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Redwood City teacher accused of slapping, kicking special needs students

7 Feb

This by way of the Sam Jose Mercury News: Redwood City teacher accused of slapping, kicking special needs students

If the title of the news story isn’t enough, here are some details:

A Redwood City special needs teacher faces nine misdemeanor charges for allegedly slapping, kicking and refusing food and drink to two developmentally disabled boys at Roosevelt Elementary School, a prosecutor said.
The boys were part of a special education pre-school class taught by Alexia Aliki Bogdis, 43, of Millbrae and had been abused between December and January, said San Mateo County Chief Deputy District Attorney Karen Guidotti. One of the boys was slapped in face and kicked in the stomach, while the other had bumped into a table after the teacher kicked his chair, had his wrist twisted and was deprived of food and drink, she added.

You can read the whole story at the mercury news. Frankly I have a hard time expressing the outrage I feel at these stories.

Trying to avoid bullying: like a groundhog trying to run from its shadow

21 Jan

Kids get bullied, and special needs kids even more so. Doesn’t make it right. But what happens when people are so proud of it that they want it recorded to video and posted to the web?

That’s what happens in this video. A group of kids are bullying an autistic kid. Only one throws the punch, but another is ready and waiting with a cell phone camera to record the event.

http://www.abc2news.com/video/videoplayer.swf?dppversion=16926

Kaleb wants to put the bullying behind him but, as he says, “It’s like a groundhog trying to run from its shadow.’ The bully has been charged with 2nd degree assault.

Judge awards Robertson Co. bullied teen $300K

20 Dec

Bullying of autistics is a topic that comes up a great deal. Just last week a gang of nine youths who viciously beat an autistic teen was let go without any punishment. In another case, an autistic student was awarded $300k, the maximum allowed by law, for a bullying case.

Before anyone sees this as a victory, the kid was left legally blind in one eye, the family incurred $90k in medical expenses and it took years to win the judgement. From a story on WKRN-TV in Nashville, Tennessee (U.S.):

As a seventh grader at White House Heritage School in 2006, Jacob Gentry was hit in his left eye with a textbook when his teacher left the classroom, causing him to become legally blind in that eye.

It seemed like a minor injury at the time, but it required four surgeries.

Jacob’s attorney, Jonathan Street, told Nashville’s News 2, “There’s a lot of pain that you go through, his medical bills were over $90,000.”

Judge Rotenberg Center banned from shocking new admissions

14 Nov

The Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC) has is a special needs school in Massachusetts which employs electric shocks as part of its program on a subset of its students. This practice is controversial, to put it mildly.

With thanks to Kate Gladstone for bringing this to my attention, the JRC has been banned from including these aversives on future students.

The letter below is from the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) Disability Rights International which goes into more detail.

JRC Banned from Shocking New Admissions

Dear Supporters,

This week we can celebrate a major victory against torture of people with disabilities in the United States. The Massachusetts Department of Developmental Services (DDS) adopted new regulations last week that greatly restrict the intentional use of pain as a form of treatment – including the use of electric shock, seclusion, and restraints on young children and adults with disabilities. As documented by a recent report by Disability Rights International (DRI), Torture Not Treatment, The Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC), based in Canton, Massachusetts, has used these practices, called “aversive treatment” for decades.

Facilities licensed by the DDS in Massachusetts can no longer subject new admissions to severe behavioral interventions including electric shock, long-term restraint, or aversives that pose risk for psychological harm — in other words, mainstays of JRC’s “treatment” program.US Report Cover

No other institution in the country – or the world, as far as we can tell – uses such barbaric practices. DRI’s investigation found that the pain caused by this is so severe and outside accepted professional norms, that these practices constitute nothing less than torture. By permitting such treatment, the United States violates its obligations under international law, as defined by the UN Convention Against Torture. DRI filed our report, Torture Not Treatment, in 2010 as an urgent appeal to the United Nations. The top official on torture at the United Nations agreed with DRI, and when asked by ABC Nightline if the practices were torture, he declared, “Yes…I have no doubts about it. It is inflicted in a situation where a victim is powerless…a child in the restraint chair, being then subjected to electric shocks, how more powerless can you be?”

