April 8, 2022
VOR Weekly News Update
VOR is a national non-profit organization that advocates for
high quality care and human rights for all people with
intellectual and developmental disabilities.
VOR promises to empower you to make and protect quality of life choices for individuals with developmental disabilities
Breaking News
Yesterday, Governor Kim Reynolds of Iowa, in conjunction with the Iowa Department of Human Services & the State Legislature, announced that they will be closing the Glenwood Resource Center in 2024.
Iowa to Close Glenwood Institution for People with Severe Disabilities
By Tony Leys, Des Moines Register, April 7, 2022
A troubled western Iowa institution for people with severe disabilities will be closed over the next two years, state leaders announced.

The Glenwood Resource Center is home to 152 Iowa adults with deep intellectual disabilities, including some caused by severe autism or brain injuries. Many of the residents also have physical disabilities. Some have lived there for decades, and many of their families have said they shouldn't have to leave.

The southwest Iowa facility is one of two state institutions that provide residential care for people with intellectual disabilities. The other is the Woodward Resource Center in central Iowa, which is to remain open under the new plan announced Thursday.

“While necessary, the decision to close the Glenwood Resource Center is a difficult one that I take very seriously," Gov. Kim Reynolds said in a joint news release with legislative leaders. "For many residents, it’s the only home they’ve ever known. I am fully committed to a seamless and successful transition of care for them, their families and the staff at Glenwood.”

The facilities are run by the Iowa Department of Human Services, whose director, Kelly Garcia, assured residents' families in December 2021 that there was no plan to close either institution anytime soon. Garcia said at the time that the mission of the two facilities would shift to focusing on temporary, intensive services for Iowans who lived most of the time in smaller placements in their communities.

But Thursday's news release suggested the closure decision was partly based on the state's struggle to attract and retain enough staff in the rural southwest region, especially with federal officials' demand that services there improve.
"Continued operation of the Glenwood Resource Center has become untenable," Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver, R-Ankeny, said in the release.

The institution has been plagued by scandal for years. In 2019, the Des Moines Register reported that frontline staffers blamed inadequate medical care for a spike in deaths among the facility's fragile residents. Jerry Foxhoven, who was the state's human services director, denied there was any problem. But he subsequently was ousted from his job, as were the Glenwood Resource Center's superintendent and medical director.

In addition to the allegations of poor medical care, former managers accused the facility's ex-superintendent of organizing unethical "sexual arousal" research on residents.

The U.S. Department of Justice launched an investigation into the controversy. In December 2020, federal investigators determined the institution appeared to have violated its residents' civil rights by denying sufficient medical care and exposing them to unethical experimentation.
The Department of Justice later declared that Iowa relies too heavily on institutional care for people with disabilities. Federal and state officials have been negotiating legal settlements to address both of those contentions.

Glenwood families are overwhelmed, stunned by news of planned closure

In 2020, Garcia launched a renewed effort to find community placements for people in the two state institutions, but she said any such moves would be voluntary.

Sybil Finken, whose son, Seth, is a longtime resident of the Glenwood institution, said she was devastated by Thursday's news.

"They're putting all of these disabled people out of their safe place. It's the worst thing that could happen," she said in a phone interview.

Seth Finken, 42, has lived at the institution since 1984. He suffered severe brain damage from meningitis he had when he was a baby and was left deaf, blind and non-verbal. Sybil Finken contends he is among a minority of people with disabilities who need the kind of extensive, around-the-clock care provided in an institution.
VOR's Sybil Finken with Seth

Finken said she had figured the Glenwood Resource Center might be closed someday. "But I didn't think it would happen so soon," she said. "It's just overwhelming."
She said she planned to attend a townhall meeting Saturday with Department of Human Services leaders.

Former Glenwood Resource Center manager Kathy King said she was stunned by Thursday's news of its planned closure. She said DHS officials, including Garcia, had repeatedly assured people in Glenwood that the facility would remain open, even as its mission evolved. She said such a pledge was repeated in a meeting in February.

Shortly after she retired four years ago, King became a public critic of the poor medical care and unethical research being done under the Glenwood Resource Center's former superintendent, Jerry Rea. She is one of several former managers suing the state over what they say were their dismissals or forced departures related to their questioning of how the facility was being run.

