Halloween was fun!

Bring on the Holiday Season!

Halloween at a home for adults with intellectual disabilities is a heartwarming celebration of joy, inclusion, and creativity. Each year, our group homes enjoy the Halloween season with costumes and events leading up to Halloween night. Our Direct Support Professionals make this a celebration for our residents at each of the homes.

Caregivers and volunteers ensure that everyone feels safe and comfortable, fostering an atmosphere of acceptance and belonging. The simplicity of the festivities allows residents to express themselves, fostering a sense of pride and community, making Halloween a cherished annual event.

We hope you enjoyed Halloween with family and friends through parties, parades and trick or treating in your own neighborhoods.

As we enter the holiday season, we are delighted and look forward to spending quality time with loved ones. This is a celebratory time of the year and we appreciate you being a part of our Hartwood Foundation family!

This is a celebratory time of the year and appreciate you being a part of our Hartwood Family!

Museum Makes Major Acquisition of Works by Artists with IDD

SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art announced the acquisition of more than 150 works by 23 artists with developmental disabilities from three Bay Area art centers. It is the largest acquisition focusing on the disability community in the museum’s history.

Oakland’s Creative Growth represents 113 works in the acquisition while San Francisco’s Creativity Explored makes up 31 and Richmond’s NIAD Art Center includes 12. The three organizations were founded by Florence and Elias Katz and are dedicated to working with artists with developmental disabilities. The art includes works on paper, painting, sculpture, film and textile.

“We hope that this is a landmark acquisition that encourages and sets a benchmark for other institutions,” said Katy Siegel, SFMOMA’s research director, special program initiatives. “This is an important first step in a terrain where many people have been doing the work for decades, most of all, Creative Growth, NIAD and Creativity Explored. We’re mindful that we’re catching up and have an enormous amount of work to do.”

The news comes on the heels of significant years for all three art centers. Creativity Explored is celebrating its 40th anniversary while NIAD marked the milestone in 2022. All three organizations are the subject of the exhibition “Into the Brightness: Artists from Creativity Explored, Creative Growth & NIAD” at the Oakland Museum of California, on view through Jan. 21.

“Creativity Explored, NIAD and Creative Growth were dreamed into existence by our visionary founders, Florence Ludins Katz and Elias Katz,” said Creativity Explored Executive Director Linda Johnson. “Their innate understanding of the value that disabled artists bring has meant better lives for people with disabilities worldwide, and a richer, realer art world for everyone.”

Siegel said that she hopes the acquisition and partnership push museums to think about expanding their collections to include more artists with disabilities.

“I think any time a museum of the scale and reputation that SFMOMA has commits a gesture of this size, it changes things,” Siegel said. “Other museums feel a sense of permission, or at least a sense of curiosity, about what that might look like in their own institutions.”

This article was featured in the San Francisco Chronicle by Tony Bravo on October 7th, 2023.

Tammie Hudson tends to Ian Roe, who has cerebral palsy, at his home near Dayton, Ohio. Hudson often works overtime to fill shifts and the needs of her clients. (Courtney Hergesheimer/The Columbus Dispatch/TNS)

Senators Seek Emergency Funding To Ensure Access To Disability Services

With staffing shortages threatening the availability of Medicaid home and community-based services for people with disabilities across the country, federal lawmakers are looking to boost funding.

A group of 18 Democrats in the U.S. Senate introduced a bill this week that would provide extra dollars for disability services for two years.

The legislation known as the Home and Community-Based Services, or HCBS, Relief Act would temporarily offer states a 10-point increase in their federal Medicaid match, money that could be used to increase pay or benefits for direct support professionals, fund recruitment efforts, support family caregivers or reduce waiting lists for services, among other things, according to Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., the measure’s lead sponsor.

“A vast majority of seniors and people with disabilities would prefer to receive care at home or in their communities,” Casey said. “Unfortunately, because of our nation’s caregiving crisis, home and community-based care has become increasingly difficult to access. By stabilizing and investing in the caregiving workforce, we can better provide seniors and people with disabilities with a real and significant choice to receive care in the setting of their choosing.”

Currently, disability service providers are leaning on extra funding from the American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package signed in 2021, which many have used to pay for wage increases, bonuses, sign-on incentives and professional development, according to Elise Aguilar, director of federal relations at the American Network of Community Options and Resources, or ANCOR, which represents disability service providers across the nation. That funding, however, is set to expire in March 2025 and the new proposed bill would essentially extend that lifeline.

“The temporary funding provided through the American Rescue Plan was incredibly helpful in allowing providers to invest in their workforce, but with the expiration of that funding, providers cannot sustain those efforts,” Aguilar said. “We are hopeful that an extension of this critical funding will help providers continue to invest in stabilizing the workforce.”

Advocates have been pushing Congress for years to address the growing crisis in the disability services sector with long-term funding increases, but so far such efforts have faltered. Meanwhile, a 2022 survey of providers across the country found that 70% could not fill vacancies for direct care positions. As a result, 63% said they had discontinued some programs and services while 83% indicated that they were turning away new referrals.

This article was featured in the October 2023 issue of Disability Scoop

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