RI Consent Decree Judge Wants To Sharpen Focus On DD Services That Encourage Integration

By Gina Macris

For nearly three years, the U.S. District Court in Rhode Island has monitored the state’s progress in implementing a federal civil rights consent decree that seeks to integrate adults facing intellectual or developmental challenges with their communities, detailing the progress made and work yet to be done.

With the 2014 consent decree nearing the middle of its 10-year run, and an earlier, more limited companion agreement designed to expire in July, 2020, Judge John J. McConnell, Jr. has asked participants to come to court next time with a different approach.

In a hearing Oct.30, McConnell asked an independent court monitor, lawyers for the U.S. Department of Justice and state officials to come to court next time with a focus on the areas of greatest concern and to be prepared with recommendations for what the Court can do other than monitor developments.

On Oct. 30, he boiled down the core issues into two parts.

• Each person protected by the consent decree should have a thoughtful long-range plan for a career that reflects his or her unique needs, preferences and goals.

• Actual services funded by the state should fit with the goals of the individualized career development plan.

To be sure, McConnell praised the “tremendous progress” made by the state, including the closure earlier this year of the last sheltered workshop. He also heard about increases in supported employment, the growth of a quality improvement unit aimed at assuring all services meet high standards, and cooperation among state officials and private providers. Providers have said in recent months that their working relationship with state officials is better than it has been in many years.

At the same time, problems persist in finding jobs for young adults and in providing high quality personalized support services for non-work activities that typically take up the majority of individuals’ time, according to the testimony McConnell heard.

Continuing concerns about inadequate funding surfaced during the Oct. 30 hearing when the independent monitor, Charles Moseley, described a visit he and another consultant had with state officials and 16 providers in early August.

In a report filed with the Court hours before the hearing, Moseley said “significant numbers” of the providers indicated that they continue to run deficits in key areas and that funding allocations for individual services are insufficient to cover the costs of the services that must be provided.

Among major barriers to providing services, 94 percent cited transportation, 88 percent pointed to a lack of funding and complicated billing procedures for reimbursement, and 69 percent highlighted high staff turnover and poor job retention.

All these factors become particularly problematic when the state and the federal government are asking providers to undertake more staff training to gain expertise in the principles and practice of individualization, to enroll more young adults as clients, and to provide individualized support in the community as each of their charges goes to different job sites and engages in non-work activities in various places.

According to the consent decree, all young adults who left high school between 2013 and 2016 – those seeking adult services for the first time - were to be offered employment by July 1, 2016. But the state still hasn’t fulfilled that requirement, even after the deadline was extended to Sept. 30 of this year.

Moseley reported that on Sept. 29, the state had achieved 77 percent of that goal, or 257 job placements out of an “employment census” of 334 young adults.

Victoria Thomas, the DOJ lawyer, said she believes the state is using effective strategies to reach out to the remaining young adults and will monitor the situation.

She said DOJ lawyers visited the Birch Academy at Mount Pleasant High School recently and while they were generally delighted with the transformation, they were surprised to learn “how few high school students exited directly into supported employment.”

Students at the Birch Academy are protected by the predecessor to the 2014 statewide consent decree, called the Interim Settlement Agreement. The agreement, signed in 2013, was limited to addressing the use of the Birch high school program as a feeder to a now-defunct sheltered workshop in North Providence called Training Through Placement.

Thomas said that, according to the Interim Settlement Agreement, students who turn 18 should have the support they need to make the transition to work or actually hold a job while they are still in school.

Thomas said she wants to address the transition issue in the time remaining for the Interim Settlement Agreement, which is to end July 1, 2020.

All parties to the settlement must be in “substantial compliance” with the Interim Settlement Agreement a year before it expires. What substantial compliance looks like might be different for the state than for the Providence School Department, said Thomas, telling the judge that the DOJ will prepare some recommendations on the matter.

The city has met virtually every target set out by the Interim Settlement Agreement and earned McConnell’s praise. “Keep it up,” he said.

The state is responsible to the court for the work done by the private service providers under the terms of both the Interim Settlement Agreement and the statewide consent decree.

The providers’ performance got mixed reviews from Moseley and another consultant, William Ashe, who in early October analyzed a small random sample of plans, looking for the degree to which they were individualized and how they compared to the actual services provided.

The consultants expected the providers to use a guide on “person-centered thinking” developed by the Sherlock Center on Disabilities at Rhode Island College to formulate plans that put a particular person’s needs, preferences, and goals at the center of the planning process.

In 10 of the 17 plans, participants chose non-work activities from a menu of offerings that rotated on a weekly schedule, according to Ashe. But this kind of choice is not considered “person-centered” because the participants were not able to consider the the full range of opportunities available in the community.

“It is fair to say that the implementation of person-centered planning remains a work in progress where there has been significant but uneven advances in the development of person-centered planning practices. There remains a significant amount of work yet to be done,” Ashe wrote.

