Seven months ago, Christiano Sosa took over the helm of the Arc of Colorado. During that time, he united the state’s 14 Chapters around the 2018 legislative agenda. That agenda produced five prioritized bills that all successfully passed.

In an interview with Catherine Strode, Christiano reflects on this legislative progress and offers his vision moving forward. Part of that vision includes a statewide listening tour he will kick off this June.

What are your reflections on the past seven months?
“A tremendous foundation has been built over the last 10 years. I am fortunate to come into an organization that is widely known and respected at the Capitol for our bipartisan work on behalf of those with developmental or intellectual disabilities (IDD). This is difficult, complex work. It takes whole communities to rally together. I saw that in this Session. We have tremendous Chapters throughout the state. These Chapters are comprised of parents, of siblings, and of people with IDD. Their voice is amazing. The job of the Arc of Colorado is to help folks find voice in legislation. It is a privilege and an honor to be able to do that.”

What are your reflections on the Session?
“We had tremendous wins in this Session. All five of our prioritized bills went on to the Governor. That is an amazing accomplishment. We had a priority in ensuring that people with intellectual or developmental disabilities (IDD) have clear paths to employment. We worked with our partners at the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing (HCPF), the Disabilities Council, the Arc of Larimer County and countless others to ensure that people understand best practices under discovery and intake. Employment is talked about first as an option. Meanwhile, employment is talked about first as an option. People with IDD in the state now have landlord tenant rights. Previously, they were excluded from statute. We were able to increase Direct Service Providers’ wages 6.5 per cent. We whittled down the waiting list for the Comprehensive Waiver. That waiting list is close to three thousand. We were able to get three hundred new slots, or about 10 per cent. We were able to reauthorize the Child Mental Health Treatment Act and make that permanent.  Finally, we were able to move the Children’s Habilitation Residential Program Waiver (CHIRP) over to HCPF from the Department of Human Services. In the process, we got rid of the requirement that parents give up their custodial rights if their child has mental health needs and requires residential treatment.

With some of those bill sponsors leaving the legislature, are you concerned about how those voids will be filled?
“Fundamentally I believe policy issues around individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities are bipartisan. I believe our legislators are looking out for those in the community that have the most need. The Arc of Colorado and our 14 Chapters have a lot of practice in terms of grooming legislators to understand the complex issues that make up of the world of IDD. Our job is two-fold, one is about education and the other is to work with our elected officials so the voices of people with IDD and their parents and siblings are heard.”

What issues will continue to be important in the 2019 Session?
“We will always have our eye on reducing the waitlist so people get the right services at the right time. We will be looking at the settings rule and how that is implemented in Colorado. The Arc of Colorado’s work is not done. We will be working with our partners to ensure all of the rules and the promulgation of those rules are informed by the collective experience of the 14 Chapters across the state.

What is your vision for policy issues in the coming year?
“I am looking forward to a statewide listening tour this summer to identify the issues that are at the top of mind for local Chapters. The listening tour will begin in June and go through August. It is a road show to: the Arc Chapters, legislators’ offices in their home turf, partners such as HCPF and the Department of Human Services. We want to understand what their priorities are and how we can all work together in identifying the issues that will have most promise in the 2019 session.”

What is your vision for the future of the Arc of Colorado?
“I think we are unique in lots of different ways. We are part of a national movement, a movement that mirrors what we have organically created in Colorado. Parents, families, people with intellectual or developmental disabilities, and siblings have a strong voice. That voice is echoed throughout every state.  We are part of a chorus. What happens at the federal level has implications at the state level. The Arc of Colorado will always have one leg in the federal world and one in the local sphere statewide. We have Chapters working at the municipal and county levels and the way all of those things roll up together is powerful in social justice movements. It is a tremendous asset. I hope the Arc of Colorado can be a depository for social justice and the stories that come from that.”