King is the legal guardian of a resident at the Glenwood Resource Center, and she has said conditions seemed to improve after the former superintendent and DHS director were replaced. But she said Thursday that she should have known a merger was in the offing when the state decided to have Woodward Resource Center Superintendent Marsha Edgington run both facilities instead of hiring a replacement for Rea.

"I should have seen the writing on the wall," said King, who was a state employee for 43 years. "I feel blindsided and stupid."

Advocates for Iowans with disabilities have applauded efforts to rely less heavily on institutional care, but they also have noted a severe shortage of direct care workers to assist people with disabilities in their homes or other community settings. Legislators are moving to increase Medicaid spending to raise pay for those workers, in hopes to ease the shortage.



Read related articles here and here
VOR & YOU:


Sunday, May 15, 2022
2 - 5 pm EDT / 1 - 4 pm CDT / Noon - 3 pm MDT / 11 am - 2 pm PDT
On Zoom

Followed by calls to congressional offices throughout the week.

Debriefing sessions on May 16 & 17,
6:30 - 8 pm EDT

This year's initiative will focus on the diversity of individuals within the I/DD population, the need for a full continuum of care, and need to ensure parity for all services - ICF, group home, family home, or intentional community - to meet the needs of all people with I/DD and to allow families to choose from a full range of options.

As always, our Legislative Initiative is geared to helping you become a better advocate for your loved ones with I/DD. We will help our participants to arrange meetings with Congressional Staffers via Zoom, help our members to understand how to use Zoom if they need it, and give you the advance materials and tools to make a strong presentation.
The Sunday Initiative will help prepare you for your meetings with Congressional Staffers. It will be followed by individual and group Zoom meetings with Congressional Offices
May 16 - 19,
with follow-up meetings during May and June while Congress is in session.


Registration is free. Donations are welcome.
You must be a current member of VOR to participate in the Initiative
VOR's
2022 Annual Meeting & Legislative Initiative Fundraising Drive

VOR advocates for human rights and high quality care for all people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. What sets us apart from many other advocacy groups is our recognition of those individuals with the most severe and profound I/DD, and the need to preserve a wide range of options to enable them to live their best lives.

Our Annual Meeting & Legislative Initiate are designed to help our families to participate in our organizations, to reach out to their Members of Congress, and to become better advocates for their family members with I/DD.

To continue our work, we are asking members to contribute, yet again, to keep
VOR viable.

Those who have attended our June meetings in years past will recall what they spent on transportation to and from D.C.. what hotel rooms cost, and what other expenses they incurred while in Washington. We ask that you consider giving a share of that expense, say 1/4 or 1/3 if you can,
to help us cover the ongoing costs of our advocacy and of maintaining our organization.

VOR has helped so many families over the years. Times change, politicians come and go, policies change, but the need to help families of people with I/DD continues.

Please help us to help you.
Please help us to help families like yours.
VOR's Annual Membership Meeting

Celebrate VOR's 39th Year of Family Advocacy

Sunday, June 12, 2022
On Zoom

Due to the ongoing Covid pandemic and the continued lock down of many congressional offices in Washington, D.C., we are holding our annual events online via Zoom again this year.

As in previous years, the Annual Meeting will feature an open meeting of the VOR Board of Directors, reports from states, networking opportunities, and much more!

Details coming soon. Registration will open in May.
State News
Vermont - ‘What If Something Happens to Me?’ Parents Lobby Legislature to Expand Housing Choices for Vermonters with Developmental Disabilities
By Riley Robinson, VT Digger, April 5 2022
hen Steve Kieselstein comes home from his law firm each night, he makes dinner, tidies the house, and then, when he can carve out the time, he sits down to work on a plan: How will his son be cared for when he’s gone?

Kieselstein’s 29-year-old son, Aaron, has autism, and needs constant support for communication and day-to-day skills, such as cooking. Kieselstein, 64, manages Aaron’s care and education. He trains the aides who support Aaron while Kieselstein goes to work.

He worries that when he is no longer able to care for his son, Aaron will lose the structure he’s built over the past two decades.

“He could end up with a world that’s so much smaller than it is right now,” Kieselstein said.

Elizabeth Campbell, a psychoanalyst in Shelburne, also worries about her son’s future, especially after her 61-year old husband died from a brain tumor in 2020.

