Disability Rights: Sheltered Workshops Are Today’s Institutions

By Kristina Chew
January 26, 2012


The Oregon chapter of the Cerebral Palsy Association and eight individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities have filed a class-action lawsuit charging that thousands of Oregonians with disabilities are stuck in dead-end “work-activity programs” where they typically make less than the minimum wage. Placement in such programs, in sheltered workshops, is in violation of protections against discrimination under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act.

Michael Bailey, president of the National Disability Rights Network, says that the suit was filed in Oregon because that state was once a national leader in training individuals with disabilities for jobs in the community where they would be paid the minimum wage or more. In 1988, about half of those now receiving state support were being transitioned into mainstream work environments with competitive wages. But in the 1990s, the lawsuit says that Oregon

“reversed course, increasing its reliance on segregated workshops while simultaneously decreasing its development and use of supported employment services.”

Work-activity programs where people perform simple packaging and assembly tasks in locations segregated from the general public have become the end point for too many individuals with disabilities, rather than serving as transitional programs that would ultimately lead to workers being integrated into the mainstream community.

Currently, more than 2,300 individuals with disabilities are in effect warehoused in such sheltered workshops in Oregon. Such facilities, says the lawsuit, “offer virtually no interaction with non-disabled peers, … do not provide any real pathway to integrated employment and .. provide compensation that is well below minimum wage.” A year ago, the National Disability Rights Network published a report stating that sheltered workshops have simply “replaced institutions in many states as the new warehousing system and are the new favored locations where people with disabilities are sent to occupy their days.” Such facilities keep individuals with disabilities out of sight and, consequently, out of the mind of the public.

A sheltered workshop is not the kind of place we believe our teenage son Charlie, who’s on the moderate to severe end of the autism spectrum, should spend his days as an adult. Years ago, Charlie was briefly in an after-school program for children in our town, with a local organization that provided some services for children and adults with disabilities. His program was located at one end of a large open, cement-floored, space, furnished with some old couches, tables and chairs and an old refrigerator. At the far end were some tables on which were bins of what looked like tubing and other plastic items. There were also smaller containers and bins. When I picked Charlie up around 4pm, several adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities were sitting in front of a TV set; they belonged, I was told, to a day program in the same facility.

The atmosphere at the facility was friendly but there was, too, a feeling of inertia and deadend-ness. Charlie himself was only at the program for a few weeks; he was not happy there and it was quite clear to me why.

At Charlie’s current school (a county autism center in New Jersey), he is already receiving valuable vocational training. He likes to be busy and is showing an aptitude for numerous tasks. While it’s impossible to know what job options might be out there for Charlie given his challenges, and whether or not he could handle being in various work environments in the community, I am determined that he have the chance to do so. Oregonians with disabilities, and individuals with disabilities throughout the US, should have the opportunity to work in the community and be paid a fair wage, too.

Related Care2 Coverage:

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The Drugging of the Developmentally Disabled in State Institutions

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/disability-rights-sheltered-workshops-are-todays-institutions.html#ixzz1mUO38dS4

DAV - a non-profit organization - Disabled American Veterans

"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve," wrote a Japanese admiral following the attack on Pearl Harbor.

That resolve filled the hearts of the American people, leaving them determined to support the troops in every possible way. As the wounded returned to our shores, they responded through the Disabled American Veterans.

If December 7, 1941, was “a date which will live in infamy,” as President Roosevelt said, its tragedy did unite our troops and our people.

Millions offered their blood and their health in World War II. As “the Greatest Generation” fades, daily pain still haunts the lives of those who bear the scars of all our wars, from 1941 through wars in Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan.

If the leadership of the Disabled American Veterans remains crucial in building new lives for these heroes, you can see how our disabled vets still need your partnership in the DAV mission as well.

As a new generation of veterans comes home from Iraq and winds down its mission in Afghanistan, the 10 preceding years of war have led 600,000 younger veterans to apply for VA disability programs.

Several wars have passed since the attack on Pearl Harbor. Again and again, our forces have fought and bled for you and me.

These brave men and women never lost their resolve, and neither should we. Will you maintain your resolve with your gift of $25 … $50 … $100 or more now?

