Silvia Yee is a senior staff attorney at Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF) where her work has included projects to increase physical and programmatic accessibility and disability awareness in the delivery of health care services, as well as impact litigation to increase access for people with disabilities in myriad aspects of public and private life.
Silvia maintains interests in health care reform and the impact on people with disabilities, international disability rights and the implementation of national disability rights laws, and the strengthening of cross-disability and cross-civil rights communities.
Over the past decade, Silvia has presented and written on how disability health and healthcare disparities, civil rights, public health, and other social determinants of health such as race/ethnicity, LQBTQ status, and income level intersect. Recently, she has had the privilege to co-teach the disability rights law class offered at UC Berkeley School of Law. Prior to joining DREDF, Silvia worked in private commercial practice in Canada, and with the Health Law Institute at the University of Alberta, where she published on the topics of Canadian Health Care Standards and the extent of the nursing profession’s legal authority. She received her B.Mus., M.A., and L.L.B. degrees from the University of Alberta.
Silvia joined CCA’s board of directors in January 2021. “Long-term services and supports are critical to people with a range of disabilities across the life spectrum, and community-based services are essential to disability rights and true community integration,” she said. “I am motivated by a desire to help ensure that personal care assistants and direct service workers have a path forward to the living wage, safe working conditions, career recognition, and skill/knowledge base that will attract excellent employees and encourage strong working relationships.”
