Problems Remain in Texas Run Institutions....But Are we Surprised?

Disturbing findings in wake of 'fight club'

From the Houston Chronicle

Written by: Terri Langford

Photo Credit - Bing

Criminal fingerprint checks show at least 36 employees continued to work on the state payroll while caring for the mentally disabled — despite being arrested for felonies ranging from indecent exposure, to aggravated assault, child rape and murder.

Of those 36 with arrests, 17 had felony convictions and the remaining 19 still face trial, according to Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services records released to the Houston Chronicle Monday.

The release of the records, first requested six weeks ago, came on the eve of a House committee meeting Tuesday in which lawmakers will discuss for the first time what improvements have been made regarding care at the facilities in the wake of last year's shocking “fight club” incident in Corpus Christi.

While that's less than one percent of the 11,785 DADS employees who were fingerprinted and work at 13 State-Supported Living Centers, formerly known as state schools, the newest reform shows how pre-employment criminal background screens failed to alert the state to employees with criminal records.

Current pre-employment screening only checks for convictions in Texas. The fingerprint checks linked employees to convictions and arrests outside of Texas. Of the 17 with convictions, 13 have been terminated or resigned. The other four are still in “process” according to the agency, which released the numbers without comment.

“Of course it still matters. That amount of people has control over a handful of residents who are unable to communicate abuse or neglect or ward off that type of aggression,” said Beth Mitchell, senior managing attorney for Advocacy Inc., a group that has fought for better care of the mentally disabled in Texas. “You don't want someone like that corrupting other staff. That's what we saw in Corpus Christi. It only took one staff to corrupt a group of staff in the fight club.”

Cell phone fight videos

The incident, at what has now been renamed Corpus Christi State-Supported Living Center, was discovered by police a year ago when a lost cell phone had videos of mentally disabled residents fighting. Voices of the residents' state caretakers could be heard encouraging the residents to fight one another. Since then, four former DADS workers have been convicted as a result.

The fingerprint checks and another new reform, random drug testing — which snared 23 DADS employees who tested positive for drug use — are the only significant progress seen in the year since the cell phone video surfaced and since DADS entered into a settlement late last year with the U.S. Department of Justice.

A “baseline” report on the Corpus Christi facility, the first of 13 to be conducted on each center as part of that DOJ agreement, shows little has been done since the fight club scandal put Texas' care of the mentally disabled in the spotlight.

While the March 10 monitoring report of Corpus Christi State-Supported Living Center revealed “a number of good practices in place,” it also noted “a number of the areas in which there is a need for improvement.”

For example, in the past year, the state has yet to establish a “zero tolerance” of abuse at Corpus Christi, there are no full-time psychiatrists on staff in the Corpus facility and no standard diagnostic procedure in place for residents with psychiatric problems.

“It's pretty clear from the report that they're really far behind in meeting the criteria of the DOJ settlement,” Mitchell said.

Also, the DADS staff in Corpus has not come up with better ways to monitor the physical and nutritional needs of their residents and are not able to pinpoint those residents who are at-risk of abuse.

“The Facility is at the very beginning stages of implementing the process of screening individuals to determine if they fall into an at-risk category,” the report stated.

Documentation problems

In many areas, the monitors noted the Corpus Christi facility failed to keep proper documentation on residents. Dental care records were missing, as was proof that staff reviewed some residents' medication and allergies. The current forms being used at the Corpus Christi center failed to document residents' vocational strengths, needs or preferences.

A spokeswoman for state Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs, the chair of the House Committee on Human Services, said Rose would not be making any comments about the report until Tuesday's meeting. Calls to other members, including state Rep. Abel Herrero, the committee's vice chair, were not returned.

Social Media Proves to be a Lifeline for People with Disabilities

Social Networks a Lifeline for the Chronically Ill

From the New York Times
Written by: Claire Cain Miller

Photo Credit - Bing

A former model who is now chronically ill and struggles just to shower says the people she has met online have become her family. A quadriplegic man uses the Web to share tips on which places have the best wheelchair access, and a woman with multiple sclerosis says her regular Friday night online chats are her lifeline.