Remembering Pearl Harbor,

Arthur H. Wilson, National Adjutant
Disabled American Veterans

Bob Calvert and Talking with Heroes

LinkedIn

Bob Calvert has sent you a message.

Date: 6/26/2011

Subject: NEWS About Our Next Trip with the Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and More

Hello

Thank you for connecting with me/us here on LinkedIN. Many of you are veterans and active duty military and family members. Thank you for your service to our country!!

I am Bob Calvert host of the www.talkingwithheroes.com Program and Editor of the Online News Site www.thankyouforyourservice.us

Please read the following important announcements:

Embry Riddle Aeronautical University Makes our Next Trip to Iraq and Afghanistan possible

Thanks to Embry Riddle www.embryriddle.edu for becoming the Main Sponsor of our next trip over to Iraq and Afghanistan with the troops. Thank you to Mark Lyden with www.dothisgethired.com for introducing me to Embry Riddle.

We are heading back over with the troops very soon!

As in my past embeds our troops will share with you and all of America their Progress and Positive Stories that most people back home here are not hearing much about. We do this with interviews with the troops, with local people, on missions, film reconstruction projects, film in local communities and more.

Updates from Iraq and Afghanistan will be posted on our New Facebook LIKE Page

On this next trip Bryon at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University will post my updates on their social networking sites. He will also tweet them on our Talking With Heroes Twitter page and especially on our New Facebook LIKE page.

To see these updates type into the Facebook Search box TALKING WITH HEROES PROGRAM. Then click on LIKE at the top of the page.

Or go directly to:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Talking-With-Heroes-Program/102924686425237

As we post updates with our troops we encourage you to SHARE these updates with your LinkedIN Friends and Groups you are on, Your Facebook, Twitter and other friends, Family and co workers.

The Troops are depending on us to get their mostly unheard Progress Stories out to the American people. We invite you to join with us in this mission. Please help us get these and the stories we bring back from Iraq and Afghanistan out to as many people as you can. If you are a member of a Veterans Organization please let their leadership and posts have this info.

Current News from our Troops in Our Online News Site - Thank You For Your Service

Due to the amount of stories coming in daily from our troops, veterans and more www.ThankYouForYourService.US is now a Weekly Online News Site. Read daily current news that you may not see on other media outlets.

NEW Videos from Atlanta Airport and Columbus Lions Football Game

Watch episodes that we filmed a few weeks ago at the Atlanta Airport with the USO, Troops, Passengers, Airport Employees as Troops are welcomed home. Watch as other troops are thanked who headed back overseas. Watch as they were shown how much we all thank them for their service. You will enjoy these videos. We also take you behind the scenes inside the USO facilities.

On one of the videos you will see me interviewing Ted Liedle and Ron Link.. two Veterans and Videographers who are going with me on this next trip to Iraq and Afghanistan. Meet Bill Wischnewsky, his daughter and Barbara Oldham.

Watch these New videos on our NEW Facebook LIKE Page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Talking-With-Heroes-Program/102924686425237

While you are on our LIKE page please click on the LIKE at the top of the page. ALL of our updates from Iraq and Afghanistan will be posted on the LIKE page.

These videos are also all going on our Youtube Page www.youtube.com/bobc9246

Please feel free to post a comment to our troops on some of these videos showing how much you support them.

*****Please SHARE these videos with everybody you can*****

Thank You!!

Bob Calvert, Host
www.talkingwithheroes.com
Editor of www.thankyouforyourservice.us
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www.facebook.com/pages/Talking-With-Heroes-Program/102924686425237
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Email bob@talkingwithheroes.com

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VA outlines plan to help caregivers of wounded

VA outlines plan to help caregivers of wounded
(AP) – Feb 9, 2011


WASHINGTON (AP) — A long-awaited plan to give caregivers of severely wounded Iraq and Afghanistan veterans some extra help was unveiled Wednesday by the Veterans Affairs Department with few specifics about when it would be fully implemented and potentially fewer families reaping the benefit than expected.

Sarah Wade, who along with her veteran husband, Ted, joined President Barack Obama on May 5 when he signed the law that instructed the VA to provide more support to family caregivers of those hurt in the recent conflicts, is among those wondering whether she will qualify for the extra support. And, if so, when.

