Legislative Recommendations for Long Term Care Reform
1. Direct the Health and Human Services Commission to develop a long range plan to re-balance long term care services for Texans with Disabilities. This plan should include the following components:
1. Develop a diversely represented Task Force to guide plan development.
2. Close and consolidate State Supportive Living Centers (SSLC) as the population decreases. The closure process must include the choices of those choosing to remain in these facilities and ensure those who wish to leave have every opportunity to do so.
3. Ensure supports and services for people living in the community are available, exceptional and accountable.
4. People transitioning from SSLC’s to community settings should develop a Person Directed Plan to ensure the successful transition in order to meet individual needs.
5. Money Follow the Person protocols utilized for people with disabilities exiting nursing homes and private ICF-MR facilities should be incorporated to support people exiting SSLCs.
6. Designate all funding saved through consolidation and closure of SSLCs to fund people with disabilities on Waiting Lists for community services and supports.
2. Consolidate Medicaid Waivers into a system that determines services based on needs generated through Person Centered Planning.
3. Expand Consumer Directed Services (CDS) options to all waiver services and ensure information on how to access these services is readily available and accessible.
4. Personal Care Attendants and other Direct Support Professionals must be paid a living wage of plus appropriate benefits.
Contact David Wittie at 512-512-577-8982 or Cindi Paschall at 817-281-6730 for more information
OR
Email: communitynowfreedom@gmail.com
Showing posts with label State School. Show all posts
Showing posts with label State School. Show all posts
Monday, August 30, 2010
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Report faults Texas treatment of mentally disabled
link here
By JEFF CARLTON Associated Press Writer © 2010 The Associated Press
May 27, 2010, 4:17PM
AUSTIN, Texas — A mentally disabled man with feces on his hands and legs was found shoeless and pantless wandering through a field in 14-degree weather. Officials say overwhelmed staffers at the state institution where he lived were occupied with other assignments.
A report released Thursday examining conditions at the Lubbock State Supported Living Center found more problems with a state-run facility a year after Texas lawmakers agreed to spend $112 million to improve conditions under threat of a Justice Department lawsuit. The federal government had documented widespread mistreatment of the mentally disabled in Texas.
Among the problems cited by independent monitors at the Lubbock facility was a critical shortage of nurses, resulting in significant medication errors. The facility has 50 vacancies in its nursing department, which is budgeted for 105 employees.
The report also says the Lubbock center has a 60 percent annual turnover rate among employees who directly care for the mentally disabled. Low wages make it difficult to find loyal employees, officials acknowledged. Staffers who work directly with mentally disabled residents make about $22,400 a year in Lubbock.
"This is not easy work, and the pay is not extraordinarily high," said Chris Traylor, commissioner of the state agency that oversees Texas' 13 institutions. "In order for staff to be retained in this work, you have to have a heart for what you are doing."
At least 13 workers have been fired since July for the abuse, neglect or exploitation of residents, according to the report. A member of the monitoring team called the abuse hot line to report neglect of a female resident who appeared to need help. When taken to the hospital, she was diagnosed with a urinary tract infection, an infection in her mouth and pneumonia.
The monitoring team criticized the school for having six workers caring for 20 residents, "all of whom were totally dependent on staff for every activity of daily living."
Medical record keeping was another problem. In one case, a Feb. 24 abdominal x-ray of a resident showed a coin in the lower intestine, but it was not in the resident's medical record and went unreported to the medical team until March 17.
Other problems include grouping too many residents with behavioral issues together, creating tired workers by forcing them to work mandatory overtime, high levels of aggressive incidents among residents and significant underreporting of medication errors.
The report was not entirely negative. It praised the Lubbock facility for its staff's knowledge on reporting abuse and neglect and efforts to serve residents in an integrated setting. It also said communication between medical departments was impressive.
The report was based on monitoring done during a one-week period in mid-March.
The monitors were permitted in the facility as part of an agreement with the Justice Department. It resulted from a series of federal investigations that found that at least 53 deaths from September 2007 to September 2008 were from conditions considered preventable, such as pneumonia, bowel obstructions or sepsis, indicating lapses in proper care.
The Lubbock report and others across the state are considered baseline reports. The institutions will be inspected every six months beginning in July to make sure they are in compliance with the Justice Department settlement. Texas has until the end of 2013 to bring their facilities into compliance.
