House Bill 20-1128, Sponsored by Representatives Bri Buentello
(HD-47) and James Wilson (HD-60) in the House and Senators Rachel Zenzinger (SD-19) and Kevin Priola (SD-25) in the Senate, aims to add the requirement of at least 10 hours of professional development regarding the laws and practices of educating students with disabilities to educator licensing for teachers, special services providers, principals, and administrators.

The bill recently passed out of the House of Representatives and was introduced in the Senate and assigned to the Education committee. In an interview with Sarah Havlicek, Representative Buentello, a special education teacher herself, explains the necessity of the bill and ways it will improve special education practices for diverse learners in the state of Colorado.

Why is this bill needed?

Colorado is miserably behind on current practices in special education. Frankly, it stems from our disconnect with the law. Right now in the state of Colorado, there are several ways you can get a teaching license without ever having any kind of special education training. It became painfully obvious when I became a teacher in Colorado that there is a fairly significant gap between teacher training and best special education practices for diverse learners. I have co-workers who are not recent college graduates, which means they weren’t subject to the mandate that we now teach education candidates special education best practices. These people already have their Master’s in different topics, they didn’t have any training in their undergraduate work in relation to special education and if it’s not mandated, we just don’t do it. We see the result of not having that mandate. So, I am really proud to introduce this bill to bring a fairly comprehensive overhaul.

Why did you decide to sponsor this bill?

I came to Colorado five years ago and it did surprise me, the disconnect, between best and most current practices in teaching and fostering an inclusive learning environment and teaching to those diverse abilities. I have talked a lot about my son as a student with a disability and his experience but the events that really stand out to me in my mind were actually when I was teaching. There was a math teacher who had absolutely no background in special education and my students, who were special education identified and had an Individualized Education Program (IEP), their IEPs were totally ignored by the math teacher. She had absolutely no regard for them and as a result, my students, their learning, and their graduation rates suffered. So That is when I first realized that the law was behind here in Colorado. Because there was no mandate, lots of people were not complying with federal law and I really want to close this gap for our exceptional learning learners.

What ways will the education requirements for educators change if this bill is passed?

It is actually pretty comprehensive. First of all, colleges will now be mandated to provide all education candidates a background in special education. I left that up to the boards and the curriculum department within universities’ education programs, they just have to demonstrate they are instructing teaching candidates. That is already the practice, it just is not reflected in Colorado law. So, I caught that up. A second requirement is, from now on, if you are licensed, whether as an administrator or a teacher in Colorado, you have to demonstrate that ten hours of your background training must have something to do with topics within exceptional student learning. I believe there will be a lot of overlap between the Colorado READ Act, just because the READ Act also requires teachers to learn about reading disabilities and how to teach to those capabilities. I strongly feel that we needed at least a thousand-foot comprehensive overview of what students with disabilities really looks like, because, it is as broad and diverse as our students.

In what ways will students be impacted by the new requirements for educators?

It will take a little while, it will be seven years, because there is a two-year ramp up in this program. Seven years from now, every licensed teacher and administrator in the state of Colorado will have training in special education and that is something I just couldn’t be prouder of.

Sarah Havlicek holds a B.A. in Communication and Journalism from the University of Saint Thomas and a M.A. in Communication Studies with an emphasis in Interpersonal and Organizational Communication from Saint Louis University. Sarah works on AdvocacyDenver’s Policy Perspective, interviewing key stakeholders and legislators about policy that are related to the work and mission of AdvocacyDenver.

For questions or comments, contact Sarah at shavlicek@advocacydenver.org

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Conducting a complete enumeration of the residents of the country is one of the few functions of the government written in the Constitution. The first Census, conducted in 1790 under Thomas Jefferson, has evolved over the centuries from door to door inquiries to nationwide mailings.

In March of 2020 however, the Census in Denver is going ‘high- tech’. This new process poses challenges for Denver’s Census staff who is dedicated to making sure everyone is counted. They say this development, along with Trump administration polices, will lower Denver’s Census response rate.

How will Denver’s 2020 Census be implemented?

Every housing unit address in Denver will receive a letter encouraging residents to go online and fill out the Census. The Census can be completed in ways other than online but that is the way people in Denver will be encouraged to respond. You will be provided with a code to do that. If you lose the code, you can still go online and type in your address and complete the Census. You also will be given the option to call a toll free phone number to complete the Census. In addition to English, you can answer the Census in 13 different languages. If you don’t respond to the letter, you’ll get another letter. Then you’ll get a postcard. The fourth time, you’ll receive a letter with a paper questionnaire. If you don’t respond to the paper questionnaire, the Census Bureau will institute a process they call ‘non responsive follow-up’. A Census Bureau worker will come to your door and try to complete the survey with you.

How will the new Census method impact the response?

In 2010, 76 percent of Denver residents completed the Census. We don’t know how many completed it after follow-up non response operations. The Census Bureau is predicting 56 percent of people will complete the questionnaire without intervention in 2020. That’s low. We expect the online aspect to be intimidating to some groups of people. We did an informal survey of older adults in Denver. About 45 percent of them indicated they didn’t feel confident in their ability to complete their Census online. We expect that without interventions being made by the City, the State, the nonprofit community and the Partnership Staff of the Census Bureau, the response will be lower than in 2010.