Ted Wade, 33, lost his right arm and sustained a traumatic brain injury in a roadside bombing in Iraq in 2004 while serving with the 82nd Airborne Division. Sarah Wade now takes care of him.

She said she'll be watching closely to see how the VA's proposal is written and interpreted.

"If he doesn't qualify, I'm going to be devastated," said Wade, 36, of Chapel Hill, N.C. She said there are very few long-term care options for her husband except for going into an institution. "Year after year after year, I've heard about being patient and how we weren't prepared and we're trying to create programs and we're trying to create benefits. It's been one empty promise for years."

Among the benefits included in the law was a monthly stipend based on average home health aide costs in a veteran's hometown. The law also includes health insurance and mental health help for caregivers. The law for the first time instructed the VA to provide help directly to a veteran's family members.

Under the plan, caregivers for about 10 percent of the critically wounded from the recent conflicts would be eligible, or about 850 veterans, said Katie Roberts, a VA spokeswoman.

But Sen. Patty Murray, chairwoman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, said in a statement that the way Congress had written the law, about 3,500 veterans should have a family member who is an eligible.

"Unfortunately the plan they put forward today is simply not good enough. The VA outlined how they intended to limit this benefit to an even smaller group of caregivers than intended by Congress, which is unacceptable," Murray, D-Wash., said.

The VA rolled out the plan under pressure from Murray and some veterans' service organizations frustrated by the VA's pace. The law was supposed to be implemented by the end of January.

Roberts said the VA will be working with them and others in the veterans' community to make it happen, but she didn't offer a timeline.

"While some services will be available right away the others will take thoughtful, deliberate work to make sure the caregivers of our most vulnerable veterans have access to all additional services," Roberts said.

Jeremy Chwat, a spokesman for the Wounded Warrior Project that lobbied for the law, said the lack of information about when the services will be available is unacceptable.

"By VA's own admission the regulatory process is going to be long and the caregivers who have already waited so long are now being told by this administration to wait even longer," Chwat said.

While the enhanced benefits are for the caregivers of the severely disabled veterans from the recent conflicts, the VA said it is improving other existing programs for caregivers of veterans from all eras. It named a caregiver coordinator at each of its medical centers and last week rolled out a caregiver support hotline, which has already received more than 700 calls.

Veterans' service organizations had pushed for more support for all caregivers of veterans, but Congress was not able to come up with enough money to do so. Under the law, the VA must report to Congress within two years about the possibility of providing the enhanced benefits to all caregivers.

The goal is to keep veterans out of nursing homes, said Deborah Amdur, chief consultant for VA social work.

"We know that being able to remain in your home surrounded by family and friends, people do better," Amdur said. "There's no question about that."

VA website for caregivers: http://www.caregiver.va.gov

Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Mental Health Needs Seen Growing at Colleges

By TRIP GABRIEL
Published: December 19, 2010
The New York Times


STONY BROOK, N.Y. — Rushing a student to a psychiatric emergency room is never routine, but when Stony Brook University logged three trips in three days, it did not surprise Jenny Hwang, the director of counseling.

It was deep into the fall semester, a time of mounting stress with finals looming and the holiday break not far off, an anxiety all its own.

On a Thursday afternoon, a freshman who had been scraping bottom academically posted thoughts about suicide on Facebook. If I were gone, he wrote, would anybody notice? An alarmed student told staff members in the dorm, who called Dr. Hwang after hours, who contacted the campus police. Officers escorted the student to the county psychiatric hospital.

There were two more runs over that weekend, including one late Saturday night when a student grew concerned that a friend with a prescription for Xanax, the anti-anxiety drug, had swallowed a fistful.

On Sunday, a supervisor of residence halls, Gina Vanacore, sent a BlackBerry update to Dr. Hwang, who has championed programs to train students and staff members to intervene to prevent suicide.

“If you weren’t so good at getting this bystander stuff out there,” Ms. Vanacore wrote in mock exasperation, “we could sleep on the weekends.”

Stony Brook is typical of American colleges and universities these days, where national surveys show that nearly half of the students who visit counseling centers are coping with serious mental illness, more than double the rate a decade ago. More students take psychiatric medication, and there are more emergencies requiring immediate action.