"It does instill us with a sense of urgency," Traylor said. "We are focused on long-term improvements that will last long after the settlement agreement is concluded."
The 13 institutions are home to about 4,300 residents with significant intellectual and developmental disabilities. The facilities employ nearly 13,000 people.
___
Associated Press writer Jim Vertuno contributed to this report.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
State Abuse
Despite reforms, abuse in state institutions remains high.
Link to Texas Observer story
by DAVE MANN
Published on: Monday, April 19, 2010Despite reforms by state lawmakers, abuse and neglect of Texans with mental retardation in state-run institutions has increased the past three years, according to an Observer analysis of state data. Reforms enacted in response to a high-profile abuse scandal have left the facilities with fewer residents and more staff, yet confirmed allegations of abuse rose 57 percent between 2007 and 2009. However, the number of abuse cases has dropped slightly so far in 2010, indicating that perhaps the latest reforms are having some effect.
For the past four years, Texas’ 13 sprawling, state-run institutions for the mentally retarded—formerly known as State Schools and which the Legislature recently renamed State Supported Living Centers—have been the source of horrific tales of abuse. Since 2005, investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice and numerous media outlets, including theObserver (see “Systemic Neglect,” May 1, 2008), have documented hundreds of instances in which Texans with mental retardation were beaten, neglected and, in some instances, killed by the staff charged with caring for them. In the most famous incident, workers at the Corpus Christi State School recorded a “fight club” video in which mentally disabled residents were forced to beat each other.
The abuse scandal was rooted in years of under-funding by the Legislature. Low pay and astronomical staff turnover, which ran as high as 70 percent in some facilities, led the institutions to hire low-grade employees—and in a few instances convicted felons—who never should have been caring for vulnerable, and often volatile, residents.
Despite reforms passed in the past two legislative sessions—including a 12-percent funding increase and nearly 3,000 additional caregivers—the number of abuse and neglect cases remains high.
Confirmed cases of abuse in State Supported Living Centers rose 57 percent between 2007 and 2009, according to an Observer analysis of state data, from 458 incidents in 2007 to 719 last year.
In the first six months of fiscal year 2010, which began in September, confirmed cases of abuse and neglect have dipped by 19 percent. State Supported Living Centers are on pace to report 580 cases of abuse in 2010, which while lower than 2007’s peak, is still historically high.
The facilities are now closely monitored by Justice Department inspectors, and some reforms have already had an effect. In the past six months, State Supported Living Centers have added more than 1,000 full-time employees, according to state records. And the facilities have fewer residents, as state officials transfer more disabled Texans into small, community group homes. State Supported Living Centers now employ nearly 13,000 workers to care for about 4,000 residents.
While the slight decrease in abuse cases so far in 2010 is encouraging, the Legislature’s refusal to give State Living Center employees a pay increase may hamper reform.
State Supported Living Center workers are on average the lowest-paid state employees, according to the Texas State Employees Union. Direct care workers earn a starting salary of roughly $8 an hour. Parents and families of residents have often blamed abuse and neglect partly on low pay.
It’s worth noting that confirmed cases of severe physical and sexual abuse have remained fairly constant the past three years, according to state data. But there’s been a sharp increase in confirmed incidents of “neglect,” which don’t involve physical violence by the staff, but usually consist of incompetent oversight of residents: allowing residents to fall from bed or leave the facility or harm themselves and others. In other words, the kinds of incidents you would expect from a staff that’s largely earning fast-food wages.
When asked if low salaries contributed to the increase in neglect, Cecilia Fedorov—a spokesperson with the Department of Aging and Disability Services, the state that oversees State Living Centers—said, “I don’t believe there’s ever an excuse for abuse, neglect or exploitation.” She added that salaries at state institutions are a “legislative question,” and not up to the agency.
The agency did ask the Legislature for a salary increase last session for State Living Center workers, and lawmakers denied the request.
Without a pay increase for direct care workers, it’s questionable whether the recent decline in abuse numbers will continue and whether Texas’ institutions for the mentally disabled can be adequately reformed.
Download abuse statistics for State Supported Living Centers in 2008 at www.txlo.com/ssabuse08
Download abuse statistics for State Supported Living Centers in 2009 at www.txlo.com/ssabuse09
Download abuse statistics for State Supported Living Centers in 2010 at www.txlo.com/ssabuse10
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
'Fight club' lawsuit against top officials to proceed Judge says 4 top officials won't be dropped; trial set for July.
