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Jordan and US nonprofit work together to develop programs for people with disabilities
September 1st, 2010
Jordan’s Prince Raad bin Zaid signed a contract on Tuesday with a New York-based not-for-profit group, YAI Network, to develop programs for Jordanians with mental and other developmental disabilities.
The initial goal is to create group residences, day care facilities and job training programs at centres in the Jordanian capital Amman and the nation’s third-largest city, Kerak. Services will be aimed at people with disabilities as well as their families.
Prince Raad, who visited YAI Network facilities in the U.S. several years ago, said the programs were “something beautiful, something that has already succeeded” in improving the lives of disabled people.
“We are starting from ground zero, and we have to work our way up,” Prince Raad said, promising to encourage adoption of YAI Network strategies.
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Two Texas Energy Corporations Sued By The EEOC For Disability Discrimination
August 31st, 2010
By U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Twenty years after the Americans With Disabilities Act (“ADA”) was enacted, the Houston District Office of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has filed two separate lawsuits to enforce the ADA, demonstrating the on-going relevance of and need for the law in today’s workplace. The ADA prohibits discrimination against employees and employment applicants with disabilities, including those who are regarded as disabled by their employers, and those who associate with persons who are disabled.
The lawsuits, filed today in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston
Division, address various unlawful practices by these two employers which are illustrative of the broad and necessary protections afforded by the ADA. In addition, one of the employers, DynMcDermott Petroleum Operations Company (“DynMcDermott”) is also alleged to have violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (“ADEA”). The ADA and the ADEA are two of the civil rights/employment discrimination statutes the EEOC is charged with enforcing.
In the suit against ENGlobal Engineering, Inc. (“ENGlobal”) (Civil Action No. 4:10-cv-XXXX), the EEOC alleges that the company terminated the employee, Jeff Rose (“Mr. Rose”), because it regarded him as being disabled. ENGlobal is a publicly traded corporation that provides engineering and professional services to the energy sector.
According to the EEOC, Mr. Rose had worked for ENGlobal as a safety supervisor for approximately two weeks when, unbeknownst to him, he began to develop multiple sclerosis (“MS”) symptoms that did not debilitate nor substantially limit him. Mr. Rose informed his manager of the symptoms and kept him informed of the conversations he had with his doctors as they tried to ascertain what was wrong with him. As the manager learned more about Mr. Rose’s condition and realized that he faced a potential MS diagnosis, the manager searched for a replacement and urged Mr. Rose to take medical leave despite the fact that he could continue working. After taking medical leave at his manager’s insistence, Mr. Rose presented the company with a doctor’s note stating that he had clearance to return to work. Although his position was available, ENGlobal’s human resources manager falsely told Mr. Rose that it was not. Further, although the human resources manager then told Mr. Rose that ENGlobal would try to find him another position within the company, it took no such action. Three weeks later, ENGlobal hired another individual for Mr. Rose’s position. It is the EEOC’s position that ENGlobal’s management violated the ADA by incorrectly and impermissibly viewing Mr. Rose as substantially limited in his ability to perform the work of any job within the company.
The ADA was also violated by DynMcDermott when the company failed to hire an applicant for employment, the EEOC alleged in the lawsuit filed against this employer for actions which occurred at its Winnie, Texas facility (Civil Action No. 4:10-cv-XXXX). The EEOC also maintains that DynMcDermott’s actions violated the ADEA. According to the lawsuit, DynMcDermott is a privately-held corporation that provides maintenance and operations services for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve managed by the U.S. Department of Energy. The EEOC alleges that the applicant and employee, Phillip (“Mike”) Swafford (“Mr. Swafford”), applied with DynMcDermott for a position he had previously held with the company. He was interviewed by and recommended for the position by both his former supervisor and the manager in charge of hiring for the position. Nonetheless, the facility’s director, who had authority over both the supervisor and the hiring manager, stated to them and others, on at least two occasions, that Mr. Swafford should not be hired because of his age, then 56 years, and his wife’s cancer, which the director simply assumed would interfere with Mr. Swafford’s ability to perform his job duties. The EEOC alleges that this assumption and DynMcDermott’s unwillingness to hire Swafford because of his age and his wife’s cancer violated both the ADA and the ADEA. DynMcDermott ultimately hired a 35-year-old applicant with no prior experience with the company for the position.
