Disability Law Commons^™

Policy And State-Level Strategies To Promote Employment (Bringing Employment First To Scale, Issue No. 3), Thinkwork! At The Institute For Community Inclusion At Umass Boston

All Institute for Community Inclusion Publications

At the national level, integrated employment has become an important policy priority. Greater expectations are being placed on those charged with delivering employment supports, and disability systems are responding. However, the promise of integrated employment has yet to be realized for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). The number of individuals supported in integrated employment by state IDD agencies has remained the same since 2000, participation in non-work services has grown rapidly, and promising practices for employment supports identified in the research are not widely implemented. What are the state-level strategies that can change this trajectory?

This brief: Describes …

Knowledge Translation And Support For Individuals And Families (Bringing Employment First To Scale, Issue No. 5), Thinkwork! At The Institute For Community Inclusion At Umass Boston

All Institute for Community Inclusion Publications

With the persistently low competitive employment rate for working-age people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), a main focus area for the field of disability research has been on the interaction between the individual and the service system. Yet we know much less about the interaction between systems and families around employment. Family engagement is key to successful employment and life planning, often leading individuals with disabilities on the path to employment when family members serve as role models for work ethic and behavior. Family members may also provide logistical support, including coaching and advice, help with planning and organizing …

High-Quality Community Life Engagement Supports: Four Guideposts For Success (Engage: A Brief Look At Community Engagement, Issue No. 3, 2016), Jaimie Ciulla Timmons, Jennifer Sullivan Sulewski, Thinkwork! At The Institute For Community Inclusion At Umass Boston

All Institute for Community Inclusion Publications

Community Life Engagement refers to supporting people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) to access and participate in their communities outside of employment as part of a meaningful day. States and providers report growing numbers of individuals with IDD in Community Life Engagement, yet the role of services related to engagement and participation in community life has to date been largely undefined.

Furthermore, the Department of Justice’s guidance around the provision of day and employment supports in integrated settings (U.S. Department of Justice, 2014; United States v. State of Rhode Island, 2014) has illustrated the need to define and provide …

Who Are Employment Consultants? Characteristics Of The Workforce That Connects Job Seekers With Intellectual And Developmental Disabilities To Employment (Bringing Employment First To Scale, Issue No. 7), Oliver Lyons, Alberto Migliore, Kelly Nye-Lengerman, Derek Nord, John Butterworth, Thinkwork! At The Institute For Community Inclusion At Umass Boston

All Institute for Community Inclusion Publications

In 1987, the Institute for Community Inclusion (ICI) at the University of Massachusetts Boston began a series of surveys aimed at providing a longitudinal description of the characteristics and service delivery provided by Community Rehabilitation Providers (CRPs)(Domin & Butterworth, 2012). Despite direct support staff comprising one of the nation’s largest labor market segments, there has been very little research into the wages and stability of that workforce (Bogenschutz, Hewitt, Nord, & Hepperlen, 2014). Additionally, most of the literature regarding employment consultants has focused on service outcomes of the individuals served. However, according to Luecking, Fabian, and Tilson (2004), “…Regardless of …

Data Note: Comparing Vr Outcomes For Individuals With And Without Intellectual Disabilities Who Receive Postsecondary Education Services, John Shepard, Frank A. Smith, Thinkwork! At The Institute For Community Inclusion At Umass Boston

Data Note Series, Institute for Community Inclusion

This Data Note explores the provision of postsecondary education services to vocational rehabilitation customers with and without intellectual disabilities who exited the VR system in FY2014.

Data Note: State Intellectual And Developmental Disability Agencies' Service Trends, Jean Winsor, Thinkwork! At The Institute For Community Inclusion At Umass Boston

Data Note Series, Institute for Community Inclusion

This Data Note summarizes findings from the FY 2014 National Survey of State Intellectual and Developmental Disability Agencies' (IDD Agencies) Day and Employment Services.

Statedata: The National Report On Employment Services And Outcomes, 2016, Jean Winsor, Jaimie Ciulla Timmons, John Butterworth, John Shepard, Cady Landa, Frank A. Smith, Daria Domin, Alberto Migliore, Jennifer Bose, Lydia Landim, Thinkwork! At The Institute For Community Inclusion At Umass Boston

All Institute for Community Inclusion Publications

This report provides statistics over 25 years from several national datasets that address the status of employment and economic self-sufficiency for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The authors use abbreviations for both intellectual disability (ID) and intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) in this report. This is because data sources vary in the specific target groups that can be described. Please refer to each chapter for the disability definition used in that chapter. We provide a comprehensive overview that describes national trends in employment for people with IDD, and the appendices provide individual state profiles with data from several sources. …

Research To Practice: The 2014–2015 National Survey Of Community Rehabilitation Providers Report 1: Overview Of Services, Trends, And Provider Characteristics, Daria Domin, John Butterworth

Research to Practice Series, Institute for Community Inclusion

This brief is based on the 2014–2015 National Survey of Community Rehabilitation Providers (CRPs) funded by the Administration on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. This brief presents findings on people with all disabilities and people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) who receive employment and non-work services from community rehabilitation providers (CRPs). Previous national surveys of CRPs were conducted by the Institute for Community Inclusion in 2002–2003 and 2010–2011, and also gathered data on provider services for individuals with disabilities (Metzel et al., 2007; Domin & Butterworth, 2012). This brief will incorporate some of those findings and compare them against the …

