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Notice of address change for dues and donations: As of August 1, 2007, dues and donations should be sent to, VOR, 836 S. Arlington Heights Rd., #351, Elk Grove Village, IL 60007. See http://www.vor.net/staff for additional VOR office locations. ----------------------------------------VOR Weekly E-Mail UpdateSeptember 7, 2007-----------------------------------------
========================================================== Table of Contents
Missouri Families Reach the Media
1. Introductory Note: Reaching the Media
2. Retardation Association of Missouri (RAM) – Letter to the Mental Health Commission, State Legislators and News Media re: Risks to MRDD Due to State Policy
3. Retardation Association of Missouri (RAM) Speaks Out Against Privatization
4. Letter to the Editor from a Parent Regarding the Missouri DD Planning Council
5. Sprinklers Save Lives; Legislators Don’t ========================================================== ----------------------------------------------------------- 1. Introductory Note: Reaching the Media -----------------------------------------------------------
This issue illustrates the effectiveness of family/choice advocates in one state reaching the media. With great regularity, members of the Retardation Association of Missouri and the Parents Association of Bellefontaine Habilitation Center – both state level VOR affiliates – are successful in getting their views known to the media, general public, members of the legislature, the Missouri Governor, and the Department of Mental Health. Their letters to the editor appear regularly, as do quotes from families in newspaper articles involving Bellefontaine.
In its Grassroots Organization and Advocacy Toolkit, VOR writes, “Letters to the editor can be powerful vehicles for influencing or inspiring public debate, making the case for your issue, or responding to related events. In addition, elected officials always read the opinion pages of their local paper, because it gives them an idea of what their constituents think.” Newspaper editors and reporters will also pay attention to letters to the editor as a gauge for the level of interest in a particular issue and local experts/stakeholders to interview for future stores.
This issue is a salute to one group of families who have made a concerted effort to be heard in the media. They are an example to follow.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Retardation Association of Missouri (RAM) – Letter to the Mental Health Commission, State Legislators and News Media re: Risks to MRDD Due to State Policy -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editor’s Note – Background: In March 2007, the families of Bellefontaine Habilitation Center received a good news/bad news announcement from Missouri Governor Matt Blunt. Upon announcing he was reversing his decision to close Bellefontaine Habilitation Center, he would be pursuing a partnership with a private provider to oversee 120 of the 156 residents. Families have since come out strongly against the privatization component of the plan to keep Bellefontaine open. Their objections to privatization are the subject of the following letter, as well as the letters to the editor that follow in this edition of the Weekly E-Mail Update
Source: Letter from Betty Coll, President of RAM August 27, 2007
The view of the Department of Mental Health director, Keith Schafer, should be clarified (St. Louis Post Dispatch, 8/25/07).
We resent the reference to our severely mentally retarded and developmentally disabled (MRDD) loved ones as statistics, comparing the numbers of residents being reduced from state habilitation centers to community placements, as if that was more significant than their well-being. Unfortunately, too many of the residents that were moved to the community have been receiving less services than they had at the habilitation centers.
We have never disagreed that a wide range of residential options for people with MRDD is needed. But, the Department of Mental Health is so intent on carelessly reducing the populations at state habilitation centers, they overlook the hazards and inadequacies of community placements for MRDD with special behaviors. It is difficult to have a fair consensus concerning placements when so many of the Department of Mental Health advisors are community providers of anti-state habilitation centers.
Mr. Schafer claims the Department of Mental Health has concern for the safety of people with Mental Retardation/Developmental Disabilities, yet, they continue to move the severely mentally retarded residents from habilitation centers after the Mental Health Commission along with the governor’s task force pointed out the inability of the Department of Mental Health to provide services:
*3,886 on waiting list for services. *Dept. of Mental Health’s inability to recruit, train, and retrain direct-care staff. *Insufficient pay for direct-care staff. *MRDD has statewide inconsistencies in eligibility determination, service planning, waiting list criteria, case management, and treatment services. *Housing services for the mentally ill are inadequate. *Hundreds of individuals who are seriously mentally ill are also chronically homeless. *MRDD does not have the clinical leadership necessary to assure quality care in its state operated and community placement programs.
In addition to the neglected waiting list, fire sprinklers are not mandatory in community provider homes with less than 20 beds. Also, community providers do not have to meet the same regulations and safety standards like the state habilitation centers.
Bellefontaine Habilitation Center was once the leader of all state habilitation centers. The first to have group homes on their grounds, and generated the most federal dollars for the state’s general revenue. The Department of Mental Health has neglected to keep up the cottages at Bellefountaine, but, new buildings are not necessary. They can be updated at a lesser cost to the taxpayers.
It is wrong to neglect the vital Bellefontaine Habilitation Center campus and keep over 20 cottages closed.
What is most important is that Bellefontaine be available for those who have severe MRDD and consideration be given to families/guardians who opt for the services that this great facility can provide.
Bad decisions and planning have been made. The credibility of the Department of Mental Health is at issue and the lives of the severely MRDD are threatened.