R. J. Ruff, Jr., District Director of the EEOC’s Houston District Office, said: “A broad range of practices can violate the employment discrimination laws we are charged with enforcing. As the ADA celebrates its twentieth anniversary, we unfortunately still find instances of disability discrimination in the workplace which must be addressed and remedied. Likewise, age discrimination in the workplace cannot be tolerated.”
“Employers in all industries must be held accountable for knowing and complying with the law. As long as employers continue to violate the laws the EEOC is charged with enforcing, employees will continue to need EEOC intervention,” said Jim Sacher, the EEOC’s Regional Attorney.
The EEOC filed the lawsuits after conciliation efforts to reach a voluntary settlement with each employer were unsuccessful. In each lawsuit, the EEOC is seeking a permanent injunction prohibiting the relevant company from engaging in employment discrimination, as well as other non-monetary relief to address the unlawful practices. The EEOC is also seeking back pay, compensatory damages, punitive damages or liquidated damages, and other relief.
Anyone who believes he or she has been subjected to a discriminatory employment practice is encouraged to contact the EEOC’s Houston District Office, which is located in downtown Houston on the sixth floor of the Mickey Leland Federal Building at 1919 Smith Street. Additional information about the EEOC is available on the agency’s web site at www.eeoc.gov.
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EasyJet’s policies prevent wheelchair users from flying
August 23rd, 2010
By Jill Insley, Guardian.co.uk
The airline easyJet has come under fire for preventing thousands of disabled people from flying on its planes by refusing to allow most powered wheelchairs onboard.
The airline refuses to carry in one piece wheelchairs that weigh more than 60kg without their batteries. Trailblazer, a campaign group for people with muscular dystrophy, claims this restriction excludes most powered wheelchairs, which weigh an average of 100kg with their batteries detached.
EasyJet blames the weight restriction on health and safety rules, which limit the amount each baggage handler is allowed to lift. A spokesman said that because the airline operated only short-haul flights and did not carry cargo, it did not have the aircraft or equipment necessary for lifting and carrying heavy objects.
“EasyJet welcomes more than a quarter of a million passengers with reduced mobility every year and we regularly carry powered wheelchairs, provided they can be collapsed into separate parts weighing less than 60kg each. This is a necessity to protect the health and safety of the baggage handlers who have to lift the wheelchair into the aircraft.
“The Civil Aviation Authority recognises that the carriage of such wheelchairs is difficult for airlines since they have to meet health and safety requirements, and considers that their carriage requires co-operation between passengers and the airline as to what is practicable.
“EasyJet follows this advice and therefore asks passengers with heavy wheelchairs to inform us at least two days in advance via our contact centre, of the total weight of their mobility aid and also bring the operating instructions with them to the airport.”
He admitted that some passengers may have been misinformed that wheelchairs above the weight of 60kg were prohibited.
“We would like to apologise for those who have been incorrectly advised. This has now been clarified with our call centre staff and on our website so that everyone is clear about the policy,” he said.
Disabled travellers, however, were not appeased. Hannah-Lou Blackall, a social worker from Hull who has congenital muscular dystrophy and uses a battery-powered wheelchair weighing 120kg, was hoping to fly from Gatwick to Krakow in Poland in September. Easyjet is the only airline which flies this route direct, but Blackall is unhappy about allowing anyone to dismantle her expensive and complicated wheelchair while she is travelling.
“It’s not our choice to have to take a wheelchair,” she said. “But as we do need to take one, we want it to be easy.”