“I haven’t really been able to mourn him because it’s triggered such anxiety in me,” Campbell said. “Because what if something happens to me?”

Campbell’s 24-year-old son, Jesse, has Down syndrome and Down syndrome regression disorder, and cannot be left alone for any long period of time.

Both Kieselstein and Campbell worry that as they age, or after they die, their adult children with developmental disabilities will be placed in what’s known as shared living. Some parents and advocates liken it to adult foster care.

This worries Kieselstein, based on what he’s heard from other families. What if Aaron is shuffled between homes? Who will train the shared living provider on what Aaron needs? What if the provider isn’t trained in Aaron’s applied behavior analysis program, and Aaron loses the skills he’s developed so far? What if they don’t know how to manage problem behaviors, and they stop including Aaron in social settings? And in the worst-case scenario, what if he gets hurt or arrested?
For the past three decades, shared living has been the dominant housing model for Vermonters with developmental disabilities. Previously, most were housed in institutions, the largest being the Brandon Training School in Rutland County.
When the center closed in 1993, the state lauded its progress toward inclusion.

But some advocates say the emphasis on deinstitutionalization has gone too far, limiting choices for people who would prefer to live among their peers, causing isolation and leaving overwhelming responsibility on individual, aging parents.

“There’s a general reaction in Vermont to any kind of setting in which there are more than just a couple of individuals — in part, as I understand it, as a reaction to the closing” of the Training School, Kieselstein said. “And in some ways, that’s caused the pendulum to swing all the way in the other direction.”

More than 70 Vermont parents of adults with developmental disabilities, alongside self-advocates, have been lobbying state lawmakers this session to reform the developmental disabilities services system. The parent group organized this fall as the Developmental Disabilities Housing Initiative.

Vermont is currently one of just two states where no people receiving developmental disabilities services live in group settings of six or more, according to the most recent annual report from the Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living.

Most adults receiving developmental services do not live with family. And of the approximately 1,800 Vermonters with paid support staff, about 75% are in shared living.

And while the system still works for some, Murphy said, it doesn’t work for everyone, and it is often the only option.

“It’s a terrible thing to age and realize that there’s no stable future for your totally vulnerable adult child in wonderful, enlightened Vermont,” Campbell said. “Vermont is behind other states in this regard.”

Connecticut - 70-hour Work Weeks, Sleeping in a Car: Personal Care Assistants Struggle to Care for Themselves
By Lisa Backus, Connecticut Insider, April 7, 2022
Dilliner Jordan works 62 hours a week taking care of two people who are too medically fragile to take care of themselves.

But she has no health insurance and often sleeps in her car since she can’t afford rent and a security deposit, even though she has been saving for months. She is fearful of staying at a shelter, which she believes will increase her chances of contracting COVID-19 for a second time.

“It does bother me,” the 63-year-old Brooklyn, N.Y., native said. “It bothers me a lot. I don’t understand how I could work two jobs and still can’t afford an apartment. I either make too much money for help or not enough.”

At 61, Lucía Nunez, who also works as a personal care assistant, commonly known as a home care worker, is in the same position. Nunez of East Hartford works 70 hours a week, taking care of three individuals who need help with the daily activities of life, including bathing and meals. Still, she hasn’t had a mammogram in four years.

“I can’t remember the last time I went to the doctor for a regular visit,” said Nunez, who also has no health insurance.

Jordan and Nunez are part of a 10,000-member workforce taking care of 6,000 of the state’s most vulnerable residents in their homes paid by the state Department of Social Services (DSS) and state Department of Developmental Services (DDS) through Medicaid funding.
They are mostly women—predominantly women of color—with no health care benefits, no paid time off, no paid sick days and no path to retirement even as the pandemic has worn on into a third year, said Diedre Murch, director of home care for the New England Heathcare Employees Union, SEIU District 1199.

The workers can’t legally strike to get better pay and benefits because the state has no backup system to take care of their clients, Murch said. The union, DSS and DDS have been in talks for months, even as federal pandemic relief for community care was made available. After a meeting with Gov. Ned Lamont last week, the union is hopeful that a new contract is coming, Murch said, but an agreement has not been reached.

Nunez works Monday through Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 3 to 9 p.m. for two people and then every other weekend taking care of a third person. “I’m always working more than 70 hours a week, so I can survive, pay my bills and put food on the table,” she said.

