Dear Friends and Colleagues;
I am awed and inspired every single day by my coworkers, the incredible staff of the Disability Rights Center - their dedication, pursuit of justice, sheer fortitude in the face of adversity and utter commitment to our clients makes me proud to be a part of this team. Together, we have been successful in developing and maturing DRC into a powerful and ubiquitous disability advocacy organization. Known best for our scrappiness and zealous individual advocacy, we are also regularly engaged in significant public policy reform on behalf of Mainers with disabilities.
2008, our 31st year, was another busy year for DRC. We represented 1,359 individuals, provided information and referral to another 1,695 and trained 2,332 people at 63 separate trainings.
We offered legal analysis and testimony on several important pieces of legislation, such as:
Unsuccessfully opposed legislation aimed at further diminishing the civil rights of individuals with mental illness by allowing the forced administration of medication through use of a “clinical review panel”, but we were successful in including language expressly limiting the treatment that could be authorized to ensure that no hospital would be able to authorize the forcible use of ECT (shock therapy) through the clinical review panel.
Successfully participated on a legislative committee established to evaluate and make recommendations relative to the definition of a service animal in response to yet another effort to restrict and nar-
row that definition, especially for people with mental illness. That effort led to DRC drafting comments on service animals to the proposed ADA regulations relating to government services and public accommodations.
Successfully pushed legislation that resulted in a requirement that conservators file both annual and final reports.
Drafted legislation entitled, “An Act to Protect Vulnerable Children” so that children requiring epi-pens and inhalers could participate in town-sponsored activities. DRC worked with the sponsor, the affected parents, the Maine Municipal Association and the attorneys for the affected Towns and the legislation passed resoundingly.
DRC sat on numerous boards, study groups and commissions such as the MaineCare Advisory Committee, the special education advisory committee, a group that looked at how the state deals with sexual offenders with developmental disabilities, the Maine Jobs Council, the Maine Can Do Better Coalition, MaineShare’s Twentieth Anniversary Committee., the Assistive Technology Consortium and a legislative work group charged with brining adults with disabilities back to Maine.
DRC conducted outreach to assisted living facilities, residential treatment centers, group homes and psychiatric units, and looked at, among other things, the effectiveness of mental health treatment in children’s day treatment programs and the degree to which large community residences for adults offer or promote activities that assist individuals in becoming more integrated into their communities while living in the facility.
Working side-by-side with Speaking Up for Us and the Developmental Disabilities Council, DRC advocated with and on behalf of Maine citizens with developmental disabilities, concentrating on improving Maine’s guardianship program. In addition to providing guardianship training to numerous individuals with disabilities, we represented several individuals wishing to terminate their guardianship.
In 2008 DRC was instrumental in the redesign of Child Development Services through systemic complaints; continued to focus on identifying and assisting children who are illegally, informally removed from school; was instrumental in preventing the term “adverse affect” from being included in Maine’s special education law; monitored the use of aversive treatment; and continued to monitor the implementation of the settlement agreement in a class action law suit against the State for not providing in home behavioral supports for kids with labels of mental illness, mental retardation and autism.
DRC successfully monitored to a conclusion the implementation of a settlement agreement in a class action waiting list law suit that brought the State into compliance with the reasonable promptness provisions of federal Medicaid law; monitored the conversion of Intermediate Care Facilities to waiver homes; and monitored the children’s developmental disabilities unit at a private psychiatric hospital.
DRC trained more than 200 people with disabilities on voting rights; trained 510 election officials on the rights of individuals with disabilities, trained more than 200 self-advocates on exploitation, rights and guardianship; trained providers, law enforcement, sexual victim advocates, ER nurses, attorneys, and prosecutors about sexual consent vs. non-consent as an advocacy issue; and began to work more closely with the Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault in order to engage in cross training so that we may best protect potential victims with disabilities. We have submitted a grant together to the Office of Violence Against Women and remain hopeful.
DRC hosted a candidate’s forum held in Augusta – 175 people attended – and sent a disability related questionnaire to 400 candidates for state public office and received responses from 155 candidates. On Election Day, DRC staff took to the road with physical access surveys in hand randomly visiting polls, and were pleased to find most polling places accessible. We were also pleased to see the large voting rights poster that we developed with the Secretary of State, prominently displayed in all but one of the polling places we visited.
I remain thankful for our many partners in this civil rights movement. Considering the recent economic downturn we must now more than ever work collaboratively and with great vigilance to protect and enforce the rights of Mainers with disabilities.
Kim Moody, Executive Director