She said dismantling the wheelchair “causes stress for us and for everyone travelling with us”.
Other airlines allow disabled passengers to take wheelchairs on to aircraft without weight restrictions, although Ryanair does have size limits written into its terms and conditions. BA allows passengers to take two wheelchairs on board, and says it simply uses extra staff to lift wheelchairs into the hold when necessary.
In its report All Inclusive?, Trailblazer also criticises airlines including Ryanair, which does not allow customers to use their own oxygen canisters, instead charging a £100 “tax on breathing” for those who require permanent ventilation.
It urges EeasyJet to change their rules in line with other airlines and for all airlines to follow the lead of those which provide oxygen service free of charge, such as British Airways and Virgin.
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Arc Action Alert: FMAP extension
August 20th, 2010
Enactment of enhanced FMAP extension.
On August 2, 2010, The U.S. Senate passed an extension of enhanced federal Medicaid funding (FMAP). On August 10, The U.S. House of Representatives also passed this legislation. President Obama signed the legislation into law on August 10, 2010.
While the passage of the FMAP extension was great news, the funding Virginia will receive is less than originally anticipated. Virginia’s budget expected $430.8 million in new FMAP funding. Many services for Virginians with developmental disabilities were to be restored with these FMAP funds, eliminating budget cuts. The federal legislation, however, only provides $265.6 million, much less than Virginia originally anticipated.
What does this mean for Virginians with developmental disabilities and their families?
Governor McDonnell and Secretary of Finance Rick Brown presented to the General Assembly money committees today about the state of Virginia’s budget. Among other topics, Secretary Brown discussed how Virginia’s budget (and services for people with developmental disabilities) would be affected by the recent enactment of the enhanced FMAP extension and some of the provisions of health care reform.
1. Virginia is mandated to eliminate the following cuts (and others) due to maintenance of effort requirements. Therefore Governor McDonnell will do the following:
- Lift the 1 year freeze on HCBS Waiver enrollment (DS, ID, IFDDS, EDCD and Alzheimer’s Waivers)
- Maintain Medicaid Waiver eligibility at 300% SSI
- Maintain Medicaid eligibility (Aged, Blind and Disabled) at 80% of federal poverty level
- Restore optometry services
Funding for the services listed above would be available in BOTH years of Virginia’s budget.
2. Since there is less funding than what was expected, Governor McDonnell has the discretion to decide how the FMAP funds are allocated. Governor McDonnell has decided he will restore the following services from October 1, 2010 through June 30, 2011:
- Add 250 new Intellectual Disability Waivers for families on the waiting list (available October 1, 2010).
- Restore funding for HCBS Waiver reimbursement rates from October 1, 2010 through June 30, 2011. (Note funding lost between July 1, 2010 and September 30, 2010 cannot be recovered).
- Restore funding for environmental modifications and assistive technology, keeping the limit at 5K per person/per year, instead of proposed 3K per person/per year, through June 30, 2011.
- Restore funding for respite services, keeping the limit at 720 hours/year, instead of proposed 240 hour/year, through June 30, 2011.
Virginia has a two year, 2010-2012 budget. These restorations only address the FIRST year of Virginia’s Biennium Budget, FY11 (July 1, 2010-June 30, 2011). It could be assumed that these cuts will go into effect in the second year in the budget, FY12 (July 1, 2011-June 30, 2012).
MOVING FORWARD
It’s important to remember that these services WOULD have been eliminated THIS year if it were not for the tremendous advocacy efforts of people with developmental disabilities, family members, advocates, providers and concerned citizens across the Commonwealth. So while we can all breathe a collective (and temporary) sigh of relief knowing our services will be safe for Oct 2010-June 2011, we will need to stay in the fight to ensure they are funded after July 1, 2011.
What about the surplus?