By Corrie MacLaggan
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Published: 9:56 p.m. Tuesday, April 27, 2010
A judge has denied a request from four state officials who asked to be dropped from a lawsuit over a so-called fight club at a Corpus Christi facility for people with mental disabilities.
The officials — including now-retired Department of Aging and Disability Services Commissioner Addie Horn — had argued that they should be exempt from the suit because of qualified immunity, which protects government employees from being sued unless they knowingly violate the law or are clearly incompetent.
But in the ruling on the pretrial motion, U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack wrote that a jury could reasonably find that the officials "failed to exercise professional judgment by providing inadequate security."
The judge also denied the officials' request to dismiss the lawsuit.
State officials are appealing to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The case is scheduled for trial July 2.
Jack granted a request by a fifth administrator to be dropped from the suit.
Robert Hilliard , a lawyer for three of the five residents suing administrators and on-site staffers, commended the ruling.
"This is the most important part of the case in making sure there is responsibility all the way up the food chain," Hilliard said. Holding top officials accountable, he said, "will prevent in the future the slow erosion of safety measures for the residents."
Lawyers for the residents argue that the officials should have known before the 2008 and 2009 fight club incidents that more security was necessary, in part because of a Department of Justice investigation that began in 2005 that concluded that the 13 Texas facilities fail to protect residents from harm. The Justice Department is still monitoring the facilities, now called state supported living centers, which are home to 4,300 Texans.
But Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who is representing the administrators, wrote in court documents that Horn and the others took action to address the issues raised by the Justice Department. For example, he wrote, Horn lobbied the Legislature to increase staffing for the centers and mandated retraining for staff on abuse and neglect.
"It is simply false, conclusory and self-serving for the plaintiffs to even suggest that the defendants 'did nothing' in the face of DOJ's allegations," Abbott wrote. "The evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that the Defendants responded immediately to the DOJ's concerns."
In addition to Horn, the officials being sued are: Barry Waller , former assistant commissioner (he retired in December); Denise Geredine , former director of state schools (she now works elsewhere in the department); and Iva Benson , superintendent of the Corpus Christi State School (she has the same job, but the title has been renamed "director," and the facility is now known as Corpus Christi State Supported Living Center).
Deputy Commissioner Jon Weizenbaum was dropped from the suit because he did not directly oversee the institutions, Jacks ruled.
The suit was filed last year by the family of one resident; it was later expanded to include five residents. In court documents, residents say they were forced to fight other residents for staffers' amusement. The lawsuit says the residents were "punched, kicked, chased, smothered with pillows, wrestled, humiliated, threatened and terrorized." And it says staff members yelled at residents to "fight him, fight him ... beat him up."
Lawyers said in court documents that the officials failed to provide adequate supervision, security, staffing and monitoring of staff, and that they should have known more security was needed.
In 2007, there were 1,013 allegations of abuse, neglect or exploitation — and 51 confirmed cases — at the 430-bed facility, according to court documents. That year, administrators had seen enough of an increase in horseplay that a facility official sent a warning to staffers that such incidents would not be tolerated.
And state Rep. Abel Herrero, D-Robstown , had been demanding increased security at the facility since 2007, lawyers for the residents say. Herrero, whose district includes the Corpus Christi facility, said Tuesday that the judge's ruling demonstrates that "there is some evidence to show that the fight club incidents at the state school may have been prevented if those with supervisory authority had acted expeditiously, decisively and thoroughly in addressing the systematic deficiencies they knew — or should have known — existed at the time."
Sunday, March 28, 2010
U.S. official critical of state's living center agreement
Link here to Corrie Maclaggan's Austin American Statesman article
The U.S. Department of Justice's civil rights chief said Friday that an agreement with Texas on fixing state institutions for people with mental disabilities "falls short" on moving people out of the facilities.
"There are just so many people who are being warehoused in these institutions, and I think that's a tragedy," Thomas Perez , assistant attorney general for civil rights , said in an interview in Austin. He was in town to speak at a National Conference of State Legislatures redistricting law seminar.
Last June, the Justice Department and Texas entered into an agreement to improve health care and speed up investigations of abuse and neglect at the 13 facilities now known as state supported living centers. It was the culmination of a federal investigation that began in 2005 at the Lubbock facility after reports of abuse and neglect and later expanded to the other institutions.