Catherine Strode is Advocacy Denver’s Communications and Policy Specialist.  She holds a Masters degree in Public Administration with an emphasis in Health Care Policy. Catherine publishes Policy Perspective, featuring interviews with state policy makers on issues that affect the work and mission of Advocacy Denver.

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The bill implementing conflict-free case management for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities who are eligible for home and community-based services under the medicaid program is on its way to the Governor to be signed into law. House Bill 17-1343 was sponsored by State Representative Dave Young, a member of the Joint Budget Committee. It passed both the Senate and the House on unanimous votes of 35-0 and 65-0, respectively.

In an interview with Catherine Strode, State Representative Young discusses the primary motivation for the Joint Budget Committee bill. He says the driver was not actually federal rule compliance but a long persisting human rights issue.

What problem does this bill address?

“It addresses the conflict of interest problem that has persisted for many years here in Colorado. The core of the conflict of interest is, essentially, one I classify as a human rights issue. There should be choice in the system. The core of that choice is people need to have the option of who they have as a case manager; and the case manager should not be employed by the same entity that provides services. When the same entity provides both case management and services to the individual, there is an inherent conflict of interest. As an example, let’s say the person needs services A, B, and C. There’s a possibility the case manager may say, “You’re going to be given services X, Y, and Z” because those are the only services provided by that entity. Even though you may not need X, Y, and Z, those are the ones your case manager puts you into for services. If the determination is made that you need A, B, and C, the case manager should be seeking out those services. If they are independent from the entity that provides services, they will pursue the options that are available because there won’t be a conflict of interest. The goal of the bill is to make sure people get the services they need when they need them.”

How did you become interested in this issue?

“My sister was involved in a conflict of interest situation. She went through 20 residential placements in one year. It was chaos. We were in a conflict of interest situation. We kept being presented with the same kind of residential placement, a host home. We were being told that was our only option. In fact, my sister’s needs are much more intense. There were very few host home providers that were capable of providing the type of service and care she needed to be successful residentially. Many of the host home providers were not trained with the skills needed to deal with my sister’s situation and not provided with the level of support they needed. There were a couple of instances when the host home provider became so exasperated with her, the provider asked her to leave in the middle of the night. If there had been a more appropriate option presented to us we would have taken it. I know now there are many other options available. We were not presented with them.”

Is compliance with federal rule the primary motivation for the bill?

“One of the reasons I ran this as a Joint Budget Committee bill is that there are implications for sanctions with the state. We got a letter from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) November 1, indicating we were out of compliance with the final settings rule. However, that’s not the primary driver. This issue has existed for many years. We need to ensure that people have the option to get the appropriate services they need. When they are given services that are appropriate, that’s a human rights issue. To me the primary driver is human rights.”

What compromises were made with stakeholders?

“There are some significant concerns about what conflict free case management means. How do we define it in statute in a way that is actionable? What we ultimately came up with was something similar to what the federal guidelines say: whatever agency provides case management to a person cannot also provide services to that person. That means an agency could actually provide both case management and provide services.  We just want to make sure they are not providing both to the same person. There were issues around how the rural districts and the frontier districts are going to be able to meet these demands. The Community Centered Board (CCB) may be the only one available in that area who can provide both services and case management to someone. We tried to provide those CCBs enough time so they can work through a process with CMS. There were some that felt the timeline is too long (five years). For those in some of these rural and frontier areas, it may take them that long to really make it work. We have a full array of how different areas are approaching this and some of the compromise may be to accommodate those that may find it more difficult to get that done.”

The bill authorizes use of the IDD cash fund. Is this consistent with the intent of the cash fund?

“I believe it is. This is the recommendation of our Joint Budget Committee Analyst. She originally worked with JBC to set up the cash fund guidelines. The real intent is that this money reverts back into the state coffers because it is unspent. The purpose is to catch the money and make sure the money gets spent to the benefit of those with IDD. I believe solving this conflict of interest is certainly a very appropriate use of that money.”