You may have heard in the media that Virginia has reported a $400 million surplus. It’s important to know that much of this surplus was already appropriated due to budget language and/or legislation. It appears that the remaining discretionary funds total $71.2 million. Sec. Brown reported that these funds can either be reappropriated to state agencies or the Governor can instead decide if he would like to use the funds for alternative use. The Governor will make his decision about how to use these funds by November 1, 2010. Members of the General Assembly can provide input by sending a letter to Governor McDonnell and Secretary of Finance Rick Brown.
What can you do now?
Call your Delegate, Senator and Governor. Thank them for the restoration of these critical services during the period of October 1, 2010 through June 30, 2011. Remind them that the need for these services will not go away on July 1, 2011. Ask them to support restoration of critical services for people with developmental disabilities and their families in the second year of the budget, FY12!
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Bill to make electronics more accessible
August 18th, 2010
By Cecilia Kang, The Washington Post
Blind and deaf consumers, who have fought to make home phones and television more accessible, say they are being left behind on the Web and many mobile devices. Touch-based smartphone screens confound blind people who rely on buttons and raised type. Web video means little to the deaf without captioning.
But legislation is in the works to put pressure on consumer electronics companies that revolutionized an earlier generation of technology for the vision- and hearing-impaired.
“Whether it’s a Braille reader or a broadband connection, access to technology is not a political issue — it’s a participation issue,” said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), the author of a House bill aimed at making the Internet more accessible to people with disabilities. “We’ve moved from Braille to broadcast, from broadband to the BlackBerry. We’ve moved from spelling letters in someone’s palm to the PalmPilot. And we must make all of these devices accessible.”
The consumer electronics, entertainment and communications industries have been slow to include people with disabilities, some lawmakers and advocates say. Big companies have fought government regulators dictating new technical requirements, saying that the industry is better equipped to make its own engineering decisions.
Apple’s iPhone has built-in speech software for the blind, but other smartphones require users to buy costly programs for the same functions. Some broadcasters put videos on the Internet with captions, but not all.
That can make inaccessible everything from political videos that are now common on the Web to pop culture clips that turn viral.
Last week, for instance, the “White Board Girl” clip of a fictitious employee quitting on a dry erase board or JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater’s comments fresh out of jail didn’t have closed-captioning for the deaf or hard of hearing.
Markey’s legislation and a companion bill in the Senate would make mandatory some of the changes in technology that industry is slow to adopt on its own. It would allow blind consumers to choose from a broader selection of cellphones with speech software that calls out phone numbers and cues users on how to surf the Internet. Legislation would make new TV shows that are captioned available online with closed-captioning. Remote controls would have a button that makes it easier to get closed captioning on TV sets.
But gaps would remain. Videos made and shared by users on YouTube and Facebook wouldn’t require captioning. Vision-impaired cellphone users will in many cases have to download speech software at an extra cost.
“This is simply about inclusion. You have an industry that is known for innovation, but they don’t have a cultural understanding of what universal design truly means,” said Rosaline Crawford, a legal director at the National Association of the Deaf.
The Consumer Electronics Association was at first opposed to legislation that would create blanket requirements for cellphones, set top boxes and other electronics. But the trade group has come to agree on some points and now says a case-by-case analysis of how individual technologies can be more inclusive is a good idea.
Captioning for a television on your wrist, for instance, would be difficult to achieve.
Generally, the association said, it prefers voluntary changes by the manufacturers, saying that legislation has the danger of being quickly outdated in the fast-changing Web industry. Google, for example, has introduced voice-to-text captions that can be used for some videos online. But Crawford said the application’s accuracy rate is about 80 percent.
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Man branded with swastika prompts police training
August 13th, 2010
Branded with a swastika and marked with hate speech, a young man from Navajo escaped his accused captors and walked to a Farmington convenience store for help back in April. But when officers arrived to talk to him there was some confusion.
“We are concerned they didn’t recognize the handicap soon enough,” Deputy Chief Kyle Westall told KRQE News 13 shortly after the attack in May.