Perez, an appointee of President Barack Obama, took office in October — months after the Texas deal was signed. It's not clear whether his objections — which signal a departure from what the Obama administration said at the time the deal was announced — could affect Texas. He said he inherited the agreement and needs "to respect that on a certain level." But now, he said, he'd like to implement far more aggressive agreements with states.
"The paradigm prior to our arrival was: 'Let's just make sure that the facilities are safe,'" he said. "The new paradigm is: 'Question No. 1 — What is your plan for moving eligible people into communities? Step two ... What is your plan for ensuring that the facilities are safe?"
Texas' philosophy, one state official said, "may be a little different."
"In Texas, we support choice," said Stephanie Goodman, a spokeswoman for the Health and Human Services Commission , referring to the options of living in institutions or smaller group homes or enrolling in state programs that help people with disabilities live at home.
Still, the state is committed to ensuring that the population of the institutions continues to decline, said Cecilia Fedorov , a spokeswoman of the Department of Aging and Disability Services. About 4,300 now live in the institutions, down from 5,428 in 2000.
Texas allows people who want to leave state supported living centers to skip over a waiting list for home-based programs, and last year the Legislature expanded the number of spots in home-based programs available to living center residents.
"We need to be doing everything we can to make successful transitions for people who wish to move," Fedorov said.
Perez said that an ideal agreement would have specific numbers of people that the state should move out and timelines of when that should happen.
The Texas agreement requires the state to identify people who want to move out of the institutions, help them make that transition, and make sure their needs are met in their new setting, Fedorov said. But there are no specific numbers on how many people should move out.
Without those specifics, said state Rep. Elliott Naishtat , D-Austin, a member of the House Committee on Human Services, "what we're dealing with is wishful thinking at best."
At the time the agreement was signed, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder praised it.
"The Justice Department is committed to protecting the fundamental rights of all our citizens," Holder said in a June 2009 press release. "This agreement reflects that principle by protecting the civil rights of some of Texas's most vulnerable residents."
In the 1990s, Texas closed two state institutions as part of a lawsuit settlement. Later, the state considered closing more, but after heated hearings, decided not to.
Susan Payne of College Station, whose sister, Diane Ward , lives at Denton State Supported Living Center, said she finds it "very offensive" that Perez would say people are being "warehoused."
"Family members of people who live at the state supported living centers are very, very aware of the options in the community, and the families have chosen this as the best setting," Payne said.
But Perez said that moving people out of institutions is long overdue.
"It's a heck of a lot easier to have everybody in one setting," he said. "But ease should never trump what is right, and what is constitutional."
cmaclaggan@statesman.com; 445-3548
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Disturbing findings in wake of 'fight club'
By TERRI LANGFORD
Copyright 2010 Houston Chronicle (Link)
March 22, 2010, 10:24PM
Criminal fingerprint checks show at least 36 employees continued to work on the state payroll while caring for the mentally disabled — despite being arrested for felonies ranging from indecent exposure, to aggravated assault, child rape and murder.
Of those 36 with arrests, 17 had felony convictions and the remaining 19 still face trial, according to Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services records released to the Houston Chronicle Monday.
The release of the records, first requested six weeks ago, came on the eve of a House committee meeting Tuesday in which lawmakers will discuss for the first time what improvements have been made regarding care at the facilities in the wake of last year's shocking “fight club” incident in Corpus Christi.
While that's less than one percent of the 11,785 DADS employees who were fingerprinted and work at 13 State-Supported Living Centers, formerly known as state schools, the newest reform shows how pre-employment criminal background screens failed to alert the state to employees with criminal records.
Current pre-employment screening only checks for convictions in Texas. The fingerprint checks linked employees to convictions and arrests outside of Texas. Of the 17 with convictions, 13 have been terminated or resigned. The other four are still in “process” according to the agency, which released the numbers without comment.
“Of course it still matters. That amount of people has control over a handful of residents who are unable to communicate abuse or neglect or ward off that type of aggression,” said Beth Mitchell, senior managing attorney for Advocacy Inc., a group that has fought for better care of the mentally disabled in Texas. “You don't want someone like that corrupting other staff. That's what we saw in Corpus Christi. It only took one staff to corrupt a group of staff in the fight club.”
