New Olmstead Consent Decree Monitor Wants Reality Check On RI DD System Transformation

A. Anthony Antosh * Photo By Anne Peters

By Gina Macris

As the new federal monitor of a 2014 civil rights consent decree affecting Rhode Islanders with developmental disabilities, A. Anthony Antosh wants to get a reality check on where reform efforts now stand and to create a road map for what remains to be done to enable people to live inclusive lives, in accordance with the U.S. Supreme Court’s Olmstead Decision on the Integration Mandate of the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Antosh’s vision, which parallels the requirements of the consent decree is that:

• Adults with developmental disabilities who once spent their days in sheltered workshops or day care centers will have a chance to work at regular jobs and will be able to do whatever non-work activities they want in the community- with the needed supports.

• Teenagers and those in their early twenties still in school, who are also protected by the consent decree, will get the services they need to make a smooth transition to the world of work and adulthood.

The process for assessing how far the state has moved toward inclusion includes not only a look at the state’s compliance with the consent decree’s prescribed goals, or “benchmarks,” but at the impact on the people’s lives as well, Antosh said.

For example, the state’s “Person-Centered Supported Employment Performance Program” tries to boost the number of people who get hired to bring the state into compliance with target job numbers specified in the consent decree. Antosh says he wants to find out if meeting those target employment numbers also means that everyone who wants to work has a chance to get a job.

Antosh outlined his vision at a Dec. 17 meeting in Warwick with the Employment First Task Force (EFTF), a community-based committee empowered by the consent decree to serve as an advisory group to state government and federal officials.

After his appointment as monitor by U.S. District Court Judge John J. McConnell, Jr., Antosh said, “a lot of people wanted to give me advice but lots of people felt their voices had not been heard. I want them to be heard.”

Antosh said he can’t process calls and emails from all of the thousands of Rhode Islanders with a stake in developmental disability services, but over the next couple of months he wants to hear from as many people as possible.

He turned to EFTF to help him collect and analyze the information in the next few months because its 15 members have broad and deep connections to the various constituencies with a connection to the developmental disability service system as consumers, families or professionals.

The EFTF membership represents non-profit organizations like the RI Developmental Disabilities Council, the Sherlock Center on Disabilities at Rhode Island College, Advocates in Action, Disability Rights Rhode Island, and includes a delegate from the state’s special education directors, the leaders of a statewide developmental disability professional organization, family members with ties to advocacy groups, service providers and adults who themselves receive state supports.

In the next two months, Antosh said, he wants the EFTF members to ask these questions of their constituencies:

• Has life improved as a result of the consent decree reforms already in place?

• What changes must yet be made?

• What will a transformed system look like to them?

Right now, Antosh said, he could go around a room and get a different answer from everyone on “where we are now.”

“I want many data points to know it has changed,” said Antosh, drawing on his background as a researcher and educator in developmental disability and special education issues. Antosh was the original director of the Sherlock Center at Rhode Island College, serving from 1993 until two months ago (check.)

Early in his career, he was one of the plaintiffs the lawsuit that forced the state to close its institution for people with disabilities, the Ladd School. It was shuttered in 1994. And the judge who now presides over the consent decree case, John J. McConnell, Jr., was a young lawyer who represented the plaintiffs in the Ladd school suit, Antosh among them.

Antosh said he has consulted with McConnell on his grass roots, fact-gathering approach. He said he will “do nothing without consultation with the judge.”

McConnell appointed Antosh interim court monitor November 25 to end a stalemate of more than four months between the state and the U.S. Department of Justice on the selection of a replacement to the original consent decree monitor, Charles Moseley, who stepped down for health reasons.

At the EFTF meeting, Antosh, now entering his 51st year in the disabilities field, outlined some of his core beliefs:

• Equity. If an opportunity is available to one, it should be available to all, he said.

• Policy backed by research. He said he has seen well intentioned people putting forward well-intentioned policies which have no impact on people’s lives because there’s no research or evidence to indicate they will work.

• Individualization. Antosh said he has seen many plans for an individualized program of services with information on the goals but no steps outlined on how those goals should be reached. “I believe in real plans,” he said.

• Individual control. People with developmental disabilities and their families can spend their allocation much better if they control it, Antosh said.

Overall, Antosh signaled that he wants flexibility in the system to enable the individualization that is at the heart of the consent decree. “I struggle with rigid anything,” he said.

Tim Vogt, Emerging Leader in Building Inclusive Communities, To Speak in Rhode Island Nov. 3

Tim Vogt Photo courtesy of Tim Vogt

Registration information has been corrected.

By Gina Macris

Tim Vogt, a nationally-recognized expert in building inclusive communities, will speak at a free seminar in Rhode Island November 3 that will be sponsored by several organizations that advocate for Rhode Islanders with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families.

Vogt is executive director of Starfire in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he has developed ways of making connections among individuals that rely on mutual interests and collective strengths while working around disabilities.

