similar situations. I'm just fortunate to be in a place where I can do something about it and help work to improve conditions for everybody.” 

His life’s work is making sure he’s not an outlier, but just one story of many positive outcomes for people with similar lived experiences.

These days, Cody is still working with the DDA and is a facilitator and person-centered planning trainer, even training new trainers for SSMD, “It's been really cool, having the opportunity to learn how to facilitate that process, how to teach person centered planning and spreading that process.”

He is also pursuing a master’s degree at Salisbury University to take his advocacy further and recently became the newest member of the Shared Support Maryland’s Board. He says he uses what he’s learned - and taught - with Shared Support in his day-to-day work, spreading person-centered planning and self-direction wherever he can. After all, these are not just methods but tools to make a better future, and he can’t afford to give up, “What's at stake is our rights. I mean, it's our fundamental rights as human beings.