The New Jersey Department of Human Services Commissioner Carole Johnson announced today that wage increases totaling $36 million have taken effect for direct support professionals who work with individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities to help them live successfully in communities across New Jersey.

The announcement comes during Direct Support Professional Recognition Week, which runs from Sept. 8 to 14.

Federal education officials are asking for ideas as they work to strengthen transition services for students with disabilities.

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services is asking for feedback from parents, states, school districts, vocational rehabilitation providers and other stakeholders on how the agency can best use technical assistance to guide states on improving “postsecondary transition services to all students and youth with disabilities.”

The desperate fight to save a facility for people with intellectual disabilities continues.People rallied outside Saint Patrick’s Church in White Haven where the Department of Human Services held a public hearing. Thursday evening’s hearing allowed people to voice their concerns on the planned closure of the White Haven Center. Comments made Thursday will help guide DHS during the transitional process, but for many, that’s not enough.

Tom Kashatus’ daughter has lived at the center for 40 years. He had a message for Governor Tom Wolf.

Please view and share this video from the families and friends of the Whitten Center in South Carolina. They speak of the high quality of care and the sense of community that enriches the live of the residents of their center.

In recent months, court commissioners on both sides of the Cascades have found the state of Washington in contempt, and even imposed fines, over access to state psychiatric care for people with severe developmental disabilities.

The cases involve people who’ve been found to pose an imminent risk to themselves or others, but are languishing in local hospitals.

Their plight has become the latest legal front in a years-old battle over the availability of beds at Western and Eastern State Hospitals, the state’s two psychiatric facilities.

For families, the delays in access to care and the ensuing legal battles have been anguishing.

Last October, Dawn Akerman moved her 51-year-old brother Fred to Washington from Texas in hopes he’d get better care for his severe intellectual disabilities.

But in November, Fred violently lashed out at Akerman and her husband. The police were called. With no crisis intervention beds available,

People with intellectual and developmental disabilities often get individualized support in order to hold a job. Many work for regular pay, but a nearly century-old federal labor law allows some employers to pay these workers less than minimum wage.

Lawmakers called a task force to study this issue earlier this year. The Legislative Health and Human Services' Disabilities Concerns Subcommittee heard arguments Wednesday for and against the controversial practice.

The U.S. Department of Labor program allows employers to adjust wages based on how a person’s disability affects their work productivity. Critics say that's discriminatory and exploitative, while proponents say it’s a good option for folks who might not otherwise get hired. 

Wendy Corry, the consultant who headed the study, told lawmakers Wednesday that all the task force members agree on one big idea: “Everybody, regardless of their severity of disability, has the ability to work, given the right supports, the right

An Ulster County father says his son with autism was wrongfully imprisoned for the past five months and is telling his side of the story.

Vincent Carozza, 25, of Milton, was indicted in April for attempted arson after allegedly trying to set fire to a group home in Dutchess County and assaulting a staff member.

“Everybody figured that eventually the charges would be dismissed or turned into a misdemeanor," says his father, Joseph. "He put a battery and spoon in the microwave...There was no fire, no damage, no harm."

Carozza says his son didn't commit a crime and that his disability wasn't considered when he was charged and eventually found unfit to stand trial.

Carol Nesteikis, 66, has never committed a crime.

But for two years, from six in the evening to six in the morning the next day, she lived under de facto house arrest with her 32-year-old son, Adam. It wasn’t because she wanted to. The home itself was a kind of punishment, she says.

Adam was sentenced to 10 years on the sex offender registry and two years of probation in Illinois for exposing himself to a neighbor,

something Nesteikis says he was coerced to do by a man who was abusing Adam. Since the victim of Adam’s offense lived nearby, Adam was required to move out of his family’s house the same day he pleaded guilty—and for two years was ordered to remain inside his new quarters during the evening.

Adam has an intellectual disability, however, and functions with the mind of a 10-year-old. He would starve on his own, Nesteikis says. She and her husband had to move away with him, and spent $150,000 to find and maintain a home that meets

When she was 23, Marca Bristo, a nurse in Chicago, was sitting with a friend on the shore of Lake Michigan. Her friend’s dog accidentally knocked a prized pair of Ms. Bristo’s shoes into the water and, without a second thought, she dived in to retrieve them.

Striking her head, she broke her neck and was paralyzed from the chest down. In that instant, Ms. Bristo’s life changed forever in ways she could never have anticipated. She lost her job, her health insurance, could no longer use public transportation and had no access to many public places.

But rather than dwell on her misfortune, she became a powerful advocate for people with disabilities, spending her life working to change perceptions and the rules in a world that had traditionally ignored the needs of the disabled.