Which populations are challenging to reach?

The groups we used to call “hard to count.” We’re trying to shift the language to “historically undercounted.” That shifts the burden from it being your fault you weren’t counted, versus, your population has been undercounted. We are most worried about: people with disabilities, racial and ethnic minorities, communities of color, American Indians, Alaskan natives, immigrants and refugees, people with low income, adults 65 years and older, people who don’t have sufficient access or feel uncomfortable using the internet, individuals reentering from incarceration, the homeless, renters, and children under the age of five.

What is the process for providing accommodations for individuals with disabilities with a wide range of needs, including individuals with intellectual disabilities?

For folks with disabilities, there’s not a one-size-fits-all answer. Depending on the living situation of the individual with the disability and the severity, extent or type of the disability, the answer of how they’d answer the Census varies. Individuals living in an assisted living type facility would be counted under the Census Bureau’s “Group Quarters” operation. They would not receive an individual Census form. In this case, no individual action needs to be taken on behalf of the person with a disability. If an individual is living with a family member or other caregiver, we’d expect that care giver to include the individual with disabilities as part of their household. If an individual has a visual disability, the survey can be completed by phone or they can request a form in braille or large print. We don’t have all the answers yet. We are interested in having a conversation with individuals with disabilities, their advocates and their care givers to make sure no one is missed. They can contact us at: www.denvergov.org/Census2020.

Will the Trump administration policies impact response?

Yes. Trying to put a citizenship question on the Census was one action that has negatively impacted the Census. People are not excited about providing any information to the government because of the ICE raids and the rhetoric around immigrants. A second negative action is the Department of Commerce was denied the budget it requested to run the Census. It is running the 2020 Census with the same budget as 2010. This online operation is totally different than the 2010 Census which was all on paper.

What will be done to alleviate concerns on the local level?

Our job is to convince folks they can trust the Census Bureau’s data protection policies. The Census Bureau under Title 13 is not able to share individual level data with anyone else. They can’t share your data with ICE or with the IRS. Every person who works for the Census Bureau takes a lifetime confidentiality oath. The penalty for breaking confidentiality is a $250,000 fine or five years in prison. We are trying to convince people that answering the survey is important for their community. We need to know how many people and how many kids live in a community so Denver Public Schools can plan for how many kindergarteners there are going to be in 2023. Do we need to build another building or another health clinic or have more bus routes or expand a road? All that information is used in aggregate form to make decisions to allocate funding back to communities. If people hear the Census is good from their doctors, their pastor, from trusted voices in the community, that’s the way we will convince them to trust it.

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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On July 1, a state law went into effect making it a class 6 felony to unlawfully confine an at-risk adult and a class 1 misdemeanor to abandon an at-risk adult. This law, enacting penalties for persons convicted of at-risk adult abuse crimes, was the result of hard-fought lobbying efforts of advocates within the Colorado disability community. Leading their fight for legislative change was Denver’s Director of Elder and At-Risk Protection, Jane Walsh. She says this law is a tool to get more abuse crimes reported and prosecuted.

Jane Walsh has been prosecuting crimes against at-risk adults since coming to the United States in 2007. Originally from Scotland, she has practiced law under three different legal systems to defend her passion. That passion is fighting inequities for vulnerable populations and protecting their right to live full and respectful lives.

How did you come to practice in three different legal systems?

In Scotland, you can start to train as a lawyer when you’re 18. That’s exactly what I did. I originally qualified as an attorney in the 1980’s. I practiced there for a short time and then I moved to England. I had to requalify because the Scottish and English legal systems are separate and quite different. I practiced there for about 20 years. I was finding my niche, learning a lot about how older adults with cognitive impairments and also people with disabilities were treated by the system and how little redress there was. Family circumstances brought me to the United States (USA) in 2007. I sat for the bar the same year I arrived. By the time you come to work in your third legal system, you have a lot of overview of how things are done elsewhere.

What brought you to prosecuting crimes against individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities (I/DD)?

I wanted to be a prosecutor here because the system in the USA is very robust for the defendant. It is more robust than in Britain. I wanted to increase awareness of inequity.

I believe strongly in justice for all. Justice for all is not something you can take lightly. Just like in any other area of life, it will be the downtrodden who are the casualties of a system that doesn’t really mindfully try to protect vulnerable victims. We need to fight for people who are being abused. This is not a third world country. This is a first world country, so all of the citizens in this country deserve to be supported and not be mistreated.

How did your work in the states evolve?

My first real job in the USA was as a Deputy District Attorney in Boulder County. I developed a Felony Unit prosecuting crimes against seniors and crimes against people with disabilities. I worked on a bill to expand the I/DD hearsay exception because I had two cases at the same time, both involving victims with I/DD. In both, forensic interviews had taken place. The statute would permit me to use the forensic interview in the sex crime case but it would not permit me to use the forensic interviews in the abuse case. I thought, ‘We have to change that.’ It seemed like we needed justice there.

What does your work focus on now?

