Earlier this week, VOR's Rita Hoover and Hugo Dwyer attended the Annual Convention of the American Health Care Association (AHCA) in Orlando. We attended sessions for I/DD providers focusing on topics on leadership, recruitment of DSPs, hiring foreign-born workers as DSPs, and ethics. We met with vendors of products services designed for individuals with I/DD and their caregivers, and we met some very nice, very dedicated people from across the country.

In the research community, concern is growing that those with intellectual and developmental disabilities are becoming invisible in data collected from nationwide health surveys. 

Regular collection, analysis and interpretation of health data is a crucial part of how the United States tackles public health. Data collected from health surveys informs planning, implementation and evaluation of public health practices which, in turn, affect researchers, policy makers, planners and IDD advocates in roles like ours at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. 

This issue is not a new one. In 2002, a U.S. Surgeon General’s report called for improved data collection. The current methods of collecting that data, however, have left health organizations with a blind spot.

The federal government’s top special education official is heading for the exit.

The U.S. Department of Education said Wednesday that its assistant secretary for special education and rehabilitative services, Johnny Collett, plans to resign at the end of this week. His last day at the agency will be Friday.

Collett has been at the helm of the Education Department’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services since the Senate confirmed his nomination to the post in late 2017. The office is tasked with overseeing the federal government’s implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and other laws.

Note: While this article refers to the Aging Community, the policies would also apply to caregivers for people with I/DD.

LeadingAge announced Tuesday a set of proposals aimed at increasing the number of foreign-born aging services workers in the United States. The IMAGINE (International Migration of Aging and Geriatric Workers in Response to the Needs of Elders) Initiative is aimed at members of Congress and includes seven policy recommendations, which include expanding the EB-3 visa program to allow more foreign-born direct care workers to ender the United States. 

“Foreign-born workers already play a valued role in the LTSS field. More than a quarter of the current nursing home and home care workforce is made up of people born in other countries,” the organization stated. 

A group of Pennsylvania Senators, including Scott Hutchinson, has called on state Inspector General Bruce Beemer to investigate the process that led to the Department of Human Services’ (DHS) announced plans to close the Polk State Center and the White Haven State Center.Senators Scott Hutchinson (R-21st District), Michele Brooks (R-50th District), Lisa Baker (R-20th District) and John Yudichak (D-14th District) sent a letter to Inspector General Beemer citing a number of troubling issues that led them to question the actions taken by DHS.

The Senators questioned the lack of notification provided to residents of the Centers and their families, significant internal communication problems and potential conflict of interest issues in their letter to the Inspector General.

“Subsequent to the announcement, the Department held two perfunctory public hearings, as required by Act 3 of 1999, and the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, the standing oversight committee, held a public hearing. These hearings have only raised more questions about the integrity of the decision making process at the Department,” the letter states.

More than a year after Travis Luxenberg, a high-needs adult with autism was left alone and wandered 12 miles from home on a cold April night, his mother received a letter from the Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living that her ex-husband had been placed on the Adult Abuse Registry.

Despite this, Roland Luxenberg remained in charge of Travis' care and Tom Ensalata — the caregiver that Roland permitted to leave Travis alone — was still employed as his case manager.

Linda Luxenberg hoped this might shake officials at Vermont's Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living into taking swift action in improving Travis’ situation. She was wrong. In an email from Transition II, an organization that helps with logistics for Travis' care, she was told that according to the state, being placed on the abuse registry did not disqualify Roland Luxenberg from remaining in charge of his son's program. Nor did it apparently disqualify Ensalata from remaining the case manager. 

So how many and what kind of violations would spur state officials to intervene?

"I don't have a good answer for you," Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living Commissioner Monica Hutt told the Free Press.

n the case of Jordan Machia, another vulnerable adult who died while in a community-based care program in Vermont, any potential answer to that question came too late. Some of the violations that appeared in the Disability Rights Vermont investigation had been reported by his designated agency, Lamoille County Mental Health Services, according to that report.

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A jury has awarded $5.2 million to a longtime Walmart employee with a developmental disability after determining that the company failed to accommodate him.

The award comes in a case brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission accusing the company of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act in its treatment of Paul Reina who worked as a cart pusher at a Beloit, Wis. location.

Reina, who has a developmental disability and is deaf and visually impaired, had worked at the store for 16 years when a new manager took over. In his first month on the job, the new manager suspended Reina and required him to resubmit medical paperwork in order to maintain his reasonable accommodations, which included the assistance of a job coach, the EEOC said.

Reina’s condition had not changed, but when the new paperwork was submitted requesting that the

A special legislative subcommittee’s review of barriers to employment of persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) is long overdue, but it is unclear what direction the subcommittee will take on this important issue.

The “Workability Subcommittee” of the Massachusetts Legislature’s Children, Families, and Persons with Disabilities Committee has scheduled a public hearing on October 22 at 10:30 a.m. at the State House in Room B-1.

The hearing notice states that the Subcommittee is seeking to identify “solutions to promote opportunities for individuals with disabilities to participate and succeed in the workforce.”

COFAR and our members plan to testify at the hearing. We haven’t been consulted by the Subcommittee as part of its review, which began last spring and involved meetings with “disability advocates, employers, employees, and other stakeholders,” according to the hearing notice.

So on October 4, when we heard about the hearing, we posed questions in an email to the office of Representative Josh Cutler, chair of the Subcommittee and vice chair of the Children and Families Committee. Those questions were the following: