The Detroit Free Press featured an article today - Special Dreams Farm offers life skills to special-needs adults by Alexandra Bahou - about a Michigan farm designed for developmentally disabled adults who want to be active, outdoors, and learn life skills on a farm.
Special Dreams Farm was founded by parents of developmentally disabled adults in 2004. The farmers first worked on private farms until the non-profit organization bought a 31-acre farm in St. Claire Township north of Detroit in 2008. The Farm relies heavily on private donations, fundraisers, and grants for its $140,000 per year operating costs. The farmers are not paid, but they learn skills that help them be more independent. The video and photographs that accompany the article show the delight with which these adults approach their activities on the farm and the close bonds they have with each other and the job coaches and volunteers who work with them.
To learn more about the Special Dreams Farm, go to the Website.
Here is a page on the Website that has many photographs of the farm and two videos about the farm and how it it came to be.
Last Fall, the federal Administration on Developmental Disabilities (ADD) held Listening Sessions in five cities around the country to hear public testimony on "Envisioning the Future" for people with developmental disabilities and programs funded by the federal Developmental Disabilities Act. In Michigan, those programs include the Michigan Developmental Disabilities Council, Michigan Protection and Advocacy Services, and the DD Institute at Wayne State University in Detroit. State advocacy organizations, including the ARC Michigan, UCP Michigan, and the Michigan Disability Rights Coalition, are recipients of DD Act funding through grants from the Michigan Developmental Disabilities Council.
The day following each listening session, the ADD held a stakeholder's meeting to prioritize recommendations for future DD Act program activities. These meetings were by invitation only and were were not open to the public. Stakeholders are presumably the agencies and organizations that receive DD Act funding. Their recommendations are summarized in this document.
Friday, March 4th, 2011 is the last day to submit comments on choice and other issues for people with developmental disabilities to the federal Administration on Developmental Disabilities Website.
Recommendations run amok
While many of the recommendations are reasonable and uncontroversial, some are decidedly anti-choice, calling for the elimination of congregate care and so-called segregated sheltered workshops (specialized community-based work programs) that many people with developmental disabilities need and want.
For example:
Promote access to community living services - “Develop and implement plans to close public and private institutions and segregated workshops” (p. 12. Note: The DD Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Supreme Court Olmstead decision do not require that institutions or other congregate settings close. Neither are specialized work settings for people with disabilities singled out for closure.)
Collaboration - “ADD and the Administration on Aging should jointly plan and pool resources at the Federal and State levels while maintaining the DD Act values. Caution against taking on any values/programs that involve congregation and segregation” (p. 13. Note: Whose values are we talking about? Some of the values of DD Act programs conflict with the rights of people with developmental disabilities to participate in making decisions about their own lives and to choose services and living situations based on their individual needs and preferences.).
Community Living - “Keep people with disabilities out of congregate institutions” and “Harness the supports and influence of The Arc” (p. 14. Note: the ARC Michigan supports the elimination of all specialized programs that serve people with DD in disability-only settings. Why promote the influence of this one organization over others?)
Family Supports - "Guardianship should be assumed as an exception -- there should be legislation to protect people with developmental disabilities." (p. 16. Note: There already is legislation to protect people with DD. Guardianship is a state issue governed by state laws. In Michigan, guardianship law protects individuals from abuse, exploitation, and neglect while promoting the maximum independence appropriate. Many advocates in Michigan promote an ideology that dismisses the idea that anyone is in need of these protections through guardianship.)
Self-Determination - "Make self-determination the overriding foundation in DD Act. ADD and the DD network must promote self-determination clearly and explicitly, applying quality standards that are universal to all people through the network, across the lifespan. Self-determination equals citizenship and control of supports/resources." (p. 18. Note: Self-Determination, a process for gaining more personal control over services and financial resources, is optional in Michigan and for many that process is not the best way to achieve the goal of appropriate services to meet the needs of the individual. There are other pathways to citizenship.)
Despite public testimony to the contrary, there is no recognition in this document that there are people with developmental disabilities who may not be able to work in integrated employment, live in typical community settings, or make decisions for themselves. This is an example of how little understanding of cognitive disabilities there is among some "stakeholders" :
Economic Self-Sufficiency - "Promote teaching all people with disabilities how to control their financial resources and supports (i.e., how to bank, file their taxes, how to control their resources for supports, how to open and maintain checking and bank accounts). This should apply to everyone, even if they have a severe disability." (p.20)
HOW TO SUBMIT COMMENTS:
- To comment, prepare a simple statement in support of your views and objecting to recommendations that you do not agree with. If you have more extensive comments, you can upload a Word Document along with comments you enter directly. Give your name, city, and state.
- Go on-line (directions below) and submit your comments. Keep a copy of your remarks for future use.
- To post your comment BY FRIDAY, MARCH 4, click here.