I was hired in January of 2018, specifically because Denver needed to create a Unit that was addressing crimes against at-risk populations in Colorado. I’m out in the community training people on what they need to do in regards to mandatory reporting and how to recognize abuse of at-risk persons. I’m also talking to the older residents of Denver on how to protect themselves from identity theft and fraud. A lot of these crimes are not going to be reported by the victims themselves. All of the people around the individual have to make a mandatory report. That report comes into the police department and the police detectives call me. We talk about the case facts and decide if the case is appropriate for charging or not.

What kind of abuse is most prevalent in the community of individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities?

For the I/DD community, we see physical abuse, neglect, sometimes financial exploitation. There might be people living independently in the community who have criminals living with them, or exploiting them, or intimidating them. Within the female population, there is a huge problem with sexual assault. I don’t think we have fully addressed that; however, I think that is going to be the area which helps this become more mainstream for prosecutors because those cases are very serious. They are actually prosecuted at a much higher felony level than our neglect cases. I think it will be the sex crime cases that bring this issue into mainstream prosecution.

What do you consider to be your major accomplishments in the Denver unit?

I wanted to criminalize abandonment of an at-risk person and confinement of an at-risk person. I can’t bear the idea we have host homes where people are being imprisoned. I’m excited we got the change in the law. We reached a great compromise with that legislation and I think it is going to be useful. I’d like there to be much stronger laws, but getting something as a felony on the books is tough. We did that. It’s a deterrent. It’s a tool that we can use. I think that is one of the really big things that has happened this year.

What are your goals for the Denver Unit going forward?

My goal is to continue to improve community relationships so we can make the providers aware we’re here. With confinement, we want to know about it if it’s happening. People can certainly feel free to call us directly if they believe it’s going on and we can tell them what they need to do.

Denver DA Hotline to Report Abuse 720-913-9179
https://www.denverda.org/consumer-protection/

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 national Arc is fighting a 2018 ruling in a Texas U.S. District Court that determined the Affordable Care Act (ACA) unconstitutional.  That case is now pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The Arc has joined 14 other national organizations representing people with disabilities in filing an amicus brief appealing to reverse the lower court’s decision.

The Chief Executive Officer of the Arc of the United States, Peter Berns, has called the lower court’s decision “an extraordinary threat” for people with disabilities and their families.  He says if the ACA is taken off the books, it will set the advocacy efforts for individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities (IDD) back 70 years.

What was the reason for the Arc joining in the filing of the amicus brief? 

The Arc has gotten involved in this case because of the importance of that law to our constituents.  This case threatens the very existence of the Affordable Care Act.  The ACA is perhaps the most important positive development in the law that benefits people with intellectual or developmental disabilities in the past 25 years or more.  There are a variety of reasons why the ACA is so important.  First of all, it makes health care much more widely available to people with disabilities.  It prevents insurers from limiting coverage based on preexisting conditions.  It also prevents insurers from imposing annual or lifetime caps.  It also has a variety of other provisions in it that are important for people with disabilities.

What do you see as the purpose of the brief?

The purpose of the amicus brief was to highlight for the court the importance of the law to people with disabilities, particularly to those with IDD.  The courts may generally understand what would be at stake with doing away with the ACA as it relates to the general population.  That is folks who are getting health care through the Act or who are benefitting from the Medicaid expansion.  What we sought to do in the brief is to shine a light specifically on the importance of the law to people with disabilities and the issues they face.  This includes: preexisting conditions; lifetime and annual caps; and the fact that the Medicaid program (which was expanded under the ACA) is the single most important and largest source of funding for home and community-based services for people with disabilities.  The lawsuit is part of a consistent effort by some states and the current administration to undo the ACA.  The current administration, in deciding not to defend the ACA, is risking wreaking havoc on the lives of people with IDD and their families.

On what basis did the lower court find the ACA unconstitutional?

The suit was brought by state attorney generals representing 20 states that did not want to expand Medicaid.  Congress had authority to enact the ACA under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution and under its taxing powers.  When an earlier court decided that a tax could not be assessed for the mandate to buy coverage, opponents of the law argued that Congress didn’t have authority to enact this law under its general authority to regulate commerce in the U.S.  The District Court bought that argument.  It found that, once the mandate was thrown out, Congress no longer had authority to enact the law under the Commerce Clause.  That’s the issue that is now pending in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.  It’s the question of, “If one provision of the law has been invalidated, does that mean the whole thing has to be thrown out as unconstitutional?”  This is most likely going to go all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.  

What proactive steps can state and local chapters take to protect health insurance for people with disabilities?

One of the most important things that chapters of the Arc can do is to make sure that all of your constituents are educated about these issues, to have them speak out to their members of Congress about their concerns of being excluded by preexisting conditions, of continuing to be eligible for Medicaid.  They can tell their personal stories about the importance of the availability of health insurance to them.  This lawsuit is an extraordinary threat.  The powers that be are continuing to attack the ACA, chipping away at the ACA in a variety of different ways.  They are trying to inflict a death by a thousand cuts. We need our representatives in Congress to understand that, for people with disabilities and their families, this is a matter of life and death.  This is a matter that impacts whether people can be included in their communities and live a decent life like everybody else.  We need to continue to be vocal on these issues indefinitely into the future.  If we lose the ACA, it’s a giant step backwards.