“It’s so different from how people might stereotype the concept of college counseling, or back in the ’70s students coming in with existential crises: who am I?” said Dr. Hwang, whose staff of 29 includes psychiatrists, clinical psychologists and social workers. “Now they’re bringing in life stories involving extensive trauma, a history of serious mental illness, eating disorders, self-injury, alcohol and other drug use.”

Experts say the trend is partly linked to effective psychotropic drugs (Wellbutrin for depression, Adderall for attention disorder, Abilify for bipolar disorder) that have allowed students to attend college who otherwise might not have functioned in a campus setting.

There is also greater awareness of traumas scarcely recognized a generation ago and a willingness to seek help for those problems, including bulimia, self-cutting and childhood sexual abuse.

The need to help this troubled population has forced campus mental health centers — whose staffs, on average, have not grown in proportion to student enrollment in 15 years — to take extraordinary measures to make do. Some have hospital-style triage units to rank the acuity of students who cross their thresholds. Others have waiting lists for treatment — sometimes weeks long — and limit the number of therapy sessions.

Some centers have time only to “treat students for a crisis, bandaging them up and sending them out,” said Denise Hayes, the president of the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors and the director of counseling at the Claremont Colleges in California.

“It’s very stressful for the counselors,” she said. “It doesn’t feel like why you got into college counseling.”

A recent survey by the American College Counseling Association found that a majority of students seek help for normal post-adolescent trouble like romantic heartbreak and identity crises. But 44 percent in counseling have severe psychological disorders, up from 16 percent in 2000, and 24 percent are on psychiatric medication, up from 17 percent a decade ago.

The most common disorders today: depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, alcohol abuse, attention disorders, self-injury and eating disorders.

Stony Brook, an academically demanding branch of the State University of New York (its admission rate is 40 percent), faces the mental health challenges typical of a big public university. It has 9,500 resident students and 15,000 who commute from off-campus. The highly diverse student body includes many who are the first in their families to attend college and carry intense pressure to succeed, often in engineering or the sciences. A Black Women and Trauma therapy group last semester included participants from Africa, suffering post-traumatic stress disorder from violence in their youth.

Stony Brook has seen a sharp increase in demand for counseling — 1,311 students began treatment during the past academic year, a rise of 21 percent from a year earlier. At the same time, budget pressures from New York State have forced a 15 percent cut in mental health services over three years.

Dr. Hwang, a clinical psychologist who became director in July 2009, has dealt with the squeeze by limiting counseling sessions to 10 per student and referring some, especially those needing long-term treatment for eating disorders or schizophrenia, to off-campus providers.

But she has resisted the pressure to offer only referrals. By managing counselors’ workloads, the center can accept as many as 60 new clients a week in peak demand between October and the winter break.

“By this point in the semester to not lose hope or get jaded about the work, it can be a challenge,” Dr. Hwang said. “By the end of the day, I go home so adrenalized that even though I’m exhausted it will take me hours to fall asleep.”

For relief, she plays with her 2-year-old daughter, and she has taken up the guitar again.

Shifting to Triage

Near the student union in the heart of campus, the Student Health Center building dates from the days when a serious undergraduate health problem was mononucleosis. But the hiring of Judy Esposito, a social worker with experience counseling Sept. 11 widows, to start a triage unit three years ago was a sign of the new reality in student mental health.

(For the rest of this article, please click on the link in this blog post's title above.)

Making Disability Work

By PETER ORSZAG
Published: December 9, 2010
The New York Times


One of the gravest dangers posed by the weak economy is that the unemployed will become discouraged and give up looking for work, perhaps permanently as their skills atrophy. This would be harmful not only to the workers and their families, but also to the economy as a whole, as those people would no longer contribute to economic growth. The longer the labor market remains sluggish, the more pronounced this risk becomes.

Unfortunately, at this point more than six million people have been unemployed for six months or longer. More than one million have already given up looking for work because they believe no job is available. And a drastic rise in applications for disability insurance suggests we may be headed for more long-lasting trouble. The number of disability applications has reached more than 750,000 a quarter, according to the Social Security Administration, an increase of more than 50 percent from four years ago.

The disability insurance program provides crucial support for people who can no longer work because of a disability. But once someone begins receiving benefits, the likelihood that he will re-enter the work force is almost nonexistent; recipients become permanently dependent on the program.
The result is not only lost economic productivity, but also a fiscal burden for the federal government: disability benefits now cost more than $120 billion a year, and Medicare benefits for those on disability add $70 billion.