He found other instances in which plans indicated individuals had significant problems in communication. But neither the plans nor the actual services addressed ways in which communication could be improved.

“Frequently, there were clear instances of personal preference identified in the planning process that did not appear to be reflected in the services that were actually happening, Ashe said.

For example, one man indicated he wanted to learn to read and use a computer, but none of the goals written in his plan responded to that request.

Some of the plans reviewed were for clients of Easter Seals Rhode Island, formerly Community Work Services, an agency that nearly lost its license to operate in 2017 but has made a dramatic turnaround during the last year.

Ashe said “there are still very substantial steps that need to be taken in order to get this organization to an acceptable level of “person-centeredness” and to some extent, the same applies to other agencies.

Agencies should “diversify” the way that integrated day services are provided, he said.

From what Ashe observed, he said, it felt like community agencies like the YMCA and a bowling alley were becoming “a little bit like a day program” as staff and clients from one or more service providers gathered in the same place at the same time.

At the bowling alley, staff from several agencies sat together with their clipboards and watched the bowlers, Ashe said.

Based on a review of documents and direct observations, Ashe said, “there is a significant ongoing need for continued training on person-centered planning with an emphasis on how to take a plan and put it into action.”

“A good person-centered plan by itself does not produce good person-centered outcomes. How to individualize and implement these plans needs to be a focus for training,” Ashe concluded.

Read the full monitor’s report here.

Revamped Fedcap Program in RI Regains Full Two-Year DD License, With Stipulation

By Gina Macris

Rhode Island has renewed the operating license of Community  Work Services (CWS), the developmental disability service provider on probation for the past year, with the stipulation that it continue detailed or “enhanced” reporting on its activities through April.

The full license, issued Dec. 19 by the Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals, (BJDDJ) is valid for two years, the standard duration for organizations of its type.

CWS  had come under fire from the federal court monitor overseeing the state’s implementation of two disability rights agreements with the U.S. Department of Justice that are intended to correct an overreliance on sheltered workshops and segregated day programs that violates the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA.).

The monitor, Charles Mosley, said shortcomings at CWS had prevented the state from meeting goals for job placements required by the first of the two civil rights agreements,  the so-called Interim Settlement Agreement of 2013.

That document focused on the former Training Through Placement (TTP), a sheltered workshop in North Providence, that used the special education Birch Academy at Mount Pleasant High School as a feeder program for its workforce.

Craig Stenning, former BHDDH director, brought in the Boston-based CWS in 2013 to turn around TTP. But after making some initial progress, the track record of CWS remained essentially flat for four years, according to Moseley, the monitor.  CWS is a program of the New York-based Fedcap Rehabilitation Services, whose website lists Stenning as senior vice president for the New England region and executive director of CWS in Massachusetts.

After the state gave CWS in Rhode Island notice last spring that it would not extend the agency’s probation beyond the end of 2017, CWS began a major overhaul, including a complete turnover of personnel.  The executive director of CWS in Rhode Island is now Lori Norris.

The most recent courtroom review of the situation occurred Nov. 30 before Judge John J. McConnell Jr. The next hearing is April 10, before the end of the enhanced reporting period stipulated in the new license. 

RI Olmstead Judge Says He'll Be Keeping Eye On State And Federal Funding For Disability Services

By Gina Macris

John J. McConnell, Jr., the U.S. District Court judge overseeing changes in Rhode Island’s developmental disability service system, has signaled that that future funding of the social services is very much on his mind.

During a hearing Nov. 30 in Providence, McConnell listened to the state’s summary of the latest progress and the work still to be done to achieve the goals necessary to transform Rhode Island’s segregated services for persons with developmental disabilities into an integrated, community-based model. The transformation would bring Rhode Island into compliance with the U.S. Supreme Court Olmstead decision clarifying the integration mandate of the Americans With Disabilities Act.

After Kerri Zanchi, the state Director of Developmental Disabilities, had finished her prepared remarks, McConnell interjected the observation that the necessary services are all “contingent on funding.”

“Funding is a key issue,” both at the state and federal level, he said. 

 Zanchi, too, expressed concerns, saying the developmental disability community needs advocacy to make its case on budget issues.

Most recently in Washington, disability rights advocates have said that the proposed tax cuts now before Congress would result in reductions in spending through Medicaid, the federal-state program that pays for services required by a 2013 interim agreement and a broader 2014 consent decree between the state of Rhode Island and the U.S. Department of Justice.

In addition, the federal government’s re-direction of some vocational rehabilitation funding from Rhode Island to Texas has triggered a waiting list, effective Dec. 1, for future clients of Rhode Island’s Office of Rehabilitation Services (ORS), which is involved in implementing both the 2013 and 2014 agreements.