Amy Tenderich, who has diabetes, writes a blog and manages the social network Diabetic Connect from home in Millbrae, Calif.

For many people, social networks are a place for idle chatter about what they made for dinner or sharing cute pictures of their pets. But for people living with chronic diseases or disabilities, they play a more vital role.

“It’s really literally saved my life, just to be able to connect with other people,” said Sean Fogerty, 50, who has multiple sclerosis, is recovering from brain cancer and spends an hour and a half each night talking with other patients online.

People fighting chronic illnesses are less likely than others to have Internet access, but once online they are more likely to blog or participate in online discussions about health problems, according to a report released Wednesday by the Pew Internet and American Life Project and the California HealthCare Foundation.

“If they can break free from the anchors holding them down, people living with chronic disease who go online are finding resources that are more useful than the rest of the population,” said Susannah Fox, associate director of digital strategy at Pew and author of the report.

They are gathering on big patient networking sites like PatientsLikeMe, HealthCentral, Inspire, CureTogether and Alliance Health Networks, and on small sites started by patients on networks like Ning and Wetpaint.

Sherri Connell, 46, modeled and performed in musicals until, at age 27, she learned she had multiple sclerosis and Lyme disease. She began posting her journal entries online for friends and family to read. Soon, people from all over the world were reading her Web site and telling her they had similar health problems.

In 2008, she and her husband started a social network using Ning called My Invisible Disabilities Community. It now has 2,300 members who write about living with lupus, forthcoming operations or medical bills, for example.

“People have good and bad days, and they don’t know a good day’s going to come Wednesday at 5 o’clock when a live support group is meeting,” Ms. Connell said. “The Internet is a great outlet for people to be honest.”

Not surprisingly, according to Pew, Internet users with chronic illnesses are more likely than healthy people to use the Web to look for information on specific diseases, drugs, health insurance, alternative or experimental treatments and depression, anxiety or stress.

But for them, the social aspects of the Web take on heightened importance. Particularly if they are homebound, they also look to the Web for their social lives, discussing topics unrelated to their illnesses. Some schedule times to eat dinner or watch a movie while chatting online.

John Linna, a pastor in Neenah, Wis., did not know what a blog was when his son suggested he start one after discovering he needed to stay home on a ventilator.

“That day my little world began to expand,” he wrote in a post last year about blogging. “Soon I had a little neighborhood. It was like stopping in for coffee every day just to see how things were going.”

When Mr. Linna died earlier this year, people all over the Web who had never met him in person mourned the loss.

Others use the Web to find practical tips about living with their disease or disability that doctors and family members, having not lived with it themselves, cannot provide.

On Diabetic Connect, a diabetes social network with 140,000 members, people share recipes like low-sugar banana pudding, review products like an insulin pump belt and have discussions like a recent one started by a patient with a new diagnosis. “I don’t like to talk to my family and friends about this,” she wrote. “Honestly I feel helpless. I really just need some advice and people to talk to who might have been experiencing the same things.”

Amy Tenderich is the community manager for Diabetic Connect and writes a blog called Diabetes Mine. “There’s no doctor in the world, unless they’ve actually lived with this thing, that can get into that nitty-gritty,” she said. “I’ve walked away from dinner parties with tears in my eyes because people just don’t understand.”

Patients often use social networks to interact with people without worrying about the stigma of physical disabilities, said Susan Smedema, an assistant professor of rehabilitation counseling at Florida State University who studies the psychosocial aspects of disability.

From her home in Maine, Susan Fultz plays online games at Pogo.com and commiserates with people who are frustrated that they do not have a diagnosis for their symptoms.

“There’s no worry of being judged or criticized, and that is something that I know a lot of us don’t get in our daily lives,” said Ms. Fultz, who has Lyme disease and psoriatic arthritis.

Those with chronic diseases or disabilities, like all Internet users, have to be wary about sharing private health information online, particularly with anonymous users.

Research has also shown that emotions can be contagious, said Paul Albert, digital services librarian at Weill Cornell Medical Library in New York who has researched how social networks meet the needs of patients with chronic diseases.

“If you hang out on a message board where people are very negative, you can easily adopt a negative attitude about your disease,” he said. “On the other hand, if people are hopeful, you might be better off.”