She gets no benefits other than what she calls “holy day pay,” she said. “If you work on the Fourth of July—that’s a holy day—you get paid time and a half. If you don’t work, you don’t get paid because we have no paid holidays unless we work.”

VOR's Annual Membership Meeting

Celebrate VOR's 39th Year of Family Advocacy

Sunday, June 12, 2022
On Zoom

Due to the ongoing Covid pandemic and the continued lock down of many congressional offices in Washington, D.C., we are holding our annual events online via Zoom again this year.

As in previous years, the Annual Meeting will feature an open meeting of the VOR Board of Directors, reports from states, networking opportunities, and much more!

Details coming soon. Registration will open in May.
Florida - 5 ways Florida Nursing Home Visits will Change, Thanks to Bill DeSantis Just Signed
By Kirby Wilson, Tampa Bay Times, April 6, 2022

Florida health care facilities have a new set of rules for restricting visitation thanks to a bill approved Wednesday by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Senate Bill 988, which sponsors named the “No Patient Left Alone Act,” was largely a response to the early months of the coronavirus pandemic in which the DeSantis administration severely limited visitation at Florida’s long-term care facilities and hospitals.

The state put those restrictions in place in 2020 in the hope of controlling the spread of COVID-19. As the months of isolation for residents and patients added up and complaints from loved ones mounted, DeSantis began relaxing those rules.

Starting with an emergency order issued Sept. 1, 2020, the state began allowing some visitation at nursing homes. By March 2021, DeSantis’ administration had lifted the last remaining major state restrictions.

SB 988 was a major legislative priority for DeSantis this legislative session. At a bill signing ceremony in Naples, DeSantis said a state law was needed to ensure future leaders couldn’t repeat the mistake of cutting off human interaction during a crisis.

“If there is another crisis, I think it’s important that we not lose sight over things that really matter,” DeSantis said. “This bill today really creates cement around those rights.”

Here are five things the bill — which applies to hospitals, nursing homes, hospice facilities, assisted living facilities and intermediate care centers — will do.

Missouri Announces Apprenticeship Program for Direct Support Professionals

By Michael Neill, KOMU TV-8 News, April 4, 2022

The state of Missouri announced a new apprenticeship initiative for direct support professionals, Missouri Talent Pathways, on Monday.

The program will run through the Department of Mental Health's (DMH) Division of Developmental Disabilities (DD).

The goal of the new program is to recruit and retain a highly skilled and dedicated workforce, Gov. Mike Parson said in a news release. This comes as the state continues to work toward filling health care worker shortages. 

Missouri Talent Pathways has been approved by the U.S. Division of Labor's Office of Apprenticeship. Participants who complete the program will be awarded a certificate as a certified direct support professional. 

“The public health emergency truly magnified the impact of the staffing crisis within DMH and our community partners,” DMH Director Valerie Huhn said. “This apprenticeship is a piece of the larger solution to help us stabilize the direct support professional workforce by constructing a solid career pathway.”


Autism News
APRIL IS AUTISM AWARENESS MONTH
What Every Parent Needs To Know About Kids Living With Autism
NBC Bay Area, April 6, 2022

NBC Bay Area’s Kari Hall has two children living with autism, and she spoke with Jill Escher, president of the National Council on Severe Autism, about what parents need to know.

Connecticut - New Autism Inpatient Unit for Youth Opens at Hospital for Special Care
By Jane Caffrey, NBC Connecticut News, April 6, 2022

It is Autism Awareness Month and now, there are eight new beds ready for kids and young adults who need medical care.

The brand new unit at Hospital For Special Care in New Britain is an expansion of the state’s only inpatient resource for youth diagnosed with autism.

HFSC said they are working to meet a growing need as recognition of autism and early diagnosis has improved. Right now, one in 44 children nationwide is diagnosed with autism.

The HFSC program is helping Connecticut kids and their families, in addition to welcoming patients from around the country.

With big smiles and high fives, medical providers at HFSC opened the new eight-bed inpatient for children and teens with autism Wednesday. The space joins the hospital’s 12-bed autism unit, helping young people like Ally Gomes.

"The care that she got here was around the clock,” Jackie Gomes, Ally’s mom, said.
Gomes said when Ally became a teenager, she started to experience behavioral changes.