For The Protection Of Society's Most Vulnerable, The Ada Should Apply To Arrests, Thomas J. Auner

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Wrongheadedness Of The Poms Pooled Trust Rules And An Unfortunate But Recently Noted Chinese Parallel, Thomas Simmons

Faculty Publications

Supplemental needs trusts of the pooled trust variety have offered important dignity-enhancing protections for individuals with disabilities for several decades. A pooled trust, properly structured according to Congressional requirements, allows the wealth of an individual with disabilities to be overseen by an independent third party trustee, supplementing without displacing means-tested government programs like Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income. Beginning in 2012, the Social Security Administration imposed new burdensome requirements on pooled trusts through its informal POMS manual. Those new requirements have intentionally or unintentionally eliminated as a practical matter the availability of pooled trusts in many states. This unfortunate result …

Workers' Compensation: Necessary Changes In Favor Of The Injured Worker

Nova Law Review

Florida's workers' compensation is intended to provide a "reasonable alternative to tort litigation" by providing medical and wage- loss benefits to injured workers.

Review Of Alaska Mental Health Statutes, Sara Gordon, Melissa Piasecki, Gil Kahn, Dawn Nielsen

Scholarly Works

This report identifies key statutory provisions that we recommend be amended, a description of our findings based on interviews with stakeholders, legislative history of the Alaska statutes, reviews of national best practices and, where applicable, information about emerging areas in national mental health law for Alaska to consider in creating new law. Our recommendations are based in large part on significant advances in law and medicine in the understanding and treatment of mental illness that have occurred in the years since Alaska last made significant and substantive reforms to its criminal and civil mental health statutes. It is important to …

Gambling Disorder, Vulnerability, And The Law: Mapping The Field, Stacey A. Tovino

Scholarly Works

This Article seeks to descriptively map the sub-field of gambling disorder and the law and ask whether individuals with gambling disorder are vulnerable under the law. Like other scholarship that descriptively maps ethical, legal, and social implications of lesser known conditions and developments, this Article seeks to describe the treatment of individuals with gambling disorder in a variety of illustrative, but not exhaustive, legal contexts, to identify the limited scholarship assessing the application of the law to individuals with gambling disorder, and to invite members of the health law academy to bring their significant expertise to bear on these issues …

Dying Fast: Suicide In Individuals With Gambling Disorder, Stacey A. Tovino

Scholarly Works

These published remarks carefully document the history of health insurance coverage of gambling disorder. They begin by providing examples of gambling disorder insurance benefit disparities in the contexts of public health care programs and private health plans. They proceed by reviewing the effect of three pieces of legislation, including the Mental Health Parity Act of 1996, the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008, and the Affordable Care Act of 2010, on public and private insurance coverage of gambling disorder. They highlight the partial victory that will occur in some states beginning in …

Intersectionality Problems With Gendered Disability Discrimination, Thomas Simmons

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Rheumatoid Arthritis: Painful Motion Is Limited Motion, Tyler Crowe

Law Student Publications

Reporting on Petitti v. McDonald, No. 13-3469, ____ Vet. App. ____ (October 28, 2015): The Court was asked to clarify what constitutes "painful motion" and what evidence the Board of Veterans’ Appeals must consider when making this determination.

What Are Aging Parents Caring For Adult Children With Disabilities To Do? A Comprehensive Framework For A Healthy, Stable, Financially Sound Future, Jennifer M. Kirby-Mclemore

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Infinity Goes On Trial: Sanism, Pretextuality, And The Representation Of Defendants With Mental Disabilities, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

This paper, presented to the mid-winter meeting of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (Austin, TX, 2/18/16), explains why it is essential for lawyers representing criminal defendants with mental disabilities to understand the meanings and contexts of sanism - a largely invisible and largely socially acceptable irrational prejudice of the same quality and character of other irrational prejudices that cause (and are reflected in) prevailing social attitudes of racism, sexism, homophobia, and ethnic bigotry - and pretextuality - the means by which courts regularly accept (either implicitly or explicitly) testimonial dishonesty, countenance liberty deprivations in disingenuous ways that bear …

Merchants And Thieves, Hungry For Power: Prosecutorial Misconduct And Passive Judicial Complicity In Death Penalty Trials Of Defendants With Mental Disabilities, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

In spite of the Supreme Court’s decisions in Ford v. Wainwright (1986), Atkins v. Virginia (2002), and Hall v. Florida (2014), persons with severe psychosocial and intellectual disabilities continue to be given death sentences, in some cases leading to actual execution. Although the courts have been aware of this for decades -- dating back at least to the infamous Ricky Rector case in Arkansas -- these base miscarriages of justice continue and show no sign of abating. Scholars have written clearly and pointedly on this issue (certainly, more frequently since the Atkins decision in 2002), but little has changed.

I …

In The Wasteland Of Your Mind: Criminology, Scientific Discovieries And The Criminal Process, Michael L. Perlin, Alison Lynch

Articles & Chapters

This paper addresses a remarkably-underconsidered topic: the potential impact of scientific discoveries and an increased understanding of the biology of human behavior on sentencing decisions in the criminal justice system, specifically, the way that sentencing has the capacity to rely on scientific evidence (such as brain imaging) as a mitigating factor (or perhaps, in the mind of some, as an aggravating factor) in determining punishment.

Such a new method of evaluating criminality, we argue, can be beneficial not only for the defendant, but also for the attorneys and judge involved in the case. If used properly, it may help to …