Some people also worry that patients might exchange erroneous medical information on the Web, he said. Yet most patient social networks make clear that the information on the site should not substitute for medical advice, and the Pew study found that just 2 percent of adults living with chronic diseases report being harmed by following medical advice found on the Internet.

Instead, the sites are used to share information from the front lines, said Lily Vadakin, 45, who has multiple sclerosis and works as a site administrator for Disaboom, a social network for people with disabilities. For instance, she has discussed with other patients how to combat fatigue by working at home and taking vitamin supplements.

“That’s what the community can give you — a real-life perspective,” she said.

Feds Fail to Hire and Support Workers with Disabilities

From the Federal Times
Written by: Stephen Losey
Photo Credit - Bing

The federal government is not doing enough to attract, retain and accommodate employees with disabilities, according to a survey released today.

More than one-third of managers aren't familiar with special Schedule A hiring authorities that allow them to hire people with disabilities noncompetitively, according to the survey of 513 federal managers and hiring officials. And 58 percent of managers surveyed aren't familiar with an executive order from 2000 that ordered federal agencies to increase employment opportunities for disabled people.

The survey was conducted online earlier this year by the Telework Exchange, a public-private partnership that promotes expanded federal telework, and the Federal Managers Association.

More than two out of every five federal managers have not received the right training to effectively manage or retain employees with disabilities, according to the survey. Necessary training could include how to use hiring flexibilities, recruitment strategies, and how accommodations such as teleworking can help disabled employees be productive.

But while 71 percent of those surveyed said their agencies are committed to hiring people with disabilities, the survey concluded that "feds are not prepared."

The government needs to make sure managers are really committed to hiring people with disabilities, better monitor agency progress, better train and educate hiring and program managers, and offer improved physical and technical accommodations, the survey said.

"Accommodations alone will not enable Americans with disabilities to reach their full potential in the federal workforce," the survey said.

The percentage of the federal workforce with targeted disabilities — deafness, blindness, missing limbs, partial or complete paralysis, convulsive disorders, mental retardation, mental illness and limb or spine distortions — dropped from 0.96 percent in fiscal 1998 to 0.92 percent in fiscal 2007, according to a report issued last year by the government's National Council on Disability. The number of those employees declined by more than 14 percent over that period, from 28,035 to 23,993.

And 60 percent more people with disabilities leave the federal government as are hired each year, the council said last year. In fiscal 2006, the government hired almost 1,300 new employees with disabilities, but almost 2,100 employees with disabilities left that year.

About 12 percent of Americans who are between 16 and 64 years of age have disabilities, according to the Census Bureau.

Tribeca Retail Club Event

Please view these pictures from the Tribeca Retail Club event that Vaseful Flowers and Gifts sponsored on Friday evening. It was a great night and great way to get Vaseful's name and product in front of a large group of people.

Vaseful, a Community Options Enterprise is a unique floral business which provides employment for people with disabilities in an integrated setting.

Community Options is a national nonprofit organization that has been developing homes and employment supports for people with disabilities since 1989. Vaseful is a highly successful floral business with a storefront base in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Don’t be fooled by the location; Vaseful has worldwide delivering capability and is also a favored vendor by brides and grooms in the tri-state area for their upcoming weddings through their “Weddings by Vaseful.” Vaseful was recently given the opportunity to promote its social enterprise through The Tribeca Retail Designer Club event taking place on March 26, 2010 in New York City.

“The Tribeca Retail Club is proud to have Vaseful as one of the official sponsors of our nightlife and shopping event. We are excited at the opportunity to expose the Vaseful service and products to the attendees of our event,” says, Laura Littleton, President of Laura Little Productions and organizer of the event.

Vaseful is only one of the 7 entrepreneurial businesses that Community Options operates. The organization operates four Daily Plan It’s which are business incubators that support the small business community while providing vocational skills training for people with disabilities.

“We are thrilled to be a part of the Tribeca Retail Designer Club event,” says, Morgan Hunter,
Marketing Director of Community Options Enterprises. “This type of exposure is what gets our name out there and allows people to know about the great work Vaseful is doing and how imperative social enterprises are for vocational skills training for people with disabilities.” She added.