Fill in the required boxes marked with the asterisk.
Where it asks you to enter the title of your submission --- that is what will appear at the top of your submission. Something like "Support the Right to Choose" or "One size does not fit all" will draw attention to the point you want to make.
To see other comments, click “What Others Have to Say” link
You can then type in your comments. There is no word limit. You can "copy and paste" into the comment section. You can also attach (“upload your document”) your document.
When finished, hit SUBMIT!.
See update here.
Developmentally disabled consumers in vocational and skill-building programs in Washtenaw County can expect these programs to continue, although some consumers receiving supported employment services will be working through another provider.
At the November 17, 2009 meeting, the Washtenaw Community Health Organization (WCHO) Board voted to discontinue the contract with CHS, a provider of supported employment services, and reassign consumers receiving supported employment services to Workskills, another supported employment provider, and Community Supports and Treatment Services (CSTS). The CSTS skill-building programs (day programs and PACE groups) will continue as is. No consumers will lose vocational and skill-building services.
The programs provided by CSTS were threatened earlier in the year by drastic lay-offs and cuts by the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners in order to plug a $30 million hole in the county budget. The County renegotiated labor contracts with county employee unions, saving $5.2 million over the next two years and 120 - 150 county jobs at CSTS.
The WCHO, which contracts for services from CSTS, will be able to fund the vocational and skill-building programs by consolidating some programs and using increased Medicaid funding from the federal government.
All three of the supported employment service providers (CSTS, Workskills, and CHS), had few complaints from recipient rights or customer services, but CHS is having serious financial problems. [It was noted at the meeting that there have been complaints about the choice of jobs available through supported employment programs.] The WCHO Board decided that the option of maintaining the contract with Workskills and CSTS would least disrupt consumers and still be cost-effective.
Changes are expected to be implemented by March 1st, 2010, which will allow time for adequate communication and negotiation with providers and adjusted work at CSTS.
I guess I should feel fortunate that my two adult sons will never be able to do anything that resembles work. The most rabid ideologues who insist that even the most profoundly disabled citizens can and should work at a paying job, tend not to spout this kind of rhetoric around people like my sons. How foolish to talk about a person who can't speak, feed himself, wipe his own nose,and who needs a diaper change every couple of hours as a good candidate for a paying job.
On the other hand, I know people whose sons and daughters can and want to work. Their children are in the heartbreaking position of having the hardest time proving themselves worthy of employment when times are good and the first to be layed off when times are tough.
In Washington state, as in Michigan, the idea of paying jobs for everyone is part of the move toward inclusion that has exceeded the bounds of common sense. An article in the Seattle Weekly, Developmentally Disabled, Unable to Speak...Ready to Work?, reports on the state's 3-year-old policy that encourages all developmentally disabled people to find paid employment.
The article begins and ends with the often frustrating task of an employment consultant for a non-profit organization that provides training and support for integrated employment of people with disabilities. He has a case-load of 12 people with severe disabilities for whom he attempts to match their skills to paid employment. His first successful job placement was in January 2009 but it only lasted three months. Another job lasted for an hour and other job possibilities evaporated with hiring freezes.
The article recounts some interesting personal stories about the push for integrated employment and reveals a healthy skepticism by parents. As one parent says, "It's their agenda. It's not my daughter's agenda."
Washington state has decided that all activities it funds for developmentally disabled adults under age 62 will be related to finding and keeping jobs. Sheltered workshops, that have worked well for some and not for others, are being phased out. Recreation programs are no longer being offered as an alternative to job programs except for a limited number of people (35) who have been granted an exemption by the state.
Ray Jensen, the director of King County's Developmental Disabilities Division sees employment as a civil right and further claims that any program that congregates developmentally disabled people is no longer desirable or allowable: "I can show you law after law that says we can't segregate people."
I do not have the foggiest idea which "law" he is referring to, but it must be the same imaginary law that advocacy groups in Michigan cite when they claim that the existence of residential facilities, group homes, center-based school programs, and other programs designed specifically for people with developmental disabilities violate the civil rights of the people they serve.
Phasing out and eliminating costly but necessary programs for people with severe disabilities will save the state money, but the article points out some of the added costs of the state's approach. The cost of a full-time job coach for one man is $2,250 per month (that's around $33,000 per year). A sheltered workshop where one supervisor looks after a group of seven people costs about $7 per hour compared with $25 per hour for one-on-one support. One family referred to in the article decided to have their daughter live in a full-time, live-in institution paid for by the state, because there was no other way to get services appropriate to their child's needs.
A full array of programs is obviously necessary to meet the needs of this diverse population. As one parent puts it, keeping in mind the civil rights of her daughter, "If she is too disabled to work, then she doesn't get [state assistance]. If you think about discrimination against people with disabilities, you expect that from the outside world-- not from people in the disability community."