“She could not express what she was going through. And when you're nonverbal, that's torture,” Gomes said. “We hit rock bottom. Because she couldn't communicate, behaviors started coming out, significant behaviors. And the behaviors started to become unsafe, unsafe for us as a family.”

They sought help at HFSC. During a three-month stay, Ally received medical care and psychological treatment. Hospital staff also taught her family strategies to stabilize her behaviors.

“My husband and I would visit the facility every day,” Gomes said. “We learned strategies. Every single day we walked away with the strategy that we would have to apply to Ally once we left the facility.”

However, before Ally got this care, she was on a waitlist for months. Her mom feels that proves the need for these additional beds and services.

“It's going to help so many moms and dads out there,” Gomes said. “As a mom being on a waitlist, that was that was so emotional for me. Because we were in a crisis situation, and I couldn't help my daughter, and no one could.”

Neurology
Improving Care for Adults With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
By Matt Hoffman, Neurology Live, April 7, 2022
In 2021, the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) announced the formation of a new group in the organization: the Adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDDs) Section at AAN. With the intention of providing resources and training to improve the care of children and adolescents with intellectual and developmental disabilities, the section is headed by Seth M. Keller, MD.

Infants, children, and adolescents with IDDs are often faced with comorbid conditions such as epilepsy, cerebral palsy, and autism, and are most often cared for by pediatric neurologists. Although, when these young individuals become adults and transition into adult neurology care, they are often faced with challenges, as these neurologists have been historically ill-equipped and undereducated on how to appropriately care for them.

From your perspective in the field, as far as the neurologists and the clinicians are concerned, do you think that the patient voice still needs more of a presence in the room?

Let me put it this way. When children with intellectual developmental disabilities, they're brought in with their parent advocates, who have a very strong, loud voice for their children. And so, in pediatrics and pediatric neurology, in particular, there's huge attention often for developmental disability because of parents being at the forefront and because pediatrics have education and training, they've got centers, you can get board certification in pediatrics for developmental disabilities. The challenge is basically when they grow up, and they turn 18 years old, they go to adult providers—adult neurologists—and that's where basically things hit the wall. That’s because the adult neurologists, basically, are not at all getting any education and training in medical school, they’re not getting any training in residency or fellowship, in the care of the neurologic complications of adults with IDD. A big part really starts in the transitioning process, trying to find a so-called good or knowledgeable adult neurologist who understands those with Down syndrome, understands those with cerebral palsy, who understand those with autism who are developing neurologic complications, and are trying to find an adult provider. It's been very difficult. There have been papers written about it by not only AAN, but other organizations like the Child Neurology Foundation, that are trying to help figure it out. The problem is there's a lack of education and training for the adult neurologists.

How does that transition process different for this patient population? Are there ongoing efforts to address those challenges specific to them?

Adult neurologists may not really appreciate them as people with value or that need equity of care. And that's the other part about it. They may not be able to—because they're not really trained about seeing an adult with an intellectual developmental disability—to provide care for them. To care for someone—this is kind of a philosophical comment—and to care for a patient, you obviously can know a drug, you can know a disease, you can order a test, but to actually provide care for them, you have to be able to, at some level, connect with them as a person who has value. And I'm not trying to throw anyone under the bus about it, but you have to really connect with them. There might be a disconnection between a neurologist or any other healthcare provider—not just neurology, really any healthcare provider—about connecting to someone who's not a little child, is not with their parent, someone who you may not have the “warm and fuzzies” for as much as you could with a child.

Families of individuals with severe/profound intellectual and developmental disabilities and autism need a voice in Washington, D.C.

For 39 Years, VOR Has Been That Voice

Please help us to continue to speak truth to power about the need for a diverse range of services, increased funding, and a full continuum of care to meet the needs of all people with I/DD and Autism.

This year, our Executive Director Hugo Dwyer, our legislative policy advisor Gayle Gerdes, Presidents Sam Friedman and Harris Capps, and members of the VOR Board of Directors have participated in over fifty meetings with Congressional Staff. Together, we have advised on bills to protect Intermediate Care Facilities, to preserve 14(c) opportunities for individuals with I/DD, and to increase pay, training, and benefits for direct support professionals to alleviate the DSP crisis.