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 National Arc Fights Court Decision to Invalidate the ACA appeared first on AdvocacyDenver.

Disability advocates and the state of Colorado reached agreement last month in a legal battle over the long wait times for court-ordered mental health competency proceedings.  A Consent Decree was entered into as a result of a lawsuit against the state by Disability Law Colorado.  A bill introduced this Session creates alignment with the Consent Decree’s competency proceeding requirements and helps the state avoid violations and penalties.

Entitled, “Actions Related to Competency To Proceed,” Senate Bill 19-223, is a revised version of a competency bill that failed to pass in the 2018 Session.  The bill’s sponsor, State Representative Mike Weissman, says the 2019 version has bipartisan support and has been worked on extensively over the past year. He is optimistic that it will win passage this year.

Why is this bill important this year? 

It is important for all the same reasons the predecessor bill last year was important.  Bringing criminal proceedings against someone is one of the most fundamental exercises of power we can do in society.  It has to be done fairly and in accordance with the Constitution.  The Constitution requires a finding of competency before someone may continue to be involved in criminal proceedings.  Where there is not competency, it is not constitutional to proceed.  The state has been in a challenging place about those competency determinations for a long time.  It is even more important to resolve this issue and pass this bill this year because a federal court has now become involved.  We have a Consent Decree that is telling us to get our house in order.

What was the bill’s history in the 2018 Session?

In the 2018 legislative session, there were four bills to address the handling of cases where competency is at issue in Colorado courts. Senate Bills (“SB”) 249, 250, and 251 became law and are already underway.  The biggest of those four bills was SB 252.  That is the most direct predecessor to SB 223 this year.  There are some key differences.  There were some good things and some bad things about SB 252. The good things included ways to shorten timeframes and cause competency evaluations to be handled more efficiently.  Also, one of the good aspects (and this is preserved in SB 223) was the idea that after a certain amount of time has gone by and somebody is still not restored to competency, we should terminate criminal proceedings. The problem with the prior bill was the idea of providing competency restoration treatments in a jail setting.  The setting in which treatment is delivered matters a great deal.  There is not good research supporting jail restoration.  It is fundamentally not a clinical place designed for delivery of any kind of health care related service.  That aspect, coupled with some of the time frames, was the reason the bill did not become law.  

Why is what this bill proposes a better option?

There’s a strong preference throughout the bill for handling competency issues in the community. Community treatment and community restoration is appropriate because those can be provided in correct therapeutic settings.  It is not medically right to do this sort of thing in a jail setting.  Also, the time period (as specified in the bill) in which restoration services can be provided before a determination is made whether to continue the process or not is relatively minimal.  When necessary, there are inpatient beds as a backstop.  The state has a limited number of inpatient beds.  Those are to be used for the most needful cases.  The state has invested a significant amount of money over the past couple of years in bringing new competency beds and new personnel. Even so, there are never going to be enough beds (and there do not need to be) to address all of these questions in an intensive inpatient setting.

This bill contains a tiered system. Can you explain that?

What you’re referring to is the set of definitions in the bill about Tier One and Tier Two defendants.  There are a lot of people in the criminal justice system about whom a competency question is raised.  Being in a state of competency to proceed does not mean in a state of perfect mental or behavioral health.  Competency is a legal term but it is not the same as full health.  The bill talks about Tier One and Tier Two.  Tier One are folks with heightened risk and Tier Two is everybody else.  The bill attempts to set up ways in which Tier One defendants can be seen and evaluated more quickly. 

Who is this bill aimed at protecting?

It is aimed at protecting folks with a mental illness, intellectual or developmental disability, a history of substance abuse, people who have intersected with the criminal justice system about whom a question of competency to proceed is raised.  There is not necessarily one specific diagnosis.  The key point of constitutional law is if somebody is not aware enough to be able to assist in their own defense when criminal proceedings are in play, then we must not proceed with a criminal process against that person.  The way the criminal proceedings get started is an interaction with a law enforcement officer.  Somebody witnesses an attempted robbery, to use a simple example.  But, frankly, sometimes those interactions are not criminal in nature.  Somebody may just act out in some way that really does not have criminal intent.  They get pulled into the criminal process.  Where there is criminal intent, that is where the purpose of criminal proceedings is to protect public safety. Folks who may have those interactions on the front end of the system with law enforcement but are not doing so out of ill intent, that needs to be sorted out.  Timely competency determinations are a part of 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.

The post Competency Bill Will Implement Mental Health Consent Decree Orders appeared first on AdvocacyDenver.

Last year, nearly one thousand cases of abuse against at-risk adults were reported in Colorado. In Denver, police report over a 200% increase in these types of crimes.  Adult Protective Services estimate for every report of abuse against an at-risk adult, many more cases go unreported.

A Colorado legislator has introduced a bill to strengthen efforts to decrease crimes against at-risk adults. Senator Jessie Danielson is sponsoring Senate Bill 19-172 which makes it a Class 6 Felony to unlawfully confine an at-risk adult and a Class 1 Misdemeanor to unlawfully abandon an at-risk adult.  Senator Danielson says this bill will cut down on this type of abuse of the most vulnerable Coloradans.