No one currently served by ORS will be affected, but by the time the court is scheduled to reconvene in April, the waiting list could include applicants for services who are covered by the consent decree or the interim agreement.

Meanwhile, Rhode Island’s implementation of the agreements has contributed to a projected cost overrun of almost $26 million in federal and state Medicaid funds for developmental disability services in the current fiscal year, and the Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals (BHDDH) is under pressure to find ways to cut costs.

McConnell said he hoped that state officials will take into consideration the requirements of the 2014 consent decree (and the more limited interim agreement) as they look for cuts in social services in the coming months.

He said he wanted it known that “the third equal branch of government is watching.”

State Details Compliance Efforts  

The Nov. 30 hearing concerned those who are covered by the so-called “Interim Settlement Agreement,” originally 125 former students at the Birch Academy at Mount Pleasant High School in Providence who at one time were funneled into jobs paying sub-minimum wage at the former sheltered workshop, Training Through Placement (TTP) in North Providence. 

The latest update puts the current number in this group at 91 individuals whose cases are still open at the state Division of Developmental Disabilities (DDD), said Zanchi, the division director.

She summarized the state’s progress in working with them:

• 51 have jobs in the community paying at least minimum wage
• 21 are unemployed but job-hunting, with support 
• 7 are currently inactive
• 12 have chosen not to work but are receiving integrated day services from a total of 12 providers.

In a report to the court submitted the eve of the hearing, an independent monitor, Charles Moseley, framed the employment statistics differently.

He zeroed in on an order from McConnell in June that the state follow up on 46 unemployed members of the class protected by the interim agreement of 2013, including 34 who had never had a job in the community.

Among the group of 46, Moseley said the state had made 11 job placements as of the end of October. That is most of the goal of 15 placements that must be made by March 23, 2018. An additional 16 placements must be made by June 23, 2018, and target dates for the remaining 15 placements are to be determined, he said. (Some of them have indicated they don't want to work.)

'Underperformance' Of One Provider Hurt State

Much of the testimony, as well as Moseley’s comprehensive report, concerned Community Work Services, the successor to TTP, the sheltered workshop at the center of the U.S. Department of Justice investigation that led to the interim agreement of 2013.

CWS serves 57 of the 91 individuals covered by the interim agreement, according to Zanchi. (CWS’ own report to the monitor earlier in November put that figure at 59, with 5 of the 59 transitioning to other providers.)    

Of the CWS clients covered by the interim agreement, 25 belong to the group of 46 unemployed individuals the judge said needed special attention, according to Moseley’s report. The rest are served by other providers.

Zanchi said the “underperformance” of CWS “has directly contributed” to the state’s non-compliance with the interim agreement’s targets for employment and integrated non-work services. CWS is a subsidiary of Fedcap Rehabilitation Services of New York.

By now, the state was to have found jobs for all members of the former Birch and TTP group who made an informed choice to seek employment. 

Zanchi said the current CWS leadership has shown a “solid grasp of the significant change needed in their organizational structure” as well as the fact that it needs to reach performance goals “expeditiously.”

She emphasized that CWS’ “re-engagement of families” to support integrated services “cannot be understated.”

She shared the story of one young CWS client and the client's parents, who in a two-year span, had gradually shifted from adamant opposition toward warm embrace of the idea of employment. The client ow volunteers at the Rhode Island Community Food Bank and a local food pantry and meets with a job developer each week to explore part-time job opportunities, Zanchi said.  

CWS Nearly Lost License

In May, CWS had come under fire – and was close to losing its license to operate in Rhode Island – for substandard programming, according to Moseley.

Since then, there has been a nearly complete turnover of staff and management at CWS, which has drawn up a new blueprint for change in keeping with principles of “person-centered planning,” putting the individual’s needs and preferences at the center of customized plans for immediate services and long-term goals. 

CWS also has begun a pilot program called “Employment Without Walls” with 7 clients who are hunting for jobs. 

The CWS plan was included in a 59-page report to the court from Moseley. Also included in Moseley's report was an evaluation from William Ashe, a Vermont-based consultant, who worked with Moseley in conducting a three-day, on-site review of CWS in early October.

Ashe, who had first evaluated CWS in October, 2015, said that “CWS is very different from the organization that was visited some two years ago.”

At the same time, Ashe said that “It was my hope that more gains would have been made over these 24 months than has been the case, particularly in the degree of sophistication of the person-centered planning process.” He noted that CWS, led by program director Lori Norris, “appears committed to restructuring the services and supports that it provides to comply with the ISA (Interim Settlement Agreement of 2013) and state regulations.“

In an interview, Ashe said, Norris also touched on financial challenges, which plague all service providers in Rhode Island as they struggle to help BHDDH meet the requirements of the federal mandates and still remain solvent.

According to Ashe’s report, Norris said “her superiors at FedCap are committed to success and will assure the proper level of staffing support even if this resource level is greater than what the current billing authorizations will support.”

