Michigan Disability Resistance

What. A. Year. Not really sure which expletive I want to use to describe 2017…perhaps all of them? As a disabled person living in this hostile political climate in the United States, I am determined more than ever to continue the work of the Disability Visibility Project®. Our stories, our culture, and our community are vital in resisting a society that erases and marginalizes us everyday in media, politics, language, and beyond.

This has been a big year for me personally. I took a risk and left my day job in February to focus full-time on the DVP. It’s been an incredibly fulfilling and adventurous experience so far. Much of this is all thanks to you. I am grateful for the support and love from the people around me, online and offline.

I want to give a special shout-out to the freelance audio producers who work on the podcast and oral histories: Geraldine Ah-Sue, Yosmay del Mazo, Cheryl Green and Sarika D. Mehta. Thank you to Heather Watkins and Denise DiNoto for their volunteer moderating support with my Facebook group.

DVP in 2017

Started crowdfunding on Patreon to sustain the work of the DVP.  

Launched the Disability Visibility podcast in September 2017.

Created a new online store featuring apparel with all proceeds supporting the DVP.  

Four days before Christmas, a Redmond couple received their miracle.

Amy Fabbrini and Eric Ziegler's 10-month-old son Hunter will spend his first Christmas at home after a judge found the couple's limited cognitive abilities did not make them unfit to parent.

They brought Hunter home on Friday, a day after Circuit Judge Bethany Flint ruled the state had not proven he should remain under the care of the Oregon Department of Human Services. Hunter had been in foster care since he was born.

"I feel the threat articulated to Hunter is fairly amorphous," Flint said. "I searched and searched for some sort of language that was provided to articulate what the current threat of harm is to Hunter right now. ... There is no allegation that they're not able to meet his basic needs."

The couple will return to court in January to fight the termination of their parental rights over their older son, 4-year-old Christopher.

he young man with autism and an intellectual disability who languished at Manchester Memorial Hospital for five months after he was abandoned by his parents has finally been placed in temporary residential care and is receiving state services, officials confirmed Tuesday.

On Friday evening, following advocacy work by Disability Rights Ct in Hartford and a news story in The Courant, the young man was picked up by a private group-home operator with a contract with DDS. He will remain in the residential setting at least temporarily, officials said Tuesday.

Another community provider has offered to start in-home support on Jan. 15 — but there is a question about whether the family will accept the services.

The young man was first dropped off at the hospital by his parents in late July after he reportedly assaulted his mother, father and brother. Between July 28 and Friday, he remained home for only 10 days, and hospital officials told the state Department of Developmental Services on several occasions that the situation was untenable.

DDS serves more than 16,000 clients — at least 90 percent in private group homes, apartments, and in family homes. The remaining clients live at state run institutions or group homes, which use up a disproportionate amount of the department’s roughly $1 billion annual budget.

Meanwhile, hospitals are seeing more people with intellectual disabilities, but with no pressing medical problems, being dropped off by parents or guardians. Often, families have been unable to obtain state services or are at a loss to know what else to do. More than 2,000 people are waiting for residential placements — some have waited for more than 10 or even 20 years.

“We haven’t seen caseload expansion, so it makes sense” that the problem with abandonment at hospitals would deepen, said DDS spokeswoman Katie Rock-Burns. She’s chief of staff to Commissioner Jordan Scheff.

“We are working directly with a number of hospitals who receive individuals who may require our services,” she said.

In the Manchester case, legal impediments, including a lack of consent by the family, delayed the department’s response, Scheff told The Courant on Friday.

Basic steps to prevent infections — such as washing hands, isolating contagious patients and keeping ill nurses and aides from coming to work — are routinely ignored in the nation’s nursing homes, endangering residents and spreading hazardous germs.

A Kaiser Health News analysis of four years of federal inspection records shows 74 percent of nursing homes have been cited for lapses in infection control — more than for any other type of health violation. In California, health inspectors have cited all but 133 of the state’s 1,251 homes.

Although repeat citations are common, disciplinary action such as fines is rare: Nationwide, only one of 75 homes found deficient in those four years has received a high-level citation that can result in a financial penalty, the analysis found.

“The facilities are getting the message that they don’t have to do anything,” said Michael Connors of California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, a nonprofit in San Francisco. “They’re giving them low-level warnings year after year after year and the facilities have learned to ignore them.”

Infections, many avoidable, cause a quarter of the medical injuries Medicare beneficiaries experience in nursing homes, according to a federal report. They are among the most frequent reasons residents are sent back to the hospital. By one government estimate, health care-associated infections may result in as many as 380,000 deaths each year.