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VOR, a national organization advocating for high quality care and human rights, strongly objects, in substance and in principle, to the National Council on Disability’s (NCD) newly released “Deinstitutionalization: Unfinished Business” policy document (110 pages) and accompanying “toolkit” (how-to manual) (201 pages).
VOR represents thousands of individuals, families and legal guardians, organizations and advocates around the country who value individual choice and recognize that true person-centered planning begins with the individual and his/her needs. One size does not fit all. An array of quality service and support options is needed to ensure that choice, based on individual need, is accommodated.
NCD used more than 300 pages to advocate for closing specialized homes – Medicaid-licensed Intermediate Care Facilities (ICFs/MR) – serving our nation’s most profoundly disabled citizens. This insensitive, reckless attitude will cause these vulnerable individuals to suffer grievous harm and even death.
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Read VOR's Letter to President Obama
Read VOR's Letter to Key Members of Congress |
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Justice for Predictable Tragedies
Letter to the Editor
Submitted October 24, 2012
VOR, a national organization advocating for high quality care and human rights for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, applauds the lawsuit featured in the article “Treated Like Product, Not People” (October 21, 2012).
Although saying “I told you so” when discussing disability policies is of little comfort to the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the provider ENMRSH, Inc. and New Mexico’s Department of Health, the alleged abuse and neglect at the heart of the suit is sadly predictable.
Across the country, states, including New Mexico, have embraced the “enterprise of giving people away,” turning a blind eye to the profound needs of those displaced from specialized residential programs in the name of “deinstitutionalization.”
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For Immediate Release
October 25, 2012
VOR
The newly-hired Director of the Oklahoma Department of Human Services, Ed Lake, has said he wants to “hit the ground running” when he takes office on November 1.
One national organization is hoping he will trade his running shoes for walking shoes, at least to decisions pertaining to the futures of Southern Oklahoma Resource Center (SORC) in Pauls Valley, and the Northern Oklahoma Resource Center (NORCE) in Enid, which now serve 126 and 115 residents, respectively, with severe intellectual disabilities.
VOR, a national organization advocating for high quality care and human rights for all people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, has raised questions about the ability of the new Director and the Oklahoma Commission for Human Services to make an informed decision when it meets on November 1.
“November 1 marks the first day of Director Lake’s new job and only the second or third meeting for the four newly appointed Commissioners. Even the five veteran Commissioners have spent the vast majority of its time on the Children’s Rights lawsuit,” said Tamie Hopp, VOR’s Director of Government Relations & Advocacy. “For the past 11 months, the SORC family association has been allowed less than 30 minutes in public sessions of the Commission’s meetings to discuss its concerns. 10 of these minutes were only offered after a vote was tabled due to alleged Open Meetings Act violations.”
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Read SORC/Parent Guardian Association Press Release |
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For Immediate Release
July 12, 2012
For More Information
Julie Huso, Executive Director
605-370-4652 direct;
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
It’s hard for average families to fathom what would drive a mother to abandon her disabled daughter, as reported by the Daily Herald, a Suburban Chicago newspaper (“Algonquin mom: Leaving disabled woman in Tennessee was best,” July 7). Yet, this story is repeated across the country, often with “murder-suicide” being the escape for those involved.
Advocacy and politics have reduced and, in some areas, eliminated specialized care options for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (ID/DD), resulting predictable tragedies.
Elderly parents are forced to care for middle-aged disabled children long beyond humane standards. In other situations, individuals with profound ID/DD with complex, 24/7 needs are cared for by underpaid, untrained staff. Tragedies are predictable.
“I feel for the mom in Illinois who left her disabled daughter in Tennessee for better care and for the families in California, Connecticut and elsewhere who felt their only escape was death,” remarked Sybil Finken, VOR’s immediate past president. “Imagine the desperation they must have felt.”
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For Immediate Release
January 27, 2012
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VOR Slams Justice Department Plan to Close Virginia Centers for Disabled
Calls on President Obama and Congress to Intercede
In the last speech he ever made, Hubert Humphrey said, "...the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life; the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”
The Department of Justice’s announcement January 26 of a settlement agreement with Virginia to close state training centers for profoundly disabled individuals ignores Humphrey’s compassion and elicits an alarming—and likely dangerous—prospect for Virginia’s most fragile citizens.
On behalf of our constituency and their families in Virginia and nationally, VOR calls on President Obama and Congress to stand up for these affected citizens, help them reclaim true choice, protect them from predictable tragedies, and reverse this dangerous decision by the Justice Department in Virginia.
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See Updated Release - November 30, 2012
January 12, 2012
Concerned About Deaths of Intellectually Disabled Individuals,
National Organization Renews its Call for Moratorium on Deinstitutionalization Lawsuits
VOR, a national advocacy organization representing people with intellectual disabilities and their families, today renewed its urgent request of Members of Congress in several states to call for a moratorium of federally-funded deinstitutionalization lawsuits.
VOR renewed its call for Congressional action in light of ongoing reports by the New York Times which detail the ‘unnatural or unknown” deaths, abuse, neglect, and financial fraud perpetrated on New York’s most vulnerable citizens with intellectual and developmental disabilities (see, New York Times “Abused and Used” series, from March 2011 – current).
“Reports of people with profound disabilities experiencing harm and death after being displaced from specialized settings are frighteningly predictable,” said Tamie Hopp, VOR’s Director of Government Relations and Advocacy, citing a bibliography of similar reports from around the country.
A recent New York Times article reported that the Administration on Developmental Disabilities (ADD) released a report criticizing New York’s federal protection and advocacy system, the NYS Commission on Quality of Care & Advocacy for Persons with Disabilities (“U.S. Report Criticizes New York on Monitoring Care of Developmentally Disabled,” January 11, 2012).
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Press Releases