CWS’ probationary license ends Dec. 31 and BHDDH must decide whether the agency will continue operating in Rhode Island.

The Massachusetts operations of CWS, a Boston-based agency, are now headed by Craig Stenning, Rhode Island’s former BHDDH director, who is also listed as Fedcap’s Senior Vice President for the New England region on the Fedcap website.  

In his report, Ashe said Norris “was candid in her comments” during the October interview, “stating that the CWS program status at the time of her appointment (six months earlier) was very inadequate across most areas of performance.

“She described her efforts over this past six-month period to change the culture of CWS,” a drive that included a large turnover of staff.

CWS Tries Turnaround

After visiting KFI, a model program for integrated services in Maine, Norris told Ashe, she took several steps at CWS.

Norris, according to Ashe’s report, has:

• Stopped renovations at the former TTP building, instead planning to abandon any reliance on a facility for integrated services as of Jan. 1. (The former TTP building had been ordered closed to clients by the state in March, 2017 because of unsafe conditions. CWS’ license was suspended for a few days until it found a substitute location in quarters owned by the Fogarty Center.)  
• Discontinued the use of vans to transport clients, instead opting to arrange for staff members to use their own cars on the job.
• Changed the job title of direct support staff to community advocate, saying she believes “this title better reflects the culture change she wishes to establish and more accurately conforms to the expectation for how she wants staff to approach their work.”
• Adopted a flexible work schedule for staff, so that they are available evenings and weekends to support clients who work outside normal business hours.

Problems Extend Beyond CWS

Moseley, the monitor, noted in his report that the non-work services received by CWS clients do not meet the requirements of the interim agreement or the statewide consent decree for integrated activities. 

These activities are intended to “provide individuals with disabilities with opportunities to fully engage with people without disabilities in the mainstream” of social life as well as work, he said.

Practical and effective strategies for achieving these goals are not clear, not only at CWS but across the developmental disability service system, Moseley said.

To address the problem, the state Division of Developmental Disabilities (DDD) has articulated guiding principles and standards for integrated day services. Through the Sherlock Center at Rhode Island College, DDD also offers training in implementing successful strategies for integration, Moseley said, but he recommended the training be expanded.

Another, related problem is a mismatch between existing services for individuals and their long-range plans.

In a court-ordered review of individual records documenting current services and future plans, DDD found that in 58 percent of the cases, individuals’ ongoing activities didn’t necessarily help them achieve their goals, Zanchi told the judge.

As a result, DDD has taken steps to merge short-range and long-range planning into one streamlined and holistic process that encourages providers to think in terms of individualized services that can help develop skills and interests that will help a particular person realize long-term aspirations.  

In addition, Zanchi said, DDD has developed a separate written guide, or rubric, for reviewing the quality of these individualized plans.

Zanchi Praises 'Collective Vision'

Zanchi concluded that she is “confident that there continues to be many areas where progress is clear,” recognizing that “quality is still developing” in services available to adults with developmental disabilities.

Zanchi said the progress is the direct result of a “collective vision that is guiding the work and transforming services.”

“We are building a remarkable partnership with the true experts of the DD system,” she said, referring to consumers, families, providers, business partners, community advocates as well as DD and ORS staffers.

They are all “invested in this progress and are at our table to strengthen our system to achieve these outcomes,” Zanchi said.

Click here to read the monitor's report.

Future of RI Fedcap Agency Still Unclear; State Continues To Collect Evidence For Final Decision

By Gina Macris

With less than two months remaining before the state of Rhode Island decides whether to shut down a subsidiary of the New York-based Fedcap Rehabilitation Services, licensing officials at the Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals (BHDDH) are still collecting evidence that will have a bearing on the state’s decision.

The performance of Community Work Services (CWS), which also has come under criticism by federal officials, is expected to figure in a U.S. District Court hearing Nov. 30 about a 2013 settlement of disability rights violations involving CWS and its predecessor, the now-defunct sheltered workshop Training Through Placement (TTP.)

In an interview Nov. 3, the director of licensing for BHDDH, Kevin Savage, said that the probationary status of CWS, in effect for nearly a year, “has not been resolved.”  Licensing regulations place a 12-month limit on probation.

 A federal court monitor said during a court hearing in May that the number of former TTP clients who had found jobs had been “essentially flat” for the previous four years. A lawyer for the U.S. Department of Justice also cited a lack of progress that was evident during a site visit earlier in the spring.  About half of individuals protected by the 2013 agreement – 62 individuals at last count – are currently served by CWS.

In an interview Nov. 3, Savage, the BHDDH licensing administrator, said that the most recent "monitor’s report is primarily about the programming, and the programming issue is not resolved.

“We’re reading the monitor’s reports and our own reports,” Savage said, and “we are not satisfied with the program resolution.”

