title: Planned change in the disability community.
abstract: Planned change with people, who are physically or mentally disabled, as with other special populations, requires a range of skills and knowledge; several specific aspects of the change process are identified and discussed in this article: the characteristics of the change agent, the timing of the change event, and creating a vision for change. These aspects are illustrated through the writer's own experiences as a change agent working a long-range change event to improve access1 to mental health services in the US with and for people who are deaf and hard of hearing.
authors.affiliation: RRMyers Consulting, Burtonsville, MD 20866, USA. rrmyers@comcast.net
authors.forename: Randall R
authors.initials: RR
authors.lastname: Myers