The spike in disability insurance applications (and awards) does not reflect a less healthy population. The fraction of working-age adults who report a disability, about one in 10, has remained roughly constant for the past 20 years. (Indeed, it would be surprising if the number of workers with disabilities had risen by 50 percent over the past four years.)

Rather, the weak labor market has driven more people to apply for disability benefits that they qualify for but wouldn’t need if they could find work.

When Congress created the disability insurance program in 1956, it required that recipients be unable to “engage in substantial gainful activity in the U.S. economy.” In other words, they had to be unable to work. That was sensible at the time, when more jobs involved physical labor and technologies to assist people with disabilities were not widely available.

Today, however, many people with disabilities are able to engage in some form of work — even if they can’t admit that and still keep their insurance benefits. Cutting off access to the workplace in this way is both unfortunate and unnecessary — and reinforces the threat that the current downturn could cause a long-term reduction in the share of people who work.

So what should be done?

First, macroeconomic policy. We need more stimulus immediately, and more deficit reduction enacted now to take effect in two or three years. The plan just proposed by the White House in a compromise with Congressional Republicans is encouraging in that it includes a new payroll tax holiday, a helpful stimulus. It does not reduce future deficits, but at least it avoids making the Bush tax cuts permanent, reserving the flexibility to address medium-term deficits down the road.

Even if this plan goes ahead, however, the unemployment rate is likely to remain high for some time. For it to fall by even one percentage point (from 9.5 percent to 8.5 percent) the economy needs to grow by about 4.5 percent a year.

Second, unemployment insurance should be extended, as President Obama’s compromise plan also would do. Unemployment benefits are a form of stimulus: they spur spending and thereby help keep the economy afloat. Just as important, unemployment benefits keep many people from falling back on disability insurance — and unlike disability insurance, which effectively prohibits beneficiaries from seeking work, unemployment insurance requires recipients to keep looking for a job and thus remain connected to the work force.

(To read the rest of this article, please click on the link in this blog post's title above.)

Adult stem cell research brings encouragement to disabled

By Paul Rendine • December 5, 2010
delmarvanow.com


When I began these wide-ranging weekly articles on various disabilities, my overriding goal has been one in which I've always tried to end each article with a positive something. It could be, for example, a treatment, medication, surgery or whatever, all of which could make any given disability easier to cope with, overcome and live with by that person with a disability.

Imagine, then, my excitement at the actual and achievable recoveries that have been realized in such previously judged as not-recoverable disabilities as cerebral palsy, traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord injuries and strokes, with many of those recoveries being made possible with the use of adult stem cells.

More specifically, an increasing number of researchers working with adult stem cells now seem to agree that such therapies could quickly and significantly improve the recovery of motor function in animal models for the ischemic brain injury, for example, that occurs in about 10 percent of babies with cerebral palsy.

Athersys Inc., a Cleveland-based biopharmaceutical company pursuing cell therapy programs in cardiovascular disease, stroke, cancer and other diseases, has recently been funding research in which more than 200,000 adult stem cells provided by Athersys were injected directly into the brain injury sites of test animals of the many researchers they have been funding. According to Athersys, those adult stem cells were taken from the bone marrow of rats for dosing in their now-disabled laboratory rats. This info was reviewed from Athersys' website as of Nov. 23.

Their researchers' lab reports indicate that exactly one week after a brain injury was introduced into each of the tests' lab rats, adult stem cells were injected directly into the brains of each of the 22 test animals. Behavioral tests on each now-disabled lab rat were then administered seven days after the transplants, all of which showed a trend toward recovery, followed by significant recovery, by day 14.

As research projects using adult stem cells increase, the release of public information in an announcement during the week of Oct. 10 discussed one of the first- ever introductions of adult stem cells at the site of a longtime spinal cord injured patient at the Shepherd Institute in Georgia. That announcement also noted that this stem cell therapy was the first-ever use of stem cells at the site of a longtime and older SCI patient with the hoped-for purpose of reversing that patient's paralysis.

(To read the rest of this article, please click on the link in this blog post's title above this blog post.)