We have contacted attorneys from the Department of Justice’ Civil Rights Division concerning increased mortality rates among people with I/DD in wake of the closing of state operated intermediate care facilities in Virginia. We have met by Zoom with the same DOJ attorneys concerning their current action in to move people out of ICFs in Iowa. Just today, we met with leadership of the Administration for Community Living to discuss our mutual concerns and to offer paths forward to help serve all people with I/DD,

In order to have such a presence in D.C., we have had to change with the times. Covid made in-person meetings next to impossible. We have had to adapt to holding virtual meetings on Zoom or WebEx. In order to compete with larger, better-funded organizations, we have had to hire the lobbying firm of Health Policy Source to advise us on how best to approach the powers that be and to facilitate our access to congressional staff. This has cost us, but we feel this has been money well spent. Now, we are asking you to help support us in this effort.

VOR Bill Watch:
[Please click on blue link to view information about the bill]

VOR SUPPORTS:

Modifying the Build Back Better Act to include language to provide funding for Intermediate Care Facilities in parity with increased funding for HCBS services, and to remove any provisions that would phase out or eliminate 14(c) wage certificate programs.

H.R. 4779 & S. 1437 - Recognizing the Role of Direct Support Professionals Act - To require the Office of Management and Budget to revise the Standard Occupational Classification system to establish a separate code for direct support professionals, and for other purposes.
H.R.6075 - The HEADs UP Act - To amend the Public Health Service Act to expand and improve health care services by health centers and the National Health Service Corps for individuals with a developmental disability as a Medically Underserved Population (MUP).

H.R.4761 - A bill to amend the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 to ensure workplace choice and opportunity for young adults with disabilities.

H.R.4762 - A Bill to amend the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 to clarify the definition of competitive integrated employment.


VOR OPPOSES:

S. 3417 - The Latonya Reeves Freedom Act of 2021 - This bill may be seen as the offspring of the Disability Integration Act from the 116th Congress. It misrepresents Olmstead, and contains provisions that would be harmful to the existence of ICFs, including a section that would promote lawsuits against larger congregate care facilities.

H.R. 603 & S. 53 - The Raise the Wage Act - These bills are aimed at raising the minimum wage, but they also have provisions to phase out and ultimately eliminate vocational centers and 14 (c) wage certificates over the next six years and to immediately stop the issuing of any new certificates. VOR believes the issue of employment options for individuals with intellectual disabilities should not be buried in a bill for raising the federal minimum wage. Both issues deserve clean, stand-alone bills.

H.R.1880 - To amend the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 to make permanent the Money Follows the Person Rebalancing Demonstration.

H.R. 2383 & S. 3238 - The Transformation to Competitive Integrated Employment Act - this bill purports to assist employers providing employment under special certificates issued under section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 in transforming their business and program models to models that support individuals with disabilities through competitive integrated employment, to phase out the use of these special certificates. We feel that, if enacted, tens of thousands of people with I/DD and autism will still be forced out of opportunities they currently, needlessly, and left without viable alternatives to occupy their time or address their needs and their abilities.

H.R.4131 & S.2210 - The Better Care Better Jobs Act - To be clear, we don't oppose this bill. We object to the fact that it excludes the most vulnerable members of the I/DD population.

While the Better Care Better Jobs Act would greatly increase the amount of federal funding for people with I/DD, it only supports those in waiver programs receiving Home and Community Based Services. It unjustly discriminates against those who have chosen Intermediate Care Facilities as the necessary and proper form of residential treatment. By giving a 10% increase n federal matching funds only to HCBS clients, and providing training and increased pay only to direct support professionals working in HCBS facilities, the act deliberately favors one form of treatment over another, one ideology over another, and one set of people with I/DD over another.
Direct Support Professionals:
VOR ❤️s OUR DIRECT SUPPORT PROFESSIONALS!

Our loved ones' caregivers are essential to their health, safety, and happiness.
In appreciation of their good work and kind hearts, VOR offers free digital memberships to any DSP who would like to join.

We encourage our members to speak with their loved ones' caregivers to extend this offer of our gratitude.

If you are a Direct Support Professional interested in receiving our newsletter and e-content, please write us at


with your name, email address, and the name of the facility at which you work. Please include the name of the VOR member who told you of this offer.

What's Happening In Your Community?

Is there an issue in your loved one's home that you need help with?
Do you have information or a news story you would like to share?
Is there legislation in your state house that needs attention?

Contact us at info@vor.net
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