The department said at first the officers thought the victim was drunk. Eventually they realized the 22-year-old was not drunk; he was mentally challenged.
“It brought a deficiency to light in our agency,” Sgt. Robert Perez said.
The department decided more training was needed.
That training started Tuesday and is being put on by the New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs in collaboration with Soulful Presence.
“We really want them to feel more comfortable when they encounter someone with a disability,” said Marcie Davis, program director for the training.
The four-hour class teaches officers how to first recognize someone who has a disability.
“We’re talking about developmental disabilities, about physical disabilities and psychiatric,” Davis said, “all different types of things officers might need to know if they encounter someone who’s been a victim with multiple types of disabilities.”
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Madison schools believe in inclusion of students with autism
August 11th, 2010
By Michael Winerip, The New York Times
Garner Moss has autism and when he was finishing fifth grade, his classmates made a video about him, so the new students he would meet in the bigger middle school would know what to expect. His friend Sef Vankan summed up Garner this way: “He puts a little twist in our lives we don’t usually have without him.”
People with autism are often socially isolated, but the Madison public schools are nationally known for including children with disabilities in regular classes. Now, as a high school junior, Garner, 17, has added his little twist to many lives.
He likes to memorize plane, train and bus routes, and in middle school during a citywide scavenger hunt, he was so good that classmates nicknamed him “GPS-man.” He is not one of the fastest on the high school cross-country team, but he runs like no other. “Garner enjoys running with other kids, as opposed to past them,” said Casey Hopp, his coach.
Garner’s on the swim team, too, and gets rides to practice with a teammate, Michael Salerno. On cold mornings, no one wants to be first in the water, so Garner thinks it’s a riot to splash everyone with a colossal cannonball. “They get angry,” the coach, Paul Eckerle, said. “Then they see it’s Garner, and he gets away with it. And that’s how practice begins.”
On his smartphone, Garner loves watching YouTube videos of elevators (“That’s an Otis; it has an annoying fan.”) When John Stec, a swim teammate, met him two years ago, he assumed Garner wouldn’t talk much. “But as soon as you say stuff, he says stuff back to you,” John said. “He knew everyone’s name on the team even before he talked to us.”
This is why Garner’s parents, Beth and Duncan Moss, moved to Madison from Tennessee several years ago. In Tennessee, his parents said, they were constantly battling to have Garner included in regular programs, going through four mediation disputes.
“After third grade there, I told my husband, Garner would go nowhere in life and the family would fall apart,” Ms. Moss said. “We had to leave.” At the time, Ms. Moss, who stopped working as a teacher when Garner was born, was attending autism conferences. “I kept hearing about Madison,” she said.
Families with children with autism and developmental disabilities move from all over the country for the Madison schools. Kristi Jacobsen, whose son Jonathan has autism, moved from Omaha several years ago. She and her three children live here full time, while her husband, who has a financial business in Omaha, commutes back and forth.
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Couple speaks up after their son dies in the state’s care
August 9th, 2010
By Maura Possley, Southtown Star
Brian’s parents were still in shock when they arrived at a Waukegan hospital on a fall night in 2002.They hadn’t spoken much during the hour-and-a-half ride from their Oak Forest townhome.
They could think only of the news they had so far: Their 25-year-old son had arrived at the hospital with no pulse. Doctors couldn’t revive him.
Jim and Linda Kent saw the white sheet pulled up to Brian’s chin, covering the rest of his 100-pound frame.
He was gone, and something went terribly wrong.
The deputy coroner agreed. He looked Jim Kent in the eye that night.
“He says, ‘He’s 25 years old, young – I’d sure like to know how he died,’ ” Kent recalled. “I said, ‘We do, too.’ “
Eight years later, the Kents still aren’t sure what happened to Brian.
They do know he never got the services he should have, as someone with profound disabilities in the state’s care.