Savage said that BHDDH will continue – “and I want the word 'continue' to be clear” – to look at “every aspect of what CWS does, including payment structures, including respite (care), and including how they work with families and participants – everything.”

Savage also said, “I think it’s okay to say we are accumulating evidence. They (CWS) know that, and I think it’s okay for the public to know that. The evidence speaks to whether they should be shut down, or whether they should not be shut down. Evidence does that.”

“Our goal, and our only goal, is to ensure that participants have the best service available that is possible,”  he said. “We’ve communicated that clearly to the providers we work with and the families we work with. Our job is not to protect businesses. Our job is to protect participants.”

CWS has been on probation since the beginning of 2017. BHDDH licensing officials shut down its operation at the former TTP building at 20 Marblehead Ave., North Providence, in March because of unsafe conditions - a problem separate from programmatic concerns - but the agency re-opened with state permission in different quarters a few days later.

In this and any other probationary case, Savage said, the public has the right to know the “final agency action.”  Adverse decisions may be appealed by the agencies in question, he said.

The performance of CWS is entwined in the state’s accountability to the federal court for satisfying the demands of the 2013 settlement agreement that protect special education students at Mount Pleasant High School, including the former Birth Academy, and former clients of TTP - a total of 126 individuals.

A broader agreement between the state and the DOJ signed in 2014 covers all adults with developmental disabilities who have at one time been segregated in either sheltered workshops or day centers - more than 3,000 people. .

In connection with the so-called  "Interim Settlement Agreement" of 2013, the federal court monitor, Charles Moseley, said in a report to the court in September that the state has missed two deadlines in an order issued by Judge John J. McConnell, Jr: They are

•  A July 30 deadline for improving the quality of individual career development plans among CWS clients.
• A June 30 deadline for verifying the accuracy of data reported by CWS on its clients’ progress.

So-called “career development plans” describe how current services and plans for the near future fold into blueprints for life-long work goals that are supposed to take into account both the needs and preferences of individuals with developmental disabilities.

The November 30 hearing is listed on the U.S. District  Court calendar in connection with the statewide 2014 consent decree, but the state's interim Consent Decree Coordinator, Brian Gosselin, said recently at a public forum on developmental disability issues that the session will deal instead with the more narrow Interim Settlement Agreement of 2013, which was last heard in late May. A separate hearing on the status of the statewide consent decree is expected to be scheduled for the end of January, six months after its most recent hearing in late July.

RI Has Missed Two Court-Ordered Deadlines For Holding Troubled Fedcap Agency Accountable

By Gina Macris

Continuing difficulties at the former sheltered workshop that stood for everything wrong with Rhode Island’s developmental disability system have caused new noncompliance problems for the state in U.S. District Court. 

The problems revolve around one private agency, Community Work Services (CWS), a program of the New York-based Fedcap Rehabilitation Services. But the state is accountable to the court for the way it manages its service vendors and for ensuring that adults with developmental disabilities receive high quality supports under provisions of 2013 and 2014 agreements with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

 In both settlements, Rhode Island agreed to end segregation of adults with developmental disabilities – a violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) – and instead to offer them the choice of supported employment and integrated non-work activities.

Community Work Services (CWS) was hired in 2013 to correct ADA violations at the former sheltered workshop, Training Through Placement (TTP.)  But CWS itself has operated under one form or another of state supervision for 17 months and nearly lost its license earlier this year.

Missed Deadlines

According to the latest report of a federal court monitor, the state has missed two deadlines; one, a July 30 date for improving the quality of individual career plans and another, June 30, for verifying the accuracy of data reported by CWS on its clients’ progress. 

Despite the state’s efforts to resolve inconsistencies in data, “problems continue to exist with the information provided by CWS,” according to a Sept. 7 report  by the monitor, Charles Moseley, to U.S. District Court Judge John J. McConnell.  

The state, the monitor, and the DOJ use that data to determine whether CWS is following the requirements of the ADA agreements. 

Blueprints For The Future

And so-called “career development plans” are not supposed to be just paperwork, but blueprints that allow officials to see in an instant how the services a client currently receives fit into individualized short-term and long-term goals. 

The plans are intended to reflect a key principle embodied in the ADA; that people with disabilities have choices in how they live their lives.  

The monitor also said 70 percent of the clients’ career plans were “unacceptable” and had not been improved in the month after the judge’s July 30 deadline, despite the state’s efforts.

For most of the 64 Individuals who are active CWS clients, the daily activities and yearly individual service plans didn’t line up with the long-range career development plans, according to Moseley.  

In other cases, the long-range plans were “well done”, but the plans were “not being implemented in a manner which aligns with the participants’ interests,” Moseley said.

Neither the DOJ nor the judge have responded on the record to Moseley’s latest findings, although McConnell has said in the most recent hearing on the so-called “interim settlement agreement” of 2013 that he considers himself personally responsible for defending the rights of about 125 individuals protected by the agreement.