Cell phone fight videos
The incident, at what has now been renamed Corpus Christi State-Supported Living Center, was discovered by police a year ago when a lost cell phone had videos of mentally disabled residents fighting. Voices of the residents' state caretakers could be heard encouraging the residents to fight one another. Since then, four former DADS workers have been convicted as a result.
The fingerprint checks and another new reform, random drug testing — which snared 23 DADS employees who tested positive for drug use — are the only significant progress seen in the year since the cell phone video surfaced and since DADS entered into a settlement late last year with the U.S. Department of Justice.
A “baseline” report on the Corpus Christi facility, the first of 13 to be conducted on each center as part of that DOJ agreement, shows little has been done since the fight club scandal put Texas' care of the mentally disabled in the spotlight.
While the March 10 monitoring report of Corpus Christi State-Supported Living Center revealed “a number of good practices in place,” it also noted “a number of the areas in which there is a need for improvement.”
For example, in the past year, the state has yet to establish a “zero tolerance” of abuse at Corpus Christi, there are no full-time psychiatrists on staff in the Corpus facility and no standard diagnostic procedure in place for residents with psychiatric problems.
“It's pretty clear from the report that they're really far behind in meeting the criteria of the DOJ settlement,” Mitchell said.
Also, the DADS staff in Corpus has not come up with better ways to monitor the physical and nutritional needs of their residents and are not able to pinpoint those residents who are at-risk of abuse.
“The Facility is at the very beginning stages of implementing the process of screening individuals to determine if they fall into an at-risk category,” the report stated.
Documentation problems
In many areas, the monitors noted the Corpus Christi facility failed to keep proper documentation on residents. Dental care records were missing, as was proof that staff reviewed some residents' medication and allergies. The current forms being used at the Corpus Christi center failed to document residents' vocational strengths, needs or preferences.
A spokeswoman for state Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs, the chair of the House Committee on Human Services, said Rose would not be making any comments about the report until Tuesday's meeting. Calls to other members, including state Rep. Abel Herrero, the committee's vice chair, were not returned.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Report: State facility for people with disabilities lacks psychiatrists, trained therapists
Report: State facility for people with disabilities lacks psychiatrists, trained therapists
Posted using ShareThis
Posted using ShareThis
By Corrie MacLaggan
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Published: 8:54 p.m. Friday, March 19, 2010
- Nine months after Texas and the U.S. Department of Justice entered into a settlement to improve health care and more quickly investigate reports of abuse and neglect at state institutions for people with mental disabilities, the facility in Corpus Christi doesn't have staff psychiatrists, has therapists who are ill-equipped to work with people with complex needs and doesn't have a clear zero-tolerance policy for abuse and neglect.
That's according to a new report on the Corpus Christi State Supported Living Center, the first issued by monitors reviewing the 13 institutions as part of the settlement. On Tuesday, the state House Committee on Human Services is set to examine progress at the facilities.
"The state-supported living centers, specifically Corpus Christi, are overwhelmed in meeting their responsibilities for caring for people with intellectual disabilities," said state Rep. Abel Herrero , D-Robstown , who is vice chairman of the committee and whose district includes the Corpus Christi facility.
The report says that the culture appears to be changing for the better at Corpus Christi, where last year staff members were found to have been organizing fights among residents. Staff members seemed to know to report suspected abuse and neglect immediately, and when asked how, they consistently flipped over their badges to show a sticker with instructions. And residents "appeared happily engaged" in activities, the report said.
But it also said that people who might benefit from alternative communication devices don't have access to them, and that residents are over-prescribed psychotropic drugs.
"We agree that there are many areas of concern, many areas in which we need to make changes and improvements," said Cecilia Fedorov , a spokeswoman for the Department of Aging and Disability Services .
The preliminary report about Corpus Christi — reports on the other institutions are expected by summer — isn't evaluating whether the facility is adhering to the settlement terms. That comes later, and the monitors will review each facility every six months until it has been in compliance for a year — a process Fedorov said could take five years or more.
The settlement is the culmination of a Justice Department investigation that began in 2005 at the Lubbock State School after reports of abuse and neglect and later expanded to the other facilities.
In addition to the changes required by the settlement, the Legislature last year mandated video cameras in common areas (they're in place in Corpus Christi but not yet elsewhere); random drug testing of the 12,500 employees (16 have been fired for testing positive, and seven resigned instead of getting tested); and fingerprint background checks for employees and volunteers (these are taking place, officials said).