Catherine Strode is Advocacy Denver’s Communications and Policy Specialist.  She holds a Masters degree in Public Administration with an emphasis in Health Care Policy. Catherine publishes Policy Perspective, featuring interviews with state policy makers on issues that affect the work and mission of Advocacy Denver.

The post Conflict Free Case Management Bill Passes Unanimously appeared first on AdvocacyDenver.

An Interview with Catherine Strode

State legislators have the opportunity to offer protection from abuse to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The House has passed a bill (HB17-1284) to create a state data system of past offenders. The bill now moves on to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

State Senator Irene Aguilar, the parent of an adult child with disabilities, is one of the bill’s sponsors. In an interview with Catherine Strode, she explains why this bill is one of the most important of the legislative Session for individuals with disabilities and why it is so long overdue.

What is this bill important to folks with IDD?

“I think the statistics about how often people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are abused are really frightening. As parents looking for caregivers, we need all the help we can get to identify people who would not be good at working with a vulnerable population. I see this bill as helping to create another tool to ensure that in facilities where we know there are disproportionate numbers of people at risk, they are required to look up and ensure that the person they are hiring does not have a history of abuse. I think this is so important because it is something we’ve been after for a long time.”

Why has this bill taken so long to come forward?

“A few years ago, then Senator Evie Hudak ran a bill at the request of Attorney General John Suthers to provide protections for elderly people, who are also vulnerable. At that time, the issue was brought up about adding people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. But the finance bill on that was so high they didn’t feel they had the bandwidth to cover everyone.  People with disabilities were put on the back burner to wait their turn, if you will. The limiting force has been cost: in having the funds to create the program and the willingness to protect those funds as other priorities came forward. There’s also concern about liability on the part of employers. The concern is both for potentially reporting something before it has been fully adjudicated and for acting on information that is then found to be false. Obviously, the impact on the individual’s life on being on a list like this, or trying to get a job and having a false listing, is dramatic. It requires a high level of integrity. It has scared some people away from trying to tackle this issue.”

How would the data system CAPS (Colorado Adult Protective Services) work?

“People who have been adjudicated to have mistreated vulnerable adults would have their name and information listed in CAPS. Then people who are hiring for specified governmental and government-related entities would be required to check that system for people they are considering hiring to make sure they are not in the system. It will probably be fee based. The hiring folks would pay $16 to the state to get a report back, limited to the adult protective services database, of people identified as being at risk of abusing adults with disabilities.”

Why do you think the bill can survive this time around?

“There were multiple versions of this bill before this one was introduced. Some of it was negotiating between what was in the bill and how much it would cost to do it. It is a significant fiscal note, about $650,000. Initially, the fiscal note was in the millions. I think they did a great job of finding a point where we could at least start this process and, hopefully, build on it as time goes forward. Another thing is of note, one group that sometimes is vulnerable and gets services paid for by the government are those getting Consumer Attendant Support Services. There was concern on the part of people who get CDAS that this might have an unintended consequence, or, chilling effect on them in some of their hiring. They ended up compromising and making this optional for those folks. If they’d like to get this data, they can. If they don’t want to be part of the system, they don’t have to.”

With the price tag, can it pass under the state’s budget restraints?

“We are under the impression that we finally have the political will to allocate the resources to this important role. There are many things on the table that I do not think have the bipartisan support to get the funding they need. This (bill) does have that support. The Department of Human Services has prioritized this to have a placeholder for funds. We will have to see what happens with the ongoing and intense budget negotiations. Presuming that those do continue to move forward the way we are hopeful they will be, we do anticipate this bill being funded.”

Catherine Strode is Advocacy Denver’s Communications and Policy Specialist.  She holds a Masters degree in Public Administration with an emphasis in Health Care Policy. Catherine publishes Policy Perspective, featuring interviews with state policy makers on issues that affect the work and mission of Advocacy Denver.

The post Check For Employees Serving At-Risk Adults appeared first on AdvocacyDenver.