Former State Official Now Heads CWS

Community Work Services, a Boston-based agency, came to Rhode Island in 2013 as a program of Fedcap, hired by Craig Stenning, then director of the state Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals (BHDDH) to get a jump start on turning around the state’s developmental disability system in the wake of the interim settlement agreement of 2013 and the broader consent decree of 2014.

Between 2013 and 2014, Fedcap was awarded a total of about $1.7 million in state contracts. In 2015, Stenning joined Fedcap’s senior management.

As part of the state’s arrangement with Fedcap, CWS took over Training Through Placement (TTP), which had used the Birch Academy at Mount Pleasant High School as a feeder program for its sheltered workshop. There, adults with developmental disabilities performed repetitive tasks at sub-minimum wages, sometimes for decades, even when they expressed a desire to do something else.

At the hearing in May, Moseley, the monitor, told the judge that the number of former TTP clients who have found regular jobs in the community has remained “essentially flat” for the last four years. Most of the former TTP clients still received services from CWS. 

At that point, CWS itself had operated under one or another form of state supervision since May, 2016, for both programmatic deficiencies and substandard facilities at the former TTP building in North Providence.

CWS Nearly Lost License

In his most recent report Sept. 7, Moseley disclosed that state officials had notified CWS in early May – about two weeks before the federal court hearing - that they intended to revoke the agency’s license. But state officials changed their minds after a conference with CWS representatives, the monitor said.

Instead of revoking the license, the state Division of Developmental Disabilities (DDD) decided to give CWS one last chance by continuing the agency’s probationary status from July 1 to Sept. 30, with the possibility of only one more extension, until Dec. 31. The current status of the license is not clear. 

Moseley said CWS has brought on new staff, including a deputy director, a job developer and a new position with responsibilities for data and reporting.

According to the CWS website, it also has a new executive director, Craig Stenning, Fedcap’s Senior Vice President for the New England Region and the former BHDDH director.

Less than a year after Stenning’s departure from BHDDH – Governor Gina Raimondo failed to reappoint him – the DOJ and the monitor asked the U.S. District Court for assistance in enforcing the companion agreements of 2013 and 2014, citing a lack of progress by the state.

As a result, McConnell took up the combined cases and held the first hearing in January, 2016. Since then, he has held periodic reviews from the bench.   

Extensive State Oversight

Moseley’s Sept. 7 report described the extensive state supervision dedicated to CWS.  Licensing officials make monthly regulatory reviews of CWS. In addition, there are unannounced monthly visits coordinated with the state’s chief quality improvement officer for developmental disabilities. Supplementary phone calls and emails from state officials to CWS occur at least once a week.

Meanwhile, the state’s chief employment officer for developmental disabilities provides on-site technical assistance to CWS job developers, reviewing day-to-day activities and observing so-called “person-centered” planning meetings that are designed to put the needs and preferences of the clients first.

In earlier reports, Moseley has said the state simply does not have enough personnel to provide a fully functioning quality assurance program across the board to verify that some three dozen service providers are complying with the “person-first” principles and practices of the ADA. He has required DDD to take steps to create one.

DDD has 24 caseworkers and a handful of supervisory personnel and support staff to manage the needs of a total of about 4,350 individuals.  (About 3,700 receive day-to-day services,)

After learning that there had been little change at CWS since 2013, McConnell said he was angered on behalf of those who are “years late in terms of getting the services that the state agreed to,” according to a transcript of the hearing on May 23.

Addressing lawyers and state officials before him, he said, “The truth is that we all, you and you and me and then everybody else, have these hundred-odd people’s rights in our hands. “

McConnell continued. “I don’t take that lightly. I will use whatever powers that I have available to me to ensure that those individuals aren’t forgotten. Dr. Moseley always reminds me that we’re talking about individuals here and not alphabet soups and programs and whatnot. And this time it’s got to stick.”

Praise For Providence and Mount Pleasant

McConnell concluded on what he described as an “optimistic note” for officials of the city of Providence, who during the last few years have made substantial changes at Mount Pleasant High School, enabling special education students who otherwise would have been completely isolated to become part of the broader student body and to have school-to- work experiences in the community.

“Keep up the good work,” the judge told school and city officials. “It doesn’t mean you’re at the finish line, but you’ve showed us that it can be done.” 

A version of this article also appears in ConvergenceRI

Four Years After Settlement, Former Workshop Still Segregates Adults With DD - Monitor

photo by gina macris

Former Training Through Placement building at 20 Marblehead Ave., North Providence RI

By Gina Macris

A federal judge has taken the state of Rhode Island to task for failing to keep track of a former sheltered workshop that has continued to segregate adults with developmental disabilities, despite a landmark integration agreement four years ago that seeks to transform daytime services for those with intellectual challenges.