Texas Shows Up Big for Community Options.....

The Dallas Morning News and CBS 11 have recently become Official Media Sponsors of our 5th Annual Conference, Advocacy - Connect. Share Live. The conference will be taking place at the W Dallas on September 27, 2010- September 30, 2010. This conference will be the culmination of a years worth of work by parent groups that have been assembled across the country to improve access and resources for children with disabilities and their families.

Distinguished Keynotes

Community Options has also received commitments from two very distinguished women who are advocates for children with disabilities and we are incredibly proud to have them join us.

Judy Woodruff



Broadcast journalist Judy Woodruff has covered politics and other news for more than three decades at CNN, NBC and PBS. Most recently, she signed on as a senior correspondent for the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

For 12 years, Woodruff served as anchor and senior correspondent for CNN, anchoring the weekday political program, "Inside Politics." Woodruff also played a central role in the network's political coverage and other major news stories.

At NBC News, Woodruff served as White House correspondent from 1977 to 1982. For one year after that she served as NBC's Today Show chief Washington correspondent. She wrote the book, This is Judy Woodruff at the White House, published in 1982 by Addison-Wesley.

Woodruff is a founding co-chair of the International Women's Media Foundation, an organization dedicated to promoting and encouraging women in communication industries worldwide. She serves on the boards of trustee of the Freedom Forum, the Newseum, and Global Rights: Partners for Justice. She also serves as a member of The Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics and the board of the National Museum of American History. Woodruff is a graduate of Duke University, where she is a trustee emerita.


Laura Shumaker



Laura Shumaker is the author of A Regular Guy: Growing Up With Autism, a memoir about raising her autistic son, Matthew, to young adulthood. She is a regular contributor to NPR Perspectives and writes a nationally recognized autism blog for the San Francisco Chronicle.

A columnist for www.5minutesforspecialneeds.com, her essays have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, the Contra Costa Times, The Autism Advocate, on cnn.com, and in myriad anthologies including Voices of Autism, Cup of Comfort and Gravity Pulls You In. Laura speaks regularly to schools, book and disability groups and lives in Lafayette, California with her husband, Peter, and her three sons.

Please stay tuned to our website at www.comop.org for more information about the conference, registration and scholarship information!

A Round Up of Resources to Support the Employment Needs of People with Disabilities

This article is from DiscoverAbility NJ, a tremendous resource for people with disabilities and employers throughout NJ.



As reported by Cornell University's Employment and Disability Institute, the 2008 population survey showed that only 17.6% of men and women who have a condition that limits their ability to work are in fact employed. In an already difficult labor market, this puts individuals with disabilities at an even greater disadvantage when they seek employment. In addition, as the population ages, the number of people with a disability in the workforce is expected to rise substantially.

Fortunately, there are a number of online resources available to help meet the employment needs of people with disabilities. Many of these are for human services and One Stop Career Center staff. There are also several that are useful to employers and to people with disabilities. Here's a round-up of great links:

* NTAR Leadership Center--This site is packed with podcasts, webinars and other resources and tools.

* NCWD Youth--Devoted to the special needs of youth with disabilities. Be sure to check out the Professional Development area.

* Disability and Employment Community of Practice--This site is relatively new, but aims to provide connections to best practices and other materials that have resulted from the Disability Program Navigators program.

* START UP USA--Resources for individuals with disabilities to pursue self-employment.

* Online Disability Awareness Training--Learn about basic disability facts, barriers and accessibility, strategies for inclusion, insights from the disability community and ways to take action through this series of 5 self-paced modules. An excellent tool for orienting WIB Disabilities Issues Committee members and One Stop staff to the basic issues facing individuals with disabilities in employment. Also check out the Employer Resources section for information on the ADA and tax credits.

* Diversity World's Employment Resources for Specific Disabilities--Resources for everything from ADD to Traumatic Brain Injury.

* Webcasts from the Job Accommodation Network (JAN)--Archived webcasts on a variety of issues, including accommodations for people with hidden disabilities, such as learning and mental health issues.