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

I have worked on issues of elder abuse and at-risk adults since I was elected.  Having worked on elder abuse issues and having promoted the rights of Coloradans with disabilities, it was a good fit.  The issue of abandonment and confinement was brought to me by the District Attorneys (“DA’s”), area agencies on aging, and the senior lobby.  This is something that is happening in our community.    There are elder abuse statutes and statutes against at-risk adults. However, we are finding that these two particular types of abuse are not defined in statute as a crime.  We need to define them as crimes so that the DA’s can go after the people who are responsible for this type of abuse and prosecute them.  It attaches penalties to the crimes.

What kind of abuse does the bill specifically address?

 There are two types of abuse we are defining in the bill.  One is unlawful confinement; one is abandonment.  Denver District Attorneys showed me a photograph of a room where a grandmother was being kept every day. They left this individual in a little room under the stairs in the basement.  She was left with no food and no water, just a bucket.  That is an example of unlawful confinement.  When an at-risk adult is in the care of someone in this manner, we define it in the bill and attach a punishment to it. The purpose of this is to give law enforcement the tools to prosecute.  It is also an attempt to deter people from committing the crime in the first place.  The second thing in the bill is similar.  People are leaving, abandoning, dumping people they no longer wish to care for.  There was a high profile case picked up on the local news.  This man was put on a plane and sent to Denver.  When he got to DIA, there was no one to take care of him. He didn’t know who he was.  Ultimately, he got picked up and ended up at a hospital.  That is the type of abandonment happening that cannot be prosecuted under the current statute.

How do the bill’s amendments clarify the kind of caregivers it is targeting?

We don’t want to have any unintended consequences where good caregivers are somehow implicated in these crimes because that is not the intent.  The intent is to find the people who are doing the most serious kind of abuse and prosecute them.   Some of the language concerned the disability rights advocates and we have addressed their concerns.  The concept of the amendments is clarifying anything they see as problematic, where someone could be accused of this crime when they are not committing it.  We in no way want to implicate someone who has taken on the work of providing care in an ethical and caring way. When someone is a good quality caregiver, be they family or not, we want that care to continue.  We don’t want to intimidate caregivers.  We are not talking about safety measures in the home that are reasonable.  We are talking about people who abandon their loved ones.

How does this impact the community of individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities?

It impacts individuals with these types of disabilities because we say the crimes are against an at-risk person.  What I have seen is heartbreaking because these are vulnerable people.  For example, the case I described where the woman was kept under the stairs was one of the cases I reviewed to help with this bill.  She was a nonverbal adult.  When someone has an intellectual or developmental disability, they are disproportionately targeted for this type of abuse because they can’t stand up for themselves.  They cannot tell someone what happened.  It will have a positive impact in the sense that if this is happening to members of our community who have intellectual or developmental disabilities, we can stop it from happening because we can finally prosecute it.  We can deter it from happening in the future because of the penalties we put in place.   We do not currently give law enforcement the tools to stop it.  That’s what we are doing.  I think that is a crisis that needs to be solved.  It’s less common than other forms of abuse. However, it is still happening.  They need the legislature to do something about it.  

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 Bill Enacts Penalties Against At-Risk Adult Abuse Crimes appeared first on AdvocacyDenver.

It is estimated that the incidence of mental illness among prison inmates is three times more prevalent than in the general population.  Nationally, more than a third of inmates are reported to suffer from some form of mental illness.  Colorado statistics reflect nearly 40 per cent of the state’s inmates are in need of mental health intervention. A package of bills is being introduced this Session to address the issue of competency for individuals with mental illness in the criminal justice system.

Senator Pete Lee, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has been one of the architects of the bills.  He says the goal is to establish a protocol where individuals in need of mental health care are identified and expediently moved out of the criminal justice system into community treatment care programs.

What is your role in bringing the competency bills?

I have been on the Judiciary Committee in the House for eight years and am now Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.  I’m at the intersection of a lot of what goes on within the criminal justice system. We hear over and over in testimony the increased number of people going into jail who have: mental health issues, developmental disabilities, and drug and alcohol problems. The criminal justice system was not designed to deal with people with mental health, or substance abuse, or intellectual or developmental disabilities. We have far too many people in the system who are incompetent to proceed. They need to have either restoration services (so they can be restored to competency), be institutionalized, or put into some sort of treatment program.  We hear about the amount of time they’re spending in jail and not getting treatment. I have been working with people from Mental Health Colorado, the Colorado Behavioral Healthcare Council, and the Public Defender’s Office.  I’m a conduit to carry the proposals and recommendations they have made into the legislative process.  These bills this Session are an attempt to integrate, coordinate, and bring the system together with better resources between various departments. This is the epicenter of a huge problem that affects every jurisdiction around the state.  

What bills are being introduced to address the issue?

