NYAPRS Note: The following blog underscores the extraordinary role that Protection and Advocacy disability rights groups played in helping NYC based adult home residents with psychiatric disabilities enjoy their right to live in their home communities, with a broad array of transitional and community based services and supports.
Overcoming decades of resistance, Disability Advocates Inc joined with several other P&As, the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law and the US Department of Justice in reaching a landmark March settlement with the Cuomo Administration. In recent years, DAI secured a similar settlement on behalf of nursing home residents with psychiatric disabilities and also one that mitigated or prevented solitary confinement and harsh prison practices involving prisoners with similar conditions.
NYAPRS played very active supportive roles in these actions, working closely alongside residents and former prisoners. We saw up close what long denied justice looks like and the dignity, health and quality of life that was won for thousands of our community members.
Federal legislation advanced by Congressman Tim Murphy (HR 3717) would strip P&As of the funding and responsibility to advance basic human rights and system reforms like these on behalf of hundreds of thousands of Americans with psychiatric disabilities.
NYAPRS continues to strongly oppose such provisions and I will return to DC once again this week to provide background on this and other harmful provisions of this act with Congressional members. As I shared with the Congressman, his determination to get our systems to substantively stop avoidable suffering, incarceration, homelessness and suicide are right on target. Unfortunately, proposals like this one will not only not get this done but will deny too many Americans with psychiatric disabilities the justice, dignity and advances they are due.
The Importance of Protecting Consumer Rights
May 15, 2014
By: Paolo del Vecchio, M.S.W., Director, Center for Mental Health Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
In March of this year, a U.S. District Judge approved a comprehensive settlement to allow 4,000 residents of New York City adult care facilities the opportunity to move into communities and live in their own homes. The action was taken to address concerns that individuals were not afforded the right to live in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs per the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision.
The agreement will allow these residents “to blaze their own trails, pursue their hopes and dreams,” as one resident told the judge.
The settlement was reached by the U.S. Department of Justice, New York State, and the residents’ attorneys which included Disability Rights New York – the SAMHSA-funded Protection and Advocacy for Mental Illness (PAIMI) program.
The agreement includes provisions to provide scattered-site supported housing units along with needed medical treatments and services such as assertive community treatment, assistance with taking medication, and employment services.
“I miss cooking,” another adult home resident said. “I miss hot chocolate in my microwave. […] I miss cut flowers that I could afford to buy every now and then. […] And I feel stuck. And with support, I think I could go back to being where I was. And I’d like the opportunity to do that.”
The PAIMI programs across the country work to protect the rights of the most vulnerable individuals with serious mental illnesses, especially those residing in public and private residential care and treatment facilities, and to ensure residents are free from abuse, including inappropriate restraint and seclusion, neglect and rights violations, and that they receive the appropriate mental health treatment they need to facilitate their recovery.
Such efforts are vital in assuring that individuals and groups, that have been historically disenfranchised and disempowered, have the necessary legal and advocacy services to ensure that they have the rights afforded to us all.
http://blog.samhsa.gov/2014/05/15/the-importance-of-protecting-consumer-rights/#.U3aEMjYb7sN