Federal officials say that a major university health care system will change its ways after denying a person with intellectual disability the opportunity to be placed on a transplant list.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights said it has reached a resolution with the University of North Carolina Health Care system over a complaint alleging that a doctor decided that an individual with intellectual disability would not be a good candidate for a heart transplant because of their disabilities and the fact that the person does not live independently.

The Medicaid provider had assured her that this was the best option, so Marie Solomonik walked into the day-habilitation center in Queens, New York, with all the optimism she could muster. Marie was with her husband, Eddie, on this rainy March morning to scout out the facility for their son, Anthony, who has autism.

“This place makes my skin crawl,” Marie whispered.

“Just promise me you’ll keep an open mind,” Eddie responded.

In the past, centers like these had been a torment for Anthony. There was the time in middle school when another boy hit him in the face with a metal lunch box. There were the girls in the park who mocked him relentlessly for being nonverbal. And there was the incident during gym class when he tripped on the treadmill and got caught in the conveyor belt. By the time anyone noticed him trying to scream, nearly all the skin had been flayed from his knees.

The horrors were enough to persuade the school district to cover the costs of a specialized

n 1991, 11-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard was abducted while walking from her home to a nearby school bus stop. She was sexually assaulted and confined for 18 years before she and the two daughters she had in captivity were recovered from kidnappers Phillip and Nancy Garrido.

How do you start to heal after a trauma like that?

One of the things that helped the most, Dugard says, was horses. She and her children and mother did equine-facilitated therapy (EFT) with Rebecca Bailey, a clinical and forensic psychologist who specializes in complex trauma scenarios. Dugard was so impressed with the experience, she went on to found the JAYC Foundation to give other families in crisis the same access to healing.

“Horses have the special ability to make you be totally in the moment, making talking about the trauma I went through so much easier and less painful,” says Dugard, now 38. “The work Dr. Bailey was doing really resonated with me. The way she incorporated horses into our sessions was so much more impactful than just regular talk therapy.”

A groundbreaking ceremony Thursday morning marked the beginning of construction on a 32,000-square-foot expansion at the North Florida School of Special Education.

With more than 200 students and a wait list for all classes, the special-needs school on Mill Creek Road in Arlington has outgrown its current space.

More than 100 people, including Mayor Lenny Curry and his wife, Molly, attended the groundbreaking of the expansion of the North Florida School of Special Education.

"Eight classrooms for elementary and intermediate students. There will be a state-of-the-art music room, art therapy room, all of our speech occupational therapy, physical therapy rooms. There will be a full-size gymnasium, commercial kitchen," Head of School Sally Hazelip said.

Also included in the expansion is Jacksonville's first urban equestrian center, which will offer equine therapy.

It was the way the bed looked. More like an oversized crib, or even a cage, than a bed. Its tall wooden slats, locks and hinged doors screamed “restraint” to state health officials who saw it in the bedroom of Julianna Wadsack, a teenager with severe disabilities.

But to Julianna’s parents, it was a safe place for their daughter to sleep, a guard against her wandering when caregivers were preoccupied, lest the child walk into walls or, worse, collapse on the floor from a seizure.

Their battle with state authorities over the bed that Julianna’s doctors had prescribed dragged on for 2 1/2 years, burned through $100,000 in attorney fees and challenged the notion of how much – or how little – restraint is allowed when caring for individuals with developmental disabilities.

The bed that dominates Julianna's bedroom is no ordinary sleep system for a teenager. It's a piece of durable medical equipment, designed to provide a safe environment for people with neurodevelopmental disorders and obtained through a medical prescription.

Julianna has many of those disorders: cerebral palsy, intractable epilepsy syndrome, autism and severe intellectual disability. She also has various physical disabilities, including scoliosis, blindness in one eye and limited vision in the other.

Her parents, Garret and Justine Wadsack, bought the KayserBettern bed in 2012, paying $25,000 through Garret's insurance. It has slats on its tall sides and on top to keep Julianna, now 15, from climbing out. It has locks on the hinged doors and an extra-long mattress that fits tightly against the rails to prevent an individual from getting wedged between bedding and slats.

Sub-minimum wage certificates allow employers to hire people with disabilities for less than minimum wage when disabled employees are not able to work at full capacity equal to their non-disabled peers doing the same job. Special wage certificates are often used to support people in center-based work programs (sheltered workshops) that may also provide an array of other services in addition to employment. When these programs are eliminated for people with more severe and complex disabilities, against their will and over the objections of their families, they often end up working fewer hours or not at all, spending more time at home watching TV or other unproductive activities. The alternative, "supported employment" in competitive integrated work settings, can be very costly and is not always desired by or as satisfying for the person with a disability.