Justice Dept. Files Lawsuit Against Florida for Warehousing Children

Florida health care agencies have acted with "deliberate indifference to the suffering" of frail and disabled children by offering parents no "meaningful" choice but to warehouse their children in nursing homes along with elders, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a lawsuit against the state filed Monday.

Editorial: Florida's Children Deserve Better

TAMPA, Fla. -- Call it official neglect. Florida is accused by the Obama administration and the parents of sick and disabled children of warehousing hundreds of those children in large nursing homes rather than helping them stay home with their families. Disabled children have a right to the support services that would allow them to live safely at home or in community settings. But the state has been fulfilling its duty for some children and not others, leaving it to the courts to set things right for the rest.

Connecticut Daycare Center Settles with Family Over Child with Autism

OLD SAYBROOK, Conn. -- The Justice Department has reached a settlement agreement with Beach Babies Learning Center LLC, in Old Saybrook, to resolve allegations that the center ended the enrollment of a 2-year-old child because the child has autism.
The center will pay $7,341 to the child’s parents and will also implement policies so children with disabilities have equal opportunities to participate in from the center’s programs and it will post a nondiscrimination policy at its facility and its website, according to a news release from the Department of Justice.

Opinion: Don't Warehouse People with Disabilities

Guest column in The Record of Bergen County, N.J., by Lowell Arye, executive director of the Alliance for the Betterment of Citizens with Disabilities in Hamilton.


The urging of some to halt plans to close Vineland Developmental Center would move New Jersey in the opposite direction of 30 years of public policy toward community living for people with developmental disabilities.
In his budget, Governor Christie boldly announced the closure of a state developmental center over the next two years. New Jersey has not closed a developmental center since 1998, when it shut down North Princeton. It is far behind the national trend of deinstitutionalization.

Upgrades at Center Amid Uncertain Future

CHESAPEAKE, Va. -- At a time when the future of Virginia's training centers for the disabled hangs in the balance, there's a flurry of activity at the one tucked behind a busy industrial corridor in Greenbrier.
New roads are being laid at the Southeastern Virginia Training Center, and concrete poured for the foundations of 15 new cottages.
At the same time, state officials, to avoid a federal lawsuit, are vowing to make a dramatic shift in moving disabled people from institutions like Southeastern to community-based programs.
The question still to be answered is this:
Could the downsizing of the state's training centers lead to closing them altogether?

Justice Dept. Warning to Va. No Surprise

A warning from the Justice Department that Virginia faces a lawsuit if it doesn't improve the way it cares for people with intellectual disabilities triggered a flurry of activity this past week, but there shouldn't have been any measure of surprise: Lawmakers and governors have been told about the problems in the system for almost 50 years.
"Those of us who have been in the field for a long time were applauding" when the Department of Justice report came out, said Chuck Hall, executive director of the Hampton-Newport News Community Services Board. "That is just the latest in a series of reports going back to 1963 that say we have to change the way we allocate funding."