I refer to them as Competency Bill Number Two and Competency Bill Number Three.  Number Two is the ‘Safety Net’ Bill.  It is to set up a system to keep people from entering the criminal justice system who have mental illness. This will necessarily mean conducting mental health assessments. Assessments will be conducted early on. If individuals are then soon determined incompetent to proceed, they will be referred for jail based treatment (if that’s a possibility) or to community resources for restoration services.  That’s in the second bill. We want to get the local community behavioral health providers to be part of a safety net.  There are 15 or 20 of those around the state.  This is so people can get treatment rather than go to jail.  It’s a way to try and stitch them all together in a comprehensive network to provide services. 

What is in Competency Bill Number Three?

Bill Number Three is to prioritize community treatment for people with serious mental illness or intellectual or developmental disabilities.  It is to get people determined incompetent to proceed into programs for restoration of competency.  Restoration is a legal term dealing with being able to understand how the legal system works.  It isn’t restoration to full robust mental health.  It’s not that because some of those people aren’t going to get to that point.  It is designed to get them to the point where they understand what’s going on in the legal system. They commit some minor offense. They are doing things which may be quote, “criminal,” but which are fairly benign: peeing in the park, minor destruction of property, cursing and interfering with law enforcement. They’re not restorable in a foreseeable period of time.  How long are you going to keep them in jail?  Right now in Colorado you can’t keep them in jail longer than what their sentence would be if found guilty.  But that’s way too long. Those people don’t belong in jail.  They need community mental health resources. 

Do you think judges will be amenable to letting people out of jail to receive restoration in the community?

I think they will.  I think the key is for judges to feel comfortable that the people they are releasing are not a danger to the community.  That will be predicated on having appropriate risk assessments.  What will enhance the judges’ comfort level is to have a professional evaluator sit down and talk to them about what conditions might be appropriate to release them under.

What systemic changes do you think will result from these bills?

Hopefully, overall they will reduce the number of people languishing in county jails.  To me, that’s a huge systemic change.  We want to put money into evaluation, restoration, and treatment. That’s what we are going to do.  We need to help people who are struggling with these kinds of conditions.

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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How do you characterize the state of mental health for children in Colorado?

Senator Fields (Senate Sponsor):

Colorado is experiencing a mental health crisis as it relates to our children and youth.  The indicators for that would be the increased number of teen suicides.  For kids between the ages of 10 and 24, the highest rate of death for them is suicide. That is a Colorado statistic.  The health survey that kids take says, ‘Kids are feeling sad for more than two weeks in the past 12 months.’  We have a tremendous number of kids who are feeling sad while in school.  What is causing that sadness?  We don’t know.  Kids are dealing with all kinds of gender identification issues and bullying.    We know kids at risk have issues of income insecurity and food insecurity.  It has a lot to do with poverty.  If you are living in a neighborhood, where there are concentrated areas of crime, violence, and poverty all of that is going to impact a child’s behavioral health.

Why is the bill necessary?

Our youth, our kids, our families need a system of care coordination.  Our kids are falling through the cracks because they are not identified early if they have a behavioral health issue.  Typically, what might happen is a kid might be defiant or acting out in school, they get expelled or suspended and their families later find out that they had a behavioral health issue.  If we could start identifying kids who are experiencing issues, like depression, early on, we could start coordinating wrap around services.  We could save lives.  Far too many kids are committing suicide and/or are experiencing issues of addiction. What happens in our state agencies is we have pockets of different departments doing a variety of different things.  If we can have one-person work across the state within our state organizations to find ways to be much more efficient in our delivery of care for kids, we can save lives.

How will this bill specifically impact the youth mental health crisis?

Right now, our coordination of care is disjointed.  You have people operating as independent departments. You have a criminal justice system that is working with juveniles.  You have a welfare system that is dealing with youth.  You have school systems dealing with kids and the trauma they bring into the classroom every day.  You have hospitals dealing with an increased number of kids with attempted suicides. We need to have more of a coordinated approach when dealing with behavioral health and our kids. One part of the bill is to have a Commission that looks at all the different delivery resources available for behavioral health.  Where is there duplication?  What are the trends they’re seeing?  What kinds of resolution can be tied to problems?   It is an action orientated Commission.  If we have someone looking at this on a larger strategic scale, I think we would see that crisis number go down.

How important is the bill’s implementation of wraparound services?

Representative Landgraf (House Sponsor):

Colorado taxpayers are spending hundreds of millions of dollars across a range of intensive services. These include: Medicaid inpatient stays in hospitals, emergency department visits, residential treatment, expensive psychotropic medication, child welfare, juvenile justice and supports in the K through 12 school system.  With these kids, it’s often a multiple number of entities that are involved from schools to inpatient treatment and everything in between.  Kids are not getting proper treatment but we are paying for it.  Or, they are languishing because there’s no place for the child to go. Wraparound services should reduce the need for residential treatment. If you can figure out what the problem is, you can avoid some of these things.  This bill saves money by providing the proper treatment instead of a shotgun approach.

How much is the fiscal note?