Your help is desperately needed and would be greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
Betty Coll
President, Retardation Association of Missouri (RAM) St. Louis, MO
------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3. Bellefontaine Parent Speaks Out Against Privatization -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Letter to the Editor Jim Kemp – Parent (St. Louis) August 2007 St. Louis Dispatch
I have a daughter who is profoundly mentally retarded, blind and cannot speak. She is not able to tell anyone how she feels. She resides at Bellefontaine Habilitation Center.
Bellefontaine Center is a state-operated facility for the mentally retarded who have the most severe disabilities. Residents who have moved from Bellefontaine into community placements have not received care as good as they received at Bellefontaine. Also, it is know that neglect and abuse in scattered homes in the community outnumber that in state habilitation centers.
No place ever will be perfect, but the No. 1 priority of state habilitation centers is the safety of the residents, and the centers have to meet state and federal regulations. Not so with private providers. They do not have to meet the same standards, nor do they have to have fire sprinklers in homes with fewer than 20 beds. NO one knows what goes on in these private homes that are not monitored adequately.
It should be the right and the choice of families and guardians as to where severely mentally retarded individuals reside.
Privatization and private community homes are not in the best interest of the mentally retarded with serious handicaps.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Letter to the Editor from a Parent Regarding the Missouri DD Planning Council and Privatization -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editor’s Note: In August 2007, the Missouri Planning Council sponsored the placement of full color flyers in every Missouri newspaper with this message, “Missouri spends over $100,000,000 each year to keep people who have committed no crime locked away from society. The real crime here is thinking that it is necessary. Some believe that placing 1,000 Missourians with developmental disabilities in habilitation centers is best for them. It’s simply not true. Moving people from institutions to a community setting generally leads to a better quality of life, while saving the taxpayers millions of dollars.” The Missouri Planning Council for Developmental Disabilities is a federally-funded (from taxpayer dollars) organization.
Letter to the Editor James Vondras – Parent August 2007 St. Louis Post Dispatch
After the Missouri Planning Council’s access to the Department of Justice’s report, they stated, “Most individuals residing at BHC desire to leave, and it is not a safe place for our fellow citizens.” The Missouri Planning Council’s description of a “higher quality of life in a less restrictive environment” for these profoundly retarded and physically disabled residents proves their absolute ignorance regarding the needs of these disabled individuals.
The fact is that the Department of Justice report’s actual quote after their visit to BHC in 2005, stated that, “the majority of residents who were interviewed at Bellefontaine Habilitation Center, expressed a desire to move to the community.” However, it did not say how many residents were interviewed or how many were able to be interviewed. Nor was it revealed that the BHC residents were led to believe that community homes are “Pie in the Sky” compared to their current homes.
It should not be overlooked that the severely and profoundly retarded residents whoo reside at BHC require legal guardians because they are unable to converse or make decisions for themselves. Also, it is not mentioned how many of these residents were physically and mentally upset, and cried, when they were forced to leave their homes at the Bellefontaine Habilitation Center. Many shouted, “Bellefontaine is my home, I don’t want to leave.” Many had to be returned to Bellefontaine because the community could not handle them.
The Missouri Planning Council for years has attempted to close all state institutions housing Missouri’s severely and profoundly handicapped citizens. To support further destruction of Missouri’s protection of the profoundly disabled citizens, the Governor and Department of Mental Health want to privatize BHC.
Privatization has been known to cause loss of lives and millions of taxpayer’s dollars. The Department of Mental Health’s policy of hiring expensive consultants and their proposal for a multi-million dollar budget for a private corporation to build a “State of the Art” facility, is an absolute waste of taxpayer’s money when the current facility has been a model for other state mental health facilities.
Bellefontaine Hab. Center is the State of the Art mental health facility. All that is necessary is to renovate the cottages that have been closed since residents have been moved out.
Lets save millions of taxpayers’ money when all that is needed is some common sense rather than dumping the mentally retarded without restrictions, or oversight, or authority. These citizens are unable to talk, make decisions, and are blind. They are being forced into a “for profit” category that attempts to relinquish the responsibilities of the Department of Mental Health.
----------------------------------------------------------- 5. Sprinklers Save Lives; Legislators Don’t -----------------------------------------------------------
Source: Parents Association, Inc.
SLSSH – Bellefontaine Habilitation Center Newsletter
Letter to the Editor St. Louis Post Dispatch
According to fire/safety professionals, a properly installed fire sprinkler system extinguishes a fire in its incipient stage so that the fire will not jeopardize the entire building.
The National Fire Protection Association has been keeping records since 1996 and it never has had a report of a multiple-death fire in a building with a properly installed fire sprinkler system.
The Anderson Guest house for the Mentally Ill in Missouri burned down November 27, 2006 in a blaze that investigators believe smoldered in the attics electrical wiring. Eleven people died.
State legislation was passed this session to mandate that sprinkler systems be installed in all group homes that have more than 20 beds. The legislators, who are responsible for not including all group homes with less than 20 beds, should be ashamed of themselves.
Besides the legislators neglecting to mandate sprinklers in ALL group homes, they als failed to pass legislation that would have required community group home providers to have the same safety regulations as state habilitation centers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tamie Hopp
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