There were a lot of announcements and discussions at last
Friday’s Supporting Families Community of Practice, and I’ll cover those shortly
in another blog post. Right now, though,
I need to get this out in a hurry since you
have action to take over the weekend.
One of the announcements at the SF CoP was that there would
be a markup on December 12th in the D.C. council’s Human Services
committee of bill B22-0154, which you previously have seen referred to here as
the Citizens with Intellectual Disabilities Civil Rights Restoration Act, or
CIDCRRA. It’s now been renamed the Disability
Services Reform Amendment Act of 2017. That
markup took place as planned, and the new text of the bill is attached (https://tinyurl.com/ybkyyuua), as well
as the background report on the bill including a summary of testimony at the
June hearing (https://tinyurl.com/y8sl4nsn).
Now that this bill is finally on the move, I’m told the
committee, and the council, plan to move quickly on it.
I’ve written at length before about this bill, particularly
in my posts “Slow and Steady Wins the Race” and “No Overnight Successes” from
June of this year, and “Yes, You Really Can do Something” (July 2016), “A New
Year, A Chance for New Beginnings” (January 2016) and “Overdue Change for the
District” (November 2015). Just to
remind you, though, if passed the bill would do these key things:
-
Eliminate
the requirement for people with a moderate to significant intellectual
disability to be “committed” by the court before receiving services. Currently people in this category must be
assigned a court-appointed lawyer and must have the amount and type of their
services decided by a judge. This
is a separate issue from guardianship, which allows the court to name a trusted
individual to oversee care and services if necessary. In
fact, the commitment system can undermine the role of the guardian by permitting
the court to make final decisions.
-
Allow
those currently under the system of court commitment to remain under the system
if they choose to. People currently under court commitment may
continue with the system to which they are accustomed.
-
Establish
an enhanced complaint system within DDS. This is new, and resulted from testimony and
discussion at the committee’s June hearing on the bill.
-
Create a
Supported Decision Maker role as a possible alternative to guardianship in addition to existing roles such as Power
of Attorney.
My view on this bill, as you know if you read my testimony
from the June hearing (https://tinyurl.com/yc2ttz67),
is that this is a crucial bill that recognizes we now have a system that can be
responsive to people and their families, not just to the courts (the enhanced
complaint process will help). Please recall that my own son receives
services without court commitment – I trust my own voice more than a
court-appointed lawyer’s - and that local disability advocacy organizations
that are in the forefront of safeguarding disability rights (such as Project
Action!, Quality Trust and Disability Rights DC) are in favor of this bill. Whether
your family member is or is not under court commitment, you should favor this
bill, too.
Please write to the
council – your own councilmember as well as every member of the Human Services
Committee (http://dccouncil.us/committees/committee-on-human-services) to express your strong support for
this bill. It’s overdue, its day has
come, and I assure you the lawyers with a stake in the current system are
flooding the committee with statements in opposition. Take the time now to give a gift to people
with disabilities in D.C. – write to the committee, and the council, to express
your strong support for B22-0154.
Take a break from
trimming the tree and do it this weekend!
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