It’s about 1.3 million.  A large part of that amount is coming from the federal government.  It is not all coming from the General Fund.  About $500,000 of that will come from the state. You can’t put a price on a kid.  When you think about the number of children who have problems, if you divide 1.3 million among all those kids, it’s nothing. Colorado right now is one of the worse states in the nation for kids with mental health issues.  We’re at the bottom, because of lack of mental health services, lack of wraparound services, lack of recognition.  We have to make a change so kids get the right diagnosis and the right treatment.  When they don’t get that treatment early, by the time they do get it, they are too far gone. This bill can take Colorado from being one of the lowest states in helping children with behavioral health issues to being one of the best states in the country.

Is the high youth suicide rate the reason you have thrown your support behind this bill?

Suicide is the startling point of the whole conversation, but suicide is not the only point of the conversation.  We’re trying to help kids who maybe will never be suicidal but have behavioral health problems. Maybe they don’t want to kill themselves but they want to kill somebody else.  They will end up in jail.  We want to avoid all of that.  I think Colorado should be the state that does not fail its kids.  We are a beautiful state and we have a lot to offer.  We need to have this to offer too.  

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 Bipartisan Support to Combat Colorado’s Youth Mental Health Crisis appeared first on AdvocacyDenver.

From the Desk of Pamela Bisceglia, Executive Director

AdvocacyDenver is pleased to forward the following interview with Denver Public Schools Superintendent Susana Cordova. There are two reasons why this interview is important. At different times during Tom Boasberg’s tenure, we attempted to secure a time to meet with him to discuss systemic issues in relation to programming for students with disabilities. The former superintendent ignored all requests from AdvocacyDenver to meet and ordered deep cuts to Special Education every few years. The cuts resulted in a significant decrease in Special Education oversight, professional development, and elimination of the autism, behavior and assistive technology service teams. Each year, Special Education teachers and in particular related services providers’ caseloads were increased.

An Interview with Catherine Strode

What motivated you to get into the field of education?

I was a Latina, first generation college graduate. In 1984, there was not a lot of work going on around cultural competence. The message I heard was, ‘Get educated so you can get out of your neighborhood.’ I lacked a positive sense of identity. In college I found a literary journal that had published work by Chicano authors. It was a transformational moment for me. I realized these are people with PhDs who were writing about an experience that was very familiar to me in an academic setting They had not stopped being who they were to get educated. They had invested in their identity and in their culture, by creating literature to describe and share it with others. It was the first time I realized becoming educated can be a way to help you more fully realize your identity. That is what encouraged me to become a teacher. I wanted to make sure other kids, like me, were affirmed for who they were. That their gifts, their values, their culture, their language, were seen as an asset.

What motivated you to apply for the Superintendent position?

I am deeply committed to the success of our schools in Denver. I have had a lot of different roles in DPS. I have worked in the classroom, both at Middle School and High School. I was an elementary school principal. I have had many roles in the central office. I appreciate the roles our schools and teachers play in creating greater opportunity for students. When Tom (Boasberg) stepped down, I had been thinking about wanting to apply. I had always planned on waiting until my youngest was out of high school. She’s a senior this year, so it was a little quicker than I had anticipated. But I feel so committed to our city and to our kids that when he stepped down, I decided to put my name in. I believe I have a lot to contribute. I feel I can help us move quickly to the next level.

There are laws that define the district’s obligation to educate student with disabilities. Under your leadership, what decisions will be delegated to the school?

It would be very challenging for the district level to have knowledge of individual kids in the way we want our special educators and general educators to have knowledge of kids on a daily basis. We need to make sure we have general educators and special educators who can develop students’ Individualized Education Program (IEP) based on demonstrated needs. Schools should be working on the design of the wrap around services that are aligned to student needs within their building. It’s critical that schools are making the right kind of choices on how we ensure kids with disabilities have access to all appropriate parts of their school buildings. That we’re making investments in our center program classrooms in the same way we make them in our general education classrooms. That the school is building out their staffing plans aligned to the needs of their kids with disabilities and what their IEP’s call for. That’s part of the important work that happens at the school level.

What authority will central administration have to ensure compliance?

At the district level, we have a role in developing tools and resources for parent education so schools aren’t having to individually create those on their own. We need to be able to provide special educators with in depth training. We need to make investments in the services for our students with disabilities, financial investments as well as staffing and instructional resource investments. For our center programs, it is critical we have access to the materials, environments, and support systems conducive to kids being able to progress. We’re a big system. There’s no way to ensure that every decision that gets made is going to always, 100 per cent, align with what the expectations are. If it doesn’t, we need to be able to know it quickly so we can intervene and support. The real emphasis at the district level is: how do we make sure we turn our guidance into real systems with clarity of expectation, written guidance, training, supports to implement, and oversight? We also have a role in oversight through the review and monitoring of actual IEP’s, so we can make sure we are meeting students’ needs and being in compliance with the law. We need particularly, to make sure students have access to the least restrictive environment. It has been helpful to have the Special Education Task Force working because it has pointed out the places where there’s a goal in the system that isn’t being actualized.

What did you learn in the past 40 days?

One of the lessons I took away has been the importance of being at the table and sticking with hard conversations to get to solutions that feel positive for everybody. It’s critical you stay at the table. The other lesson was being clear in articulating the most important aspects of a negotiated agreement we needed to feel good about agreeing. Our teachers were clear they were committed to having more money in base salaries. The district was clear it was important we maintain support for Title I schools, and the 30 highest priority schools (that have a very high number of students with disabilities). One of my lessons was that with collaboration, people can solve really hard problems. That’s how I’m going to approach the rest of the work I’ll have as Superintendent, looking for ways to create space for collaboration and for smart people to come together to disagree. Disagreements are important because they help clarify what the values are at play. That was my other big lesson.”