"Although there are encouraging signs of progress, we still have a long way to go in making the system the best it can be for this vulnerable population," said state Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, chairwoman of the Health and Human Services Committee and author of reform legislation.
In the report on Corpus Christi, the monitors noted that the limited availability of psychiatry services — there are two part-time consulting psychiatrists but no full-time staffers — "appears to have a negative impact on the delivery of services."
Fedorov said that the department is "aggressively recruiting" to find two staff psychiatrists. "We, like everybody who does deal with behavioral health, are competing for very few licensed and qualified psychiatrists," she said.
On the drug issue, the report gave an example of a resident whose behavior deteriorated after his mother's death. He threw temper tantrums, destroyed property and manipulated staff members.
Instead of a behavior management program, "the psychiatrist is prescribing potentially hazardous and dubiously effective drugs to stop the behaviors," the report said.
Beth Mitchell, managing attorney of Advocacy Inc., which advocates for Texans with disabilities, said the communication aid issue raised in the report shows how far behind the centers are in providing adequate care.
"Communication is often the reason people have behavior problems," she said. "If you can't communicate, you act out."
Mitchell also said she's worried about the lack of a clear zero-tolerance policy. "This is a place where people were being beat up, and you don't have zero tolerance?" she said.
Fedorov said that the department does not tolerate abuse and neglect, but that "we need to take steps to make sure that the policy is even more clear to everybody who comes on campus."
As part of a new legislative requirement, Gov. Rick Perry in February appointed an ombudsman for state supported living centers. George Bithos , a dentist and ordained Greek Orthodox deacon, has been visiting campuses since starting the job.
"I have found very dedicated people and people that are open to being looked at," Bithos said. "I've been impressed with the quality of the people, yet I'm aware that there are problems \u2026 that we'll need to take very seriously."
cmaclaggan@statesman.com; 445-3548
Monday, February 1, 2010
Death at Lubbock State School center of Texas statewide controversy
January 27, 3:41 PM
Dallas Disability ExaminerSteve Carter
Sunday, January 31, 2010
James "J.T." Templeton
By Christina Rosales
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Updated: 12:31 a.m. Friday, Jan. 29, 2010
Published: 9:56 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 28, 2010
James "J.T." Templeton, born with cerebral palsy and housed for 30 years in a Texas mental institution, wished for an ordinary life. But his advocacy for those with disabilities made his life extraordinary, his friends said.
Templeton died Monday . He was 59.
"Working with him helped develop and open my eyes to the civil rights struggle that people with disabilities are fighting," said Spencer Duran , a project specialist with the Accessible Housing Austin advocacy group.
Templeton moved out of the Austin State School in 1986, following a landmark federal lawsuit filed in 1974 against what was then the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation. In the 1990s, he was part of a group that sued the City of Austin to make parks and facilities more accessible. He joined protesters who took over former Gov. Ann Richards' office in September 1991 to urge lawmakers to spend money for state schools on community-based initiatives for the disabled instead.
His close friend Stephanie Thomas said Templeton spoke to numerous lawmakers, including a U.S. Senate committee, and became a "voice for those with disabilities."
Templeton had numerous health problems, including respiratory infections. His partner of 14 years and fellow activist, Karen Greebon , died in 2005.
"He taught me a lot about how people with speech disabilities are not paid attention to," Thomas said. "Anyone can have opinions about how they want to live. They might not write a doctoral thesis about it, but they can make decisions for themselves."
Thomas said Templeton had a fierce activist spirit but a gentle soul. Duran said Templeton was the voice of reason and experience in pushing for affordable housing on Accessible Housing Austin's board of directors.
"People with disabilities are thought of as a barrier to affordability," Duran said. "They have been excluded in the development process."
Thomas said Templeton shared his story of being dependent on and discouraged by workers at the Austin State School who told him he could not make it in the "real world" so lawmakers could see how their decisions affect real people.