Though Brian’s life had ended, his story would continue with his parents discovering a new way for their son to live on.
Through this one couple’s determination to speak out, Brian’s life became the inspiration of a new state law that will examine these deaths in a new light, in a bid to prevent another of these vulnerable residents from dying prematurely. The law takes effect Jan. 1.
“He was kicked in the abdomen. Nobody was held accountable, and that’s just what floors me,” Jim Kent said, reflecting on the nightmare his family was only beginning to face on that October night.
“His heart was excellent,” his mother said. “He would have lived forever.”
The baby brother
Brian Kent was born March 8, 1977, in Rock Island, a third child for the Kents. Sister Laura was the eldest, followed by brother Randy.
He had inherited his dad’s traits – at least in his shock of red hair.
Quickly, the family knew there was something different about Brian.
And by age 10, Brian’s autism and other disabilities needed more care than they could provide.
He had compulsive tende ncies, whether it was arranging furniture in a certain way or knocking on windows or flipping through magazines. Knocking on a window one day, it broke on Brian and his mother found him standing in a bed room holding a piece of glass.
Brian was nonverbal and had vis ion problems, but he communicated with others physically – by gently taking their hand to a faucet if he wanted water, for instance.
He spent his youth in two facilities downstate before he was transferred in 2002 to the Kiley Developmental Center in Waukegan. Run by the state, it seemed the appropriate next step needed to monitor his medications and handle his care into adulthood, his parents said.
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Patient advocates sue New Jersey for medicating against patient’s will
August 6th, 2010
By Richard Perez-Pina, The New York Times
Patient advocates filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday charging that New Jersey psychiatric hospitals routinely medicate patients against their will without a review by an outside arbiter, a practice that is banned in most other states.
Twenty-nine states require a judge’s ruling for involuntary medication, according to the suit, including New York, Connecticut and other large states, like California, Florida and Texas. Five other states leave the decision to an individual or panel outside the hospital. Some states also provide an advocate to represent a patient in a hearing on forced medication.
But in New Jersey, state rules allow a patient in a state hospital to appeal medication decisions only to people in the hospital. The lawsuit contends that the internal appeal process is routinely ignored and that psychiatric patients in private hospitals lack any opportunity to appeal medication regimens at all.
The suit, filed in Federal District Court in Trenton by the group Disability Rights New Jersey, seeks a court order requiring the state to provide judicial review of involuntary medication. It notes that a prison inmate has more power to contest treatment decisions than a psychiatric patient.
The drugs forced on patients include powerful medications for conditions like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. They help many people with those diseases function better, but can have serious side effects, including diabetes, tremors, seizures, high blood pressure, obesity, sedation, aches and impaired mental function.
“As a patient in a state hospital, it’s your legal right to refuse and go through a process, but you get severely penalized if you try,” said W. Emmett Dwyer, litigation director of Disability Rights New Jersey, a federally financed organization. “They view you as noncompliant with treatment. They give you an injection instead of a pill. And they tell you if you don’t take it, you won’t get out.”
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Don’t hold your breath for more Medicaid funds
August 4th, 2010
A note to state legislators holding their breath for additional Medicaid funds: Don’t come up for air just yet.
Senate Democrats on Monday were forced to table legislation providing states with six additional months of emergency Medicaid funding after the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) determined that the cost of the larger $26 billion package — including $10 billion for state education programs — wasn’t fully offset.
Democrats had scaled back the Medicaid provision, from $24 billion to $16.1 billion, by phasing out the boost in the federal share over the first half of 2011. The current 6.2 percent increase in Medicaid’s federal medical assistance percentage (FMAP) — passed as part of last year’s stimulus bill — expires at the end of 2010. The Democrats’ plan would provide a 3.2 percent FMAP bump in the first quarter of 2011, and a 1.2 percent hike in the second quarter.
Senate leaders expect to vote for cloture on a revised (i.e., fully paid-for) proposal on Wednesday.