What will you focus on the next 120 days?

The next set of work we have is to help create greater alignment and impact in the support we provide to schools and in the outcomes we see for kids. A big part of that is sharing my vision and getting feedback on that vision. It is a way for me to start working with our community, both our external and internal community, on key questions that are going to be critical for us as we think about the pathway forward. Another big body of work we will be engaged in, is reorganization of the central office. In part, to help fund the increases we’re providing to our teachers and to have a more impactful central office with less inefficiency and redundancy in the supports we offer. This is a great opportunity for us to think about: how we are organized centrally, how we’re investing in areas that need more investment, and how we’re slimming down in areas where we’re not getting the impact we want. That will be part of the work over the next several months.

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 Looking Forward With Denver Public Schools Superintendent Susana Cordova appeared first on AdvocacyDenver.

An Interview with Catherine Strode

This week, the House Education Committee will hear testimony on House Bill 1194.  The bill establishes requirements under which public schools can suspend or expel students enrolled in preschool through second grade (usually three or four year olds through 7 year olds). Colorado Department of Education reports that 5,849 kindergarten through 2nd grade public school students were suspended from school in 2017-2018.  The bill is aligned with national recommendations that seek to limit school removal for very young children while endorsing thoughtful exceptions that ensure school safety.

The bill has bipartisan sponsors in both the House and the Senate.  Republican State Representative Colin Larson, says education is a priority issue for him as a legislator.  He supports the bill because he says he doesn’t want to set kids back educationally or developmentally at young ages.

What sparked your interest in relation to the discipline of Colorado’s youngest students?

I’m very passionate about school choice and the inequity issues that are inherent in our education system. I consider myself someone that favors discipline and protecting the order of the classroom. But you’re talking about preschool age children, kindergarteners, first graders, and second graders. If an 8-year-old bites you, that’s an 8-year-old not understanding social norms. The idea you could expel a child that young for behavior that should be viewed more as a teachable moment than as a real disciplinary issue, struck a chord with me. You hear about a vast disparity, particularly with students of color and students with disabilities, that end up ultimately getting suspended or expelled. I look at this as an opportunity for us to make a value statement as an educational system. When you are this young, in second grade or below, we need as a society to give you every chance to correct behavioral issues. You’re not going to change or correct a behavior if the knee jerk reaction is to kick them out of the classroom. That was the impetus (for me) to get behind this bill. I want to make sure these young kids are in a school environment where there are professionals who can identify issues and get them help so their academic progress isn’t halted in the cradle. So they have a chance to go on later and succeed in their educational career.

If House Bill 1194 passes, what would you hope it achieves?

The data is overwhelming that kids with disabilities, and minority students, are bearing the unequal brunt of these early suspension policies. Those are two populations with some of the worst educational outcomes; we need to try and figure out what we can do to better serve them. This bill recognizes that rather than setting back a kid’s educational development with a heavy handed action like a suspension or an expulsion, we need to take the time to invest in that child and figure out if there is an intervention that can correct the behavior. We hear all the time about undiagnosed learning disabilities and developmental disabilities. My hope with this bill would be when requiring a kid to stay in the school building, school professionals could potentially diagnose and respond to underlying challenges or needs. This would encourage schools to take corrective action on site, get the kids help for better identification and treatment of social/emotional, behavioral and learning issues. That is the intention of the legislation.

What impact would this bill have on student achievement?

I hope we would start to see an increase in reading scores, particularly in students of color and students with disabilities, groups that right now are disproportionate recipients of out of school suspensions in these early years. That we would ultimately see better literacy leaving high school, an increase in graduation rates, and lower rates of remediation for college work. That’s the ultimate policy goal here. For me, I look at education as the foundation of the rest of your life. If we can figure out how to educate children properly and effectively, we can save money as a state down the road by not incarcerating them. Law enforcement officials talk about the number of people in jails who are functionally illiterate, or have some form of mental health issue. I think there is a direct correlation between not adequately educating kids in the first place and the populations we are seeing today in our criminal justice system. I would much rather spend money on textbooks than jail cells. I would rather get kids the interventions that they need early. We’ll see dividends paid down the road. That’s the hope.

Do you think there is bipartisan support for this bill?

Yes. There is bipartisan support for this bill. I think this bill is narrow and tailored, particularly with the age limit being the second grade. Some of the biggest concerns I have heard come from the rural schools. I wouldn’t say it’s a disagreement with the legislation. Their concern is limited support staff. Working with those schools to try and address resource issues is probably going to be the trickiest part of this legislation. We are trying to create some abilities for rural schools, to approach the idea a little bit differently. We allow for appropriate time to get support staff out to the school. There’s an allowance for that when there isn’t a school psychologist or social worker available on the campus. I think that’s going to be the biggest issue at this point, more so than an issue between Republicans and Democrats.

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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