"His advocacy for himself and other people and getting out of the state school was an uphill battle," Thomas said. "He looked toward what he wanted to do and kept working for it."
crosales@statesman.com; 445-3766
Monday, January 25, 2010
Hate Crimes Request
January 23, 2010
Tom Perez
United States Department of Justice
Criminal Investigation Division
P.O. Box 66018
Washington D.C. 20035-6018
Dear Mr. Perez,
On behalf of Community Now! a Texas statewide advocacy group with a mission to support people with disabilities to live in their communities please accept this sincere and critical request to investigate numerous former Texas state employees who committed horrific acts of violence against residents of several state institutions for people with intellectual disabilities. Upon investigation and if warranted, we sincerely request that those individuals found guilty of criminal acts be charged by the DOJ with Hate Crimes against people with disabilities. It was recently reported in the Texas Tribune (note enclosed article) that since 2000, 75 former employees were fired because of confirmed Class 1 Abuse. This level of abuse is the most heinous and includes sexual and physical assault, murder and gross neglect. Of those 75 individuals, only two were incarcerated for their crimes.
It appears that in Texas there is no justice for sadists who commit violent crimes against our most vulnerable and at risk citizens. The Department of Aging and Disability Services (DADS), the agency who operates these facilities points to Adult Protective Services, (APS) the agency that investigates abuse and neglect at these facilities. APS points to local law enforcement and local law enforcement points to the County Prosecutors, and the Prosecutors do little to nothing with these cases. And with everyone pointing fingers at everyone else, people in these facilities are abused without accountability thus sending a clear message to other facility staff that you can get away with murder.
Even with state institution reform legislation passed in the previous Texas Legislative Session (SB 643), it appears that the Ombudsman position with increased oversight authority of these facilities has not been appointed by Governor Perry and even with a network of Ombudsman, there is limited authority by the Texas Attorney General to investigate and prosecute state employees with confirmed Class 1 Abuse if the County Prosecutor is not willing to do so.
As you most likely know, Texas entered into a settlement for numerous civil rights violations investigated by the DOJ CRIPPA division. Currently, the conditions of these facilities are being monitored by the DOJ. Hopefully something will come of this monitoring to ensure the safety of those who live in these facilities. Further, the hope is that the DOJ will ensure Olmstead is honored by closely monitoring the right of residents to leave the facility to live in the community upon their request.
Let me be clear, I am not asking for any further investigation from the DOJ regarding CRIPPA. On behalf of Community Now! we strongly request the immediate investigation and charges of Hate Crimes against those perpetrators of these despicable crimes. I was provided your name by the leadership at the Regional Office of Civil Rights. If you are not the right person to make the decision to investigate these crimes, I implore you to forward this letter to the individual charged with leading Hate Crime investigations at the DOJ with all haste. And if this is not within the authority of the DOJ, please provide me with the contact information of the appropriate person and agency to contact.
I look forward to your prompt response and immediate action to our requests. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
David Wittie, President
CC;
Governor Rick Perry
Lt. Governor David Dewhurst
United States Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison
United States Senator John Cornyn
United States Representative Lloyd Doggett
State Senator Steve Ogden
State Senator Jane Nelson
State Representative Patrick Rose
State Representative Abel Herrera
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Abuse of Power
Link to Texas Tribune
State employees fired for abusing Texas’ most profoundly disabled citizens are rarely prosecuted for their acts — even when they’re heinous.
A Texas Tribune review of a decade’s worth of abuse and neglect firings at state institutions for people with disabilities found that just 16 percent of the most violent or negligent employees were ever charged with crimes. Of those, the overwhelming majority had their charges reduced or dismissed; just three percent served jail time. Among the abusive employees who were never charged? An employee who punched and kicked a mentally disabled man, fracturing his ribs and lacerating his liver. An employee who sexually assaulted an immobile resident while he was giving him a bath. And a worker who used his belt to repeatedly whip a disabled resident across the face and mouth.
Elected officials, who have been under pressure from the U.S. Justice Department to improve conditions at Texas’ 13 state-supported living centers, say the lack of prosecutions is troubling — but that they can't force local district attorneys to do it.
Meanwhile, local authorities say institutional abuse cases are particularly tough to prove. The victims often can’t verbalize what happened to them. The eyewitnesses are unreliable. And just because an act of abuse is a fireable offense doesn’t mean it rises to the level of criminal conduct or even gets reported to prosecutors.
Advocacy groups say the investigation suggests a breakdown between state abuse investigators and local authorities. It also confirms their worst fear: that there’s no equal justice for people with disabilities. Unless an abuse case receives widespread media attention, like last year’s “fight club” at the Corpus Christi State School, it rarely warrants criminal charges. “If you’re the most vulnerable citizen in Texas and you’re beaten mercilessly, your perpetrator is not held accountable,” said Jeff Garrison-Tate, whose non-profit Community Now! advocates for the nearly 4,600 disabled Texans living in state institutions. “This is what perpetuates a culture of abuse in this state.”