An Interview with Catherine Strode

Three education bills have been strongly backed this session by disability advocacy groups. Two of them, a bill restricting corporal punishment in state schools and a bill restricting suspensions of young children, were Postponed Indefinitely. A central argument in each debate over the bills was ‘local control.’ House Bill 17-1276 prohibits prone restraints on students in Colorado public schools. It has passed out of the House Education Committee.

In an interview with Catherine Strode, the bill’s Republican sponsor, State Senator Bob Gardner, says he believes in ‘local control.’ However, he says it is not an argument that applies to the student restraints issue.

How did you come to be the sponsor on this bill?

“I was asked by some disabilities groups and other advocacy groups to be on the bill. I have seen news reports over the past few years on some horrendous incidences in southern Colorado. I understand they happen around the state. Not with incredible frequency but from time to time, children have been subjected to extreme restraints in school settings. Most often, it is children with disabilities. That stems from staff not having proper training or proper resources, or not dealing with the child in the proper setting. Whatever the cause is, it is not acceptable to impose physical restraints on students. The bill has exceptions: when a student would have a deadly weapon; when the person applying the restraint is a school resource officer or a security officer for the school who has specified training; when there is a referral to a law enforcement agency. There is some tension here between safety and the use of restraints as a matter of just controlling a student.”

Do you think the issue of ‘local control’ will drive debate over this bill?

“I believe in local control. Local control becomes a mantra that gets used in the Capitol whenever local government entities don’t want the legislature to set common standards and expectations for anything. My support of the restraints bill reflects my belief that there are things that are not acceptable for public entities to do when you place citizens, children in this case, into the care of that institution. We mandate public education. We require kids to be there. There ought to be some set of standards for what’s acceptable treatment. I understand the local control argument. It is a legitimate discussion, one which reasonable people can differ on. We interfere in local control on hundreds of topics. That argument gets used a lot and gets rejected a lot. It’s a very selected argument.”

Why do you think the ‘local control’ argument does not apply to the Restraints Bill?

“The use of restraints is a pretty severe thing, an extraordinary thing. The students that experience so much of it are students with disabilities. There have to be some things that are unacceptable. Even if a school in one corner of Colorado says it’s okay there’s got to be some set of standards that says it’s not okay. We set lots of standards for schools and hospitals and care facilities and on and on and on. So it’s not enough to just hospitals and care facilities and on and on and on. It’s not enough to say local control. There has to be some more compelling argument about why local authorities are in a much better position or what they have been given control over is something that ought to be affected by the community culture.”

Does the bill offer parents opportunity to file complaints?

“Yes. There are going to be rules that create a process with the state board of education for when it receives formal complaints. I think that’s important. They should be consistent with IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act). To me, that’s an important component to this. I think one of the things that the bill does is give an administrative complaint outlet that doesn’t force parents to be seeking civil liability suits. That makes a lot of sense to me to institute a complaint process because a lot of times people want to be heard. They don’t want damages. They want an avenue to raise their complaint to someone who can do an independent, objective review. Was the restraint situation appropriate? Was it necessary? I think the more of that we look at, the better our policies on restraint are going to be.”

How do you respond to bill proponents’ charge that restraints are discriminatory?

“The frequency is around children with disabilities. That’s been my concern. I’ve had some citations that it is used more frequently with minority children. However, overwhelmingly what I see is that it is used with greater frequency around children with disabilities. And the issues, concerns, and problems arise around children with disabilities. That has been my focus on the bill.”

Of the three education bills backed by disability groups this Session, which has the greatest potential for systemic change?

“The restraints bill has more potential because I think it is a serious problem. I think it happens with some pretty difficult situations and problems with children with disabilities. That (restraints) becomes the default position. I think we can speed up the system of change with the bill.”

Catherine Strode is Advocacy Denver’s Communications and Policy Specialist.  She holds a Masters degree in Public Administration with an emphasis in Health Care Policy. Catherine publishes Policy Perspective, featuring interviews with state policy makers on issues that affect the work and mission of Advocacy Denver.

The post Local Control Argument Rejected by Restraints Bill Sponsor appeared first on AdvocacyDenver.

