Blindness & literacy
Braille, assistive technology, orientation and mobility, the Expanded Core Curriculum, and the presumption of competence.
Washington, D.C. · Federal education advocacy
#AdvocateDad
From Western Colorado to the national table
Lived experience.
Lasting change.
Rob and Isabelle Harris are taking years of lived experience with blindness, special education, rural access, and transition directly to the people shaping national education policy.
“Braille is not dead.”
Rob Harris · U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs public remarks
Experience behind the mission
- Colorado Department of Education Certified Individualized Education Program Facilitator
- Former President, Colorado Parents of Blind Children
- American Printing House for the Blind FamilyConnect Parent Advisor
- U.S. Department of Education Product Review Panel
The mission
Systems should work for people—not require people to become experts just to survive them.
I did not set out to become an advocate. I became one because my daughter deserved access, opportunity, and a future shaped by her abilities—not by low expectations or inaccessible systems.
Today, I bring a parent’s persistence, a systems thinker’s eye, and years of lived experience to every table where decisions about disabled people are made.
— Rob Harris, father, caregiver & advocate
The work
Advocacy grounded in real life.
From one family’s fight for access to statewide and national systems change.
Special education
Helping families navigate individualized education programs while pushing schools toward meaningful access, accountability, and ambitious outcomes.
Medicaid and home- and community-based services
Centering families in decisions about home- and community-based services, caregiver supports, assessments, and public accountability.
Youth leadership
Creating room for blind and low-vision young people to build confidence, self-determination, interdependence, and their own public voice.
AdvocateDadCO’s continuing mission
Three commitments guide the broader work.
These are AdvocateDadCO’s permanent systems-change priorities. They shape work in Colorado and nationally, but they are not three additional Congressional asks for this D.C. delegation.
Deliver access from day one
Make timely Braille, accessible instructional materials, assistive technology, orientation and mobility, and Expanded Core Curriculum instruction an expectation—not an exception families must repeatedly fight to obtain.
Build and support the workforce
Strengthen the pipeline of teachers of students with visual impairments, certified orientation and mobility specialists, interveners, and related professionals, with specific solutions for rural communities where distance and shortages compound inequity.
Share power with the people affected
Include disabled young people and families meaningfully in policy design, implementation, evaluation, and oversight—not only after decisions have already been made.
The Washington, D.C. mission
Two issues. Two asks.
Rob and Isabelle are pairing a disciplined federal agenda with the truth of lived experience. Public updates will focus on the policy asks, not private travel, meeting, or participant details.
Washington, D.C. advocacy trip
Fall 2026
The Congressional asks
- Protect all of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act—including Part D—in final fiscal year 2027 appropriations.
- Support and advance S. 5046 to keep core education functions within the U.S. Department of Education.
Rob will connect federal infrastructure to family, rural, and implementation realities. Isabelle will speak from her own experience as a blind young adult and self-advocate.
Why Isabelle’s voice matters
Nothing about us without us begins by making room for us.
Isabelle is not going to Washington as a symbol. She is going as a young adult, a braille reader, an assistive-technology user, and a self-advocate whose experience should inform the decisions that shape her future.
“I would like to answer that myself.”
Assistive technology in real life
Stand with us
Lived experience belongs wherever decisions are made.
Share the public policy asks. Private travel and meeting details will stay private.
Support the work
Access is not extra.
Purchase an AdvocateDadCO D.C. advocacy T-shirt through the Custom Ink fundraiser.
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Connect with #AdvocateDad
Let’s turn experience into action.
Choose the connection that fits what you need.
Email RobDirect email: Questions, speaking, media, or collaboration
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