Ohio parents sue to stop 'provider of last resort' policy
Plus: Questions swirl around illiterate college student who graduated from 12 years of Connecticut special education; Rhode Island judgement still lacks systemic reforms, say advocacy organizations
Medical Motherhood’s news round up
Snippets of news and opinion from outlets around the world. Click the links for the full story.
• From CT Mirror (Connecticut): “GOP lawmakers seek state accountability for graduate who can’t read”
Republican state lawmakers are calling on the Connecticut Department of Education to respond to a second lawsuit filed by a graduate of Hartford Public Schools who has a disability and alleges she never learned to read or write.
Aleysha Ortiz filed the complaint in Hartford Superior Court Friday against the City of Hartford, the local board of education and a special education case manager in the district. Ortiz alleged she was bullied, harassed and neglected by district staff, including the case manager.
[…]“We continue to seek accountability as to how this student was illiterate when she graduated and how the system failed her year after year,” the letter [from State Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding and Sen. Eric Berthel, a ranking member on the Legislature’s Education Committee, to Education Commissioner Charlene Russell-Tuckerread] read.
[…]Earlier this week, at the Hartford Board of Education’s December meeting, Ortiz spoke publicly for the first time since the CT Mirror investigation published.
She fumbled with the microphone, gathered herself and took several deep breaths. Her voice cracked as she started speaking.
“I wish I could say I was a proud graduate of Hartford Public Schools, but I consider myself more as a survivor,” Ortiz said. “My chance at a successful future was supposed to be my right, but instead, you made it a tease and that should be illegal.”
Ortiz’s eyes were welling up, but she gained confidence as she spoke. She said her inability to read and write makes daily life a challenge. “Every milestone I am supposed to have here is now a struggle. I cannot read road signs, how am I supposed to get my driver’s license? Text-to-speech shouldn’t be the only way I can express myself. How am I supposed to work my first job?” Ortiz said.
But she said she’s determined to be part of the solution. “I am here for the kids who suffered and continue to suffer just like me. I believe in a future where each student will leave Hartford Public Schools with a story of success, a story that will show the entire state that being from the capital is something to be proud of.”
• From Providence Now (Rhode Island): “Advocates and organizations react to US Attorney deal with Rhode Island over disabled children”
Multiple advocacy organizations have released reactions to the Department of Justice’s agreement with the State of Rhode Island to resolve violation of federal disability laws.
The original report accused the state and the Department of Children, Youth, and Families of neglecting children with disabilities, in some cases leaving children in need of mental health services hospitalized for up to a year despite being ready for discharge.
The agreement requires DCYF to comply with multiple federal laws it was accused of violating.
Rhode Island Coalition for Children and Families Executive Director Tanja Kubas Meyer said that the agreement would “[address] critical shortcomings in the state’s response to children with serious behavioral health needs” […But a class action lawsuit filed in November points to broader systemic issues in the state than the consent decree addresses.]
[…The letter, from multiple Rhode Islander disability rights organizations, reads in part:] “Our organizations applaud any effort to address the state’s serious and long-standing failure to protect the rights of children with disabilities from harsh, unnecessary, and counter-productive institutionalization.
“But the existing problem is far broader than children or youth who are admitted to Bradley Hospital for mental health treatment instead of appropriate community-based settings. There are many, many other Rhode Island children and youth placed in other restrictive residential care settings when their mental health conditions could be, and the law requires them to be, adequately treated in less restrictive family-like settings.
“The current level of dysfunction in segregating youth with mental health needs is exacerbated by the lack of adequate access to intensive in-home services and mobile crisis services that are legally mandated to be available to eligible children and youth under Medicaid. The proposed consent decree offers to address only one small part of this much bigger problem that our lawsuit tackles.” […]
• From Local 12 (Ohio): “'Replace you with a stranger': Families seek to retain right to care for disabled children”
Parents of developmentally disabled children are suing the state of Ohio so they can continue caring for their children who cannot live on their own.
Many parents want to provide home care for their developmentally disabled children as opposed to putting them in institutions or hiring home care workers. Up until this year, parents could become qualified and then get paid by the state as caregivers. But the Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities (DoDD) passed a rule in January that forces these parents to attempt to hire outside care workers for their children. That rule affects Maeve Sodano's family and 40,000 other children like her in Ohio who need serious care.
[…]The rule, passed by the Ohio DoDD says, “A parent or spouse may only provide homecare services if there is no other willing and able provider.”
Then an addendum says parents must "Re-engage the provider search process every four to six months. If a parent chooses not to for whatever reason, they cannot continue as a paid provider.”
“They try to do a search to replace you with a stranger, even though everything's going fine,” said Lindsey [Sodano]. “They just want to make sure — I don't know. I don't know what they're trying to make sure of, but they're trying to get the parents out of these positions and put other people in them.”
So, the Sodanos and two other families are suing to have the rule removed. Lindsay says the DoDD is influenced by the Ohio Association of County Boards of Developmental Disabilities (OACBDD), who she says has a bias against parents — a fact she believes is proven by a video of a recent association meeting, where caseworkers were asked what they think of the families they serve who they consider difficult.
[…]In a letter to the state, the OACBDD [an association of county developmental disabilities boards] said it opposes parents as caregivers because caregiving would become "unsustainable fiscally".
(Editor’s note: Lindsey Sodano is a friend and co-organizer with me of Pay Family Caregivers National Coalition.)
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