Roughly 300 state school employees are fired or suspended every year for abusing or neglecting residents in Texas’ state-supported living centers. Since 2000, about 75 employees have been fired for “Class 1 Abuse” — the most serious physical or sexual abuse. An extensive Texas Tribune search of county and state arrest records, indictments and other court filings revealed just 13 of these fired employees were ever charged with crimes for their acts. Of those, two served jail time. Three had their cases dismissed. And seven received lesser charges or deferred adjudication in a plea deal. One case is still pending.
One employee who was fired for inserting a hairbrush in a resident's anus and fondling another resident's breasts was never charged with a crime. Neither was a worker who beat a resident in the face because she wouldn't be quiet. The woman had to be rushed to the emergency room for stitches. In another un-prosecuted case, a staffer slammed a resident face first into a door; the man sustained a head wound that required staples to close.
The Blame Game
Ask state agencies, local police and district attorneys why there are so few prosecutions and the finger pointing begins.
The Department of Aging and Disability Services oversees the state institutions and is responsible for firing abusive employees. But it doesn’t conduct abuse and neglect investigations — the Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) does it for them. Officials with DFPS say whenever they get an allegation of serious physical injury, sexual abuse or death, they contact local law enforcement within the hour. If their investigation concludes a crime may have been committed, they’re required to forward their investigative report to local authorities. But DFPS doesn’t track what happens next. And police departments say they don’t always get the reports from the state. In some cases they have opened their own investigations ahead of DFPS.
District attorneys who responded to the Texas Tribune’s interview request say they don’t always get the message — either from the state investigators or from police detectives. There’s a precedent here: During the Texas Youth Commission’s sweeping abuse scandal three years ago, thousands of un-prosecuted abuse complaints were found sitting in file folders in local police departments.
"We really like to prosecute the bad guys, the employees who pick on people in state institutions. There's no problem there," said Rob Kepple, executive director of the Texas District and County Attorneys Association. If the prosecutors aren't pursuing cases, "I would surmise we're either not getting them, or they don't rise to the level of a criminal offense."
Even when prosecutors do get the case files, they’re not always able to proceed. In some cases, they say, the act the employee was fired for doesn’t qualify as criminal conduct. In other cases, authorities don’t have the evidence or witnesses to prosecute. And occasionally, when a guilty verdict isn’t a sure bet, they don’t have the resources to make the effort. “Trying to determine who’s the guilty party, and being able to prove they were the ones who inflicted the injuries — that’s especially difficult when you have a victim who is incapacitated,” said Lubbock County District Attorney Matt Powell, whose office has prosecuted more of these Class 1 offenders than any other Texas D.A.'s office. Added Taylor County District Attorney James Eidson:"By their nature, these are pretty much circumstantial cases, which is what makes them so difficult."
And despite the fact that these abusive acts are committed by state employees, inside state-operated institutions, and against people who are sometimes wards of the state, Texas' own attorney general doesn't have the authority to step in. Following the 2007 TYC sexual abuse scandal, and revelations that a West Texas district attorney had failed to prosecute an abusive youth prison administrator, the attorney general's office asked lawmakers for more authority to step in. Lawmakers responded by allowing state prosecutors to offer assistance to local prosecutors. But the attorney general's office still can't intervene to force a prosecution.
"The Legislature has not given the Office of the Attorney General authority to prosecute these cases," said Jerry Strickland, a spokesman for Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott. "Only district attorneys have that authority."
But advocates for the disabled say all of these explanations shroud the real reason abusive employees aren’t prosecuted: because their victims can’t demand it. Many are non-verbal or intellectually impaired. Most either don’t have families to advocate for them, or have out-of-town relatives poorly positioned to keep the pressure on local authorities. In short, advocates say, prosecutors know if they don’t make the effort, no one will hold them accountable.
“If someone saw me on the street kicking my dog, I would be in jail,” Garrison-Tate said. “But when a person with a significant disability in our state-operated, taxpayer-funded institutions is beaten, nothing happens to them.”
TOMORROW: Relatives of a disabled man choked and killed in a state school share their struggle for justice.
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