Many thanks to the COMCAST production team, the Dahlia Campus for Health and Well-Being, Mudra Yoga Studio, and our “star” students!

Watch the videos below:

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Protecting Children’s Futures

a Presentation by Betty Lehman of Lehman Disability Planning

March 14, 2017
6-8:00 p.m.
DSST Stapleton High School
2000 Valentia Street

Topics: Disability and Financial Planning and Legal Considerations, ABLE Accounts Update!

Information: Pamela Bisceglia
Pbisceglia@advocacydenver.org
(303) 974-2526

AdvocacyDenver y las Escuelas Públicas de Denver invitan a padres, maestros de educación especial y proveedores comunitarios a

Proteger el Futuro de los Niños

una presentación de Betty Lehman de Lehman Disability Planning

14 de marzo 2017
6-8 p.m.
DSST Stapleton High School
2000 Valentia Street

Temas: La Discapacidad y Planificación Financial y las Consideraciónes Legales, Cuentas de la Ley “ABLE”

información: Bob McGill
bmcgill@advocacydenver.org
(303) 974-2532

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Click on the flyers below to view them full size.

English version:

Spanish version:

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Job Description

• Work with the courts, education system, and providers to develop positive plans for individuals with disabilities residing in Denver who are involved with those systems.
• Provide individual advocacy for children and young adults with disabilities in Denver between the ages of 15 and 22.
• Take the lead on initiating and participating to improve services for these individuals and maximize their civil rights.
• Analyze and advise the Board of Directors and Staff on Legislative initiatives or rule changes in regard to these issues.
• Other duties as assigned by the Executive Director.

Position requirements

• Must have the ability to work flexibly with various individual circumstances and have the judgment necessary to establish appropriate limits, as necessary.
• Knowledge of the juvenile justice, education, Developmental Disability, and Mental Health systems.
• Demonstrated conflict resolution skills.
• Relevant degree, certification, or 5 years of experience; parent and client training experience is a plus.
• Being bilingual is not required, but will be taken into consideration

Compensation

Salary range to start at $32-34k annually. Benefits include health, dental, vision, paid time off, paid holidays, 401k, and more available.

To apply:

Please send your resume to advocacy@advocacydenver.org before 12/31/13.  Interviews will be held in January.

The post Accepting applications for Advocate for Transition Services, Juvenile Justice, and Policy Development appeared first on AdvocacyDenver.

In order to enroll in Medicaid waiver programs in Colorado, adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities (I/DD) must meet certain criteria in determining their eligibility.  This criterion, determined by the Colorado Division of Disability, is also used to determine the level of support needed by the individual in order for him or her to lead an active, quality life in our Colorado communities.  
    Medicaid waiver programs enrollment for individuals with I/DD in Colorado are in great demand.  Advocates at AdvocacyDenver oftentimes support clients with enrolling in these programs.  Once applied and approved as eligible, clients can anticipate varying wait periods for actual enrollment..  If an individual with I/DD does not apply for enrollment at age 14 –and this can be the case for a plethora of reasons- he or she will end up experiencing a waiting period where access to Medicaid services and supports is limited.  
    During this waiting period, individuals with I/DD oftentimes refer to natural supports such as friends or family to help them participate within their communities.  Community organizations can play a role in helping individuals waiting for Medicaid enrollment too.  AdvocacyDenver has a long track record of supporting such individuals with I/DD in locating safe and affordable housing, access to health care, and accommodations in employment.  Mission Supports, a new non-profit organization in Denver, is also working to specifically alleviate the barriers experienced by those waiting for Medicaid program enrollment.  The organization provides on-going monthly check-ins with adults to identify areas in daily life that they may need support.  It also is working towards providing educational opportunities to improve skills such as money management.  
    While there may not be any imminent decreases in waiting list periods in the near future we, as a community, can continue to be aware of the waiting list for Medicaid disability waiver program and provide our friends, neighbors, and family with support they need while they are waiting.
    

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