“His visionary message is to maximize the positive; minimize the negative,” said Connie Susa, executive director of PLAN RI, one of the sponsoring organizations. Vogt blogs at https://cincibility.wordpress.com/

The November 3 seminar will be at the Dean’s List Academy, 25 Esten Ave., Pawtucket. Check-in will begin at 9 a.m., with the presentation scheduled from 9:30 to 12:30. Anyone planning to attend is asked to register in advance at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/claiming-a-corner-of-community-tickets-51383200536  Additional sponsors are RI FORCE, the Rhode Island Developmental Disabilities Council and the John E. Fogarty Foundation.

The Community Provider Network of Rhode Island, a trade association representing two dozen private organizations that serve adults with developmental disabilities, is a co-sponsor of Vogt’s visit to Rhode Island, Susa said.

Artist And Others Who Rely On State-Funded Support Speak Up For What Matters To Them

By Gina Macris

Most people don’t  give a second thought to what it takes to meet a friend for coffee or a shopping foray. They just call or text and go. 

But for Wendy LeBeau, a Rhode Islander living with the challenges of developmental disabilities, arranging a casual get-together is a big deal. She’d have to get someone to drive, not so easy when her schedule of state-funded supports allows limited time for one-on-one service.

 On Aug. 7, LeBeau joined some 50 people at an event space next to The BRASS in Warren– an art gallery where she works – for the first of several  “Community Conversations” sponsored by the Community Provider Network of Rhode Island, a trade association of private service providers that support adults with developmental and intellectual challenges.

When LeBeau was asked about her ability to connect with friends, she replied “only at work.”  She is a contributing artist at The BRASS, where she has created abstract canvases of dancing, swishing color. 

The work of LeBeau, which features a carefully chosen palette and controlled style that belies the flowing compositions, has been shown at the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian Institute and an annual Art Ability exhibit at Bryn Mawr Rehab Hospital in Philadelphia.

LeBeau’s comments, as well as those of others, put a face on what it means to depend on others to arrange even a simple outing.  

The remarks responded to questions posed by Donna Martin, executive director of CPNRI, who made her way around the audience, asking individuals seated in a huge circle of chairs to share their experiences, including any barriers they faced to feeling included in their communities.

In various ways, LeBeau and others pointed to a common underlying theme – a shortage of qualified staff available to individualize services so that adults with developmental disabilities may access their communities for work and leisure, as envisioned by the Americans With Disabilities Act. 

Margaret, who uses a wheelchair, said as much: “We need more staff.”  

Since a $26 million funding cut by the General Assembly forced private service providers to slash wages in 2011, the field has been plagued by high turnover and difficulty among employers in recruiting and retaining new staff.  At the same time, a federal consent decree in effect since 2014 requires more training and professionalism in the way adults with developmental disabilities receive support services. 

Since 2011, there have been a few incremental wage increases, but the field of direct care has not recovered. 

Martin puts the current average pay for direct service workers at about $11.45 an hour.  That’s $1.30 above the minimum wage of $10.10. Rhode Island’s minimum wage is set to increase to $10.50 January 1, 2019, but the pay for those who work with adults with developmental disabilities will remain the same. 

Darlene Faust, Director of Self-Advocacy and Work Preparedness at Looking Upwards, cited the labor shortage and a lack of adequate transportation as barriers to inclusion.

She said her agency recently lost a staff member to Walmart.

After the meeting, Faust elaborated on the staffing situation. When workers call in sick, she said, she and others in management often must fill in to provide direct support, because the back-up pool is so small.

And when the agency is short-staffed, trips into the community must be prioritized. Clients must get to their doctors’ appointments and to their jobs no matter what, she said. 

Faust has worked with adults with developmental disabilities for 20 years, she said, because “I love it.”

But the struggles are “heartbreaking right now,” she said. “We’re all in it together. It’s all the same community, whether you’re providing service or receiving support.”

“People outside the community don’t always understand,” she said.

A number of people who spoke in American Sign Language said that a lack of interpreters posed barriers in various areas of daily living, including their ability to find jobs.

Meanwhile, a Woonsocket man who called himself Tim said he is 28 and has been looking for work since he was in high school.

Although several  prominent  corporate employers  have taken the lead in hiring adults with developmental disabilities in Rhode Island, Tim said he believes there is still “a lot of prejudice out there” against taking on workers who face intellectual or developmental challenges. 

He said it would be helpful if agencies providing employment supports could offer “task-oriented vocational training” to job seekers before they actually apply for a particular position.

The “community conversation” is the first of five such meetings planned by CPNRI in the coming months to cultivate and encourage sustained grass-roots advocacy on issues affecting anyone with a stake in services for adults with developmental disabilities, Martin said after the meeting.

The schedule for the remaining conversations, in different areas of the state, is still being finalized, she said.

CPNRI also plans candidate forums for legislative and gubernatorial candidates after the September primary elections, Martin said.

In a show of hands, about two thirds of the audience indicated they were registered to vote, including most of those who receive services funded by the state.