An order by Judge John J. McConnell, Jr. of U.S. District Court sets strict deadlines between the end of June and the end of July for specific steps the state must take to ensure that all clients of the former sheltered workshop lacking jobs or meaningful activities begin to realize the promise of the 2013 agreement.

The so-called Interim Settlement Agreement of 2013 focused primarily on special education students at the Birch Academy at Mount Pleasant High School and adult workers at Training Through Placement (TTP), which has become Community Work Services (CWS.)

The former sheltered workshop used Birch as a feeder program for employees, who often were stuck for decades performing repetitive tasks at sub-minimum wages – even when they asked for other kinds of jobs. Involved are a total of 126 individuals, according to McConnell’s count.

In 2014, after a broader investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, the state signed a more extensive consent decree covering more than 3,000 adults and teenagers with developmental disabilities. The state promised to end an over-reliance on sheltered workshops throughout Rhode Island and instead agreed to transform its system over ten years to offer individualized supports intended to integrate adults facing intellectual challenges in their communities.

Together, the companion agreements made national headlines as the first in the nation that called for integration of daytime supports for individuals with disabilities, in accordance with the Olmstead decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. The Olmstead decision re-affirmed Title II of the Americans With Disabilities Act, which says services must be provided in the least restrictive setting which is therapeutically appropriate, and that setting is presumed to be the community.

McConnell’s order is the latest and most forceful development in a story that highlights not only the failings of the former sheltered workshop, Training Through Placement (TTP), but the state’s lack of a comprehensive quality assurance program for developmental disability services system-wide.

The former sheltered workshop run by CWS at 20 Marblehead Ave., North Providence, was closed by the state on March 16 on an emergency basis because of an inspection that showed deteriorating physical conditions. Individuals with developmental disabilities were “exposed to wires, walkways obstructed by buckets collecting leaking water, and lighting outages due to water damage,” according to a report to the judge. At that point, CWS had been working under state BHDDH oversight for about a year, because of programmatic deficiencies, according to documents filed with the federal court.

CWS is a program of Fedcap Rehabilitation Services of New York, which had been hired by then-BHDDH director Craig Stenning to lead the way on integrated services for adults with developmental disabilities at TTP in the wake of the 2013 Interim Settlement Agreement. Stenning now works for Fedcap.

With the CWS facility closed by the state, the program resumed operations on March 21 in space provided by the John E. Fogarty Center in North Providence under terms of a  probationary, or conditional, license with state oversight, according to a report of an independent federal court monitor overseeing implementation of  the 2013 and 2014 civil rights agreements in Rhode Island that affect adults with developmental disabilities.

The monitor said the state licensing administrator for private developmental disability agencies also notified the CWS Board of Directors and the Fedcap CEO of the situation, making these points:  

• the state was concerned about unhealthy conditions of the CWS facility
• ·the agency failed to notify the state of the problems with the building
• CWS failed to implement a disaster plan
• ·The CWS executive director had an “inadequate response” to the state’s findings.

The letter to the Fedcap CEO also said that CWS had been providing “segregated, center-based day services” rather than the community-based programming for which the agency had been licensed.

Summarizing the status of the 2013 Interim Settlement Agreement, the monitor, Charles Moseley, concluded in part that the Providence School Department and the Rhode Island Department of Education have continued to improve compliance through added funding, an emphasis on supported employment, staff training and data gathering and reporting.

Overall, the state Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals, (BHDDH) the Executive Office of Health and Human Services, (EOHHS) and the state Office of Rehabilitation Services (ORS) also have made progress, Moseley said, citing budget increases, new management positions, and programmatic changes he has mentioned in various status reports on the statewide consent decree.

However, progress for clients of the former TTP workshop “appears to have plateaued and possibly regressed,” Moseley wrote, and for that he faulted the successor agency, CWS, and the lack of sustained oversight on the part of BHDDH. 

While some former sheltered workshop employees at TTP did find work after the Interim Settlement Agreement was signed in 2013, “the number and percentage of integrated supported employment placements has remained essentially flat for the last four years,” he said.

Efforts to reach CWS and Fedcap officials were unsuccessful.

In mid-March, CWS  reported that 30 of 71 clients on its roster had jobs. Of the 30 who were employed, 13 with part-time jobs also attended non-work activities sponsored by the agency. In addition, 41 clients attended only the non-work activities.

In early April, Moseley and lawyers from the DOJ interviewed the leadership and staff of CWS and some of the agency’s clients in their temporary base of operations at the Fogarty Center. Serena Powell, the CWS executive director, was among those who attended, Moseley said.

The leadership “revealed a lack of understanding of the basic goals and provisions of the state’s Employment First policy and related practices,” Moseley said in his report.

Rhode Island has adopted a policy of the U.S. Department of Labor which presumes that everyone, even those with significant disabilities, is capable of working along non-disabled peers and enjoying life in the community, as long as each person has the proper supports.