* Issue Lab: Close-up on Disability and Employment--An excellent collection of tools and information, including a podcast with Kathy Krepcio, executive director at the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University about communicating research most effectively; Lucy Baker, executive director at the Oregon Business Leadership Network about connecting businesses with research and resources about people with disabilities; and, Lisa Dworkin, Director of Vocational and Training services at Little City Foundation about how research figures into the day-to-day work of someone who connects people with disabilities with employment.

* Disability 411: The Podcast for Disability Information--an excellent repository of over 60 podcasts.

* Heath Resource Center--The HEATH Resource Center is an online clearinghouse on postsecondary education for individuals with disabilities. The Clearinghouse has information for students with disabilities on educational disability support services, policies, procedures, adaptations, accessing college or university campuses, career-technical schools, and other postsecondary training entities.

* Nondiscriminatory Job Interview and Job Analysis Training--Free online modules for conducting job interviews and job analysis in accordance with the ADA. Good info for employers and for One Stop staff.

* Reaching Out to Customers with Disabilities--an online course for business that is also applicable to One Stops.

* Access for All: A Resource for Meeting the Needs of One Stop Customers with Disabilities--This manual by the Institute for Community Inclusion serves as a training and staff development tool for enhancing the ability of One-Stop Systems to meet the needs of customers with disabilities, and also as a reference work for ongoing use in serving people with disabilities.

* Identifying and Serving Customers with Hidden Disabilities in Our One Stop Centers--Many disabilities, such as cognitive functions and chronic disease, are “hidden” that is they are not readily apparent. Counselors need to know what these disabilities and how to relate to these individuals. This presentation by CLM Connection in Ocala FL provides an overview of the issues and practical advice on how to identify and serve these individuals.

* Serving Workers with Disabilities--Learn about specific techniques implemented in the State of Massachusetts to encourage One-Stop Career Centers to assist people with disabilities, including people with psychiatric disabilities, obtain and retain quality employment opportunities. Also hear about a variety of effective and practical practices under the disability program navigator program, where partnerships are enabling leveraged resources and providing quality services to business and to customers with disabilities.

* Webinar on Serving Veterans with Disabilities in the One Stop Center--good info in this recorded webinar.

* Disclosure of Disability Information at a One Stop Career Center: Tips and Guidelines--a fact sheet for job seekers that would be appropriate to share during Orientation and in Resource areas.

VH1 Save the Music Foundation Benefit and Vaseful Flowers and Gifts

The VH1 Save The Music Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to restoring instrumental music education programs in America's public schools, and raising awareness about the importance of music as part of each child's complete education.

Vaseful, a Community Options Enterprise was lucky enough to recently partner with this event and offer collateral material, gift certificates and coupons for online shopping at the store!!!

Vaseful and the Tribeca Retail Club

Vaseful, a Community Options Enterprise is a unique floral business which provides employment for people with disabilities in an integrated setting. Community Options is a national nonprofit organization that has been developing homes
and employment supports for people with disabilities since 1989.

Vaseful is a highly successful floral business with a storefront base in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Don’t be fooled by the location; Vaseful has worldwide delivering capability and is also a favored vendor by brides and grooms in the tri-state area for their upcoming weddings through their “Weddings by Vaseful.”

Vaseful was recently given the opportunity to promote its social enterprise through The Tribeca Retail Designer Club event taking place on March 26, 2010 in New York City.

“The Tribeca Retail Club is proud to have Vaseful as one of the official sponsors of our nightlife and shopping event. We are excited at the opportunity to expose the Vaseful service and products to the attendees of our event,” says, Laura Littleton, President of Laura Little Productions and organizer of the event.

Vaseful is only one of the 7 entrepreneurial businesses that Community Options operates. The organization operates four Daily Plan It’s which are business incubators that support the small business community while providing vocational skills training for people with disabilities. Presents of Mind is a unique and upscale gift store that offers full online shopping capability.

“We are thrilled to be a part of the Tribeca Retail Designer Club event,” says, Morgan Hunter, Marketing Director of Community Options Enterprises. “This type of exposure is what gets our name out there and allows people to know about the great work Vaseful is doing and how imperative social enterprises are for vocational skills training for people with disabilities,” she added.