“This lack of knowledge and understanding appeared to extend to the basic concepts of person-centered planning (individualization) and program operation,” Moseley said, citing the names of specific protocols used by state developmental disability systems and provider agencies “across the country.”

Moseley said some CWS staff do not have the required training to do their jobs.

Some job exploration activities have consisted of “little more than walking through various business establishments at a local mall,” Moseley said, explaining that they were not purposeful activities tailored to individual interests and needs.

Moseley said he interviewed three clients of CWS and they were “unanimous in their desire to have a ‘real job’ in the community and to be engaged in productive community activities that didn’t involve hanging out with staff at the mall.

“All three persons reported that they were pleased to be out of the CWS/TTP facility and to have opportunities to go into the community more often. Two of the three expressed an interest in receiving services from a different service provider,” Moseley said.

The state has had four years to work on compliance with the Interim Settlement Agreement and the Consent Decree. During that time, BHDDH has seen three directors and its Division of Developmental Disabilites (DDD) has had four directors, including an outside consultant who served on an interim basis part of the time officials conducted a search that led to the appointment of Kerri Zanchi in January.

Between mid-February and early May, there was a separate upheaval in the leadership of the Executive Office of Health and Human Services, which had taken charge of the state’s compliance efforts in connection with the 2013 and 2014 civil rights agreements.

In a statement to the court, Zanchi alluded to all the turnover, saying that “progress has been challenged due to changes in internal and external leadership impacting stability, communication, resources, accountability, and vision.” 

Zanchi suggested that budget increases and considerable effort among BHDDH and ORS staff during the last year to improve compliance nevertheless have not been enough to make up for the previous three years of inaction.

Among other things, there is no consensus across the network of private service providers – some three dozen in all – “regarding the definition and expectation of integration,” Zanchi said.

DDD is responding by establishing “clear standards, training and monitoring,” she said. McConnell’s order required DDD to complete “guidance and standards for integrated day service” by June 30 and allowed another month for the document to be reviewed and disseminated to providers.

Zanchi said the state now has an “extensive quality management oversight plan” with CWS that involves DDD social workers, who are actively supporting CWS clients and their families. These same social workers also have average caseloads of 205 clients per person, according to the most recent DDD statistics.

Zanchi agreed with Moseley, the court monitor, that “current review and monitoring does not constitute a fully functioning quality improvement program.”

Moseley said that DDD’s quality improvement efforts “are seriously hampered by the lack of sufficient staff.” He called for “additional staffing resources” to ensure quality, provide system oversight and improve and ensure that providers get the required training.

Zanchi said an outside expert in interagency quality improvement is working with the state to develop and implement such a fully functioning plan. McConnell gave the state until July 30 to have a “fully-developed interim and long-term quality improvement plan” ready to go.

Of the 126 teenagers and adults McConnell said are protected by the 2013 Interim Settlement Agreement, 46 need individualized follow-up. Of the 46, 34 have never been employed, including 24 former TTP workers and 10 current Birch students or graduates.

The judge reinforced the monitor’s repeated emphasis over the last two years on proper planning as the foundation for producing a schedule of short-term activities and long-term goals that are purposeful for each person, whether they pertain to jobs, non-work activities, or both.  

These planning exercises, led by specially trained facilitators, can take on a festive air, with friends and family invited to share their reminiscences and thoughts for the future as they support the individual at the center of the event.

McConnell’s order said the state must ensure that “quality” planning for careers and non-work activities is in place by July 30 for active members of the protected class who want to continue receiving services.

Among CWS clients, the agency reported that 10 have indicated a reluctance to go into the community, perhaps because they feel challenged by the circumstances.

Moseley cited a variance to the Employment First policy developed by the state to cover those who can’t or don’t want to work, for medical or other reasons. Moseley’s report said he approved the variance in 2015, but it hasn’t been implemented. He acknowledged that it was difficult to understand.

McConnell’s highly technical and detailed order requires the state to implement a “variance and retirement policy” by June 30 “to discern specifically those who do not identify with either current or long-term employment goals.” 

McConnell also ordered the state to fund an additional $50,000 worth of training from the Sherlock Center on Disabilities at Rhode Island College so that those who work with adults with developmental disabilities can give them individualized counseling about how work would affect their government benefits.

The monitor has repeatedly cited a dearth of individualized benefits counseling. In his latest report, he wrote that in interviews May 11 and May 12, high school students at Birch, their parents, staff, and others expressed the false conviction that students could work no more than 20 to 25 hours a week without compromising their benefits.

"This finding underscores the importance of individualized benefits planning for this population to ensure that students are able to take full advantage of Social Security Act work incentives that may enable them to work more than 25 hours per week while maintaining their public and employer benefits," Moseley said.

The monitor is expected to evaluate compliance with the deadlines in McConnell's latest order in a future status report.