We applaud Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick on taking a courageous stand by issuing an executive order for the Massachusetts DDS to review their policies regarding electric shock and other severe aversives.

The resulting new policy puts an end to the use of JRC’s electric shocks on new admissions. But we can’t declare success yet. While hundreds of children will be spared from JRC’s behavioral experiments in the future, the new policies do not stop JRC from shocking and causing psychological damage to children already placed in the center. These children and young adults remain prisoners in a very dangerous environment. The center has been repeatedly investigated for suspicious deaths and physical abuse. JRC has been fined for identifying some clinicians hired by the school as psychologists, when in fact, they were not licensed psychologists. And as a result of an investigation into a case of abuse at the facility, JRC’s director was forced to resign earlier this year after being charged with misleading a grand jury about the investigation.

DRI is encouraged by the bold statement by the US National Council on Disabilities, a federal advisory body, which cited DRI’s report, as well as the international definition of torture, to call for the use of painful shock aversives to be brought to an end.

DRI urges the Department of Justice and the Obama Administration to fullfil its obgligations under the UN Convention Against Torture. DRI calls for a blanket ban on the use of electric shock as aversive treatment for children or adults with disabilities across the nation. There is nothing stopping JRC from shocking kids already in their center — or moving their facility to a different state to avoid the new Massachusetts regulations. The Department of Justice has an open investigation into the treatment of children at JRC. We ask you to write a personal appeal to the investigators to help ensure that this torture is put to an end once and for all, and is never allowed to be duplicated anywhere else in the United States.

We are one large step closer.

Thank you for your continued support,

Laurie Signature

Laurie Ahern,
President

Eric R Sig

Eric Rosenthal,
Executive Director

Letter to the Editor: A Former Judge Rotenberg Center Worker Speaks Out

14 Nov

The Canton Patch has published a letter to the editor from a former employee of the Judge Rotenberg Center. The letter is described, “Greg Miller worked for the Rotenberg Center in Canton for three years and speaks about his experience.” and carries the warning that “Some of the content in this letter may be disturbing. Reader discretion is advised. ”

Mr. Miller discusses his decision to work at JRC, why he stayed for some 3 years, and the effects it had upon him. But most of the letter is focused up the methods used at the JRC:

I believe that electric shocks are harmful not only to the student receiving a shock, but to all other students in the room witnessing the traumatic shock incidences. Electric shocks are not necessary to help JRC’s population of students. I saw much use of electric shocks that I felt were unwarranted to appear in student plans, and it seemed to me that individualized student plans were designed without proper oversight or adequate safeguards to prevent misuse of the shock devices.

Here are a few of his experiences which he reports:

I have participated as required in following student plans to shock multiple students, including when they reacted to watching a fellow classmate tied up in a restraint chair getting attacked by a staffer with a plastic knife (being held) to the student’s throat. This was a judge-approved Clockwork-Orange-type “treatment” for a student who swallowed a small X-Acto knife blade. A staffer, according to the plan, would run up to the student who had all four limbs tied all day long to a restraint chair, and pretend to force a plastic knife down the student’s mouth while another staff pressed the remote control to give a shock to the student. The staff would repeatedly yell in a gruff voice, “Do you want to swallow a knife?”

and

I have witnessed terrible injuries including bloody scabs all over the torso, arms, and legs caused by the electrodes. While I have heard of Dr. Israel previously claiming that the injuries were due to staff not properly rotating electrodes after shocking a student, the reality was that some students exhibited behaviors resulting in up to 30 shocks in a day. Some students stopped their behaviors after receiving their maximum 30 shocks for the day. Most of the shock devices used two electrodes to pass current through a specific distance of human flesh to maximize the amount of pain from the same amount of current. Two red skin marks from electrodes per shock, times 30 shocks in a day, quickly adds up so that very soon electrodes will be placed over previous marks resulting in bloody scabs. In these cases, the multiple patches of bloody scabs have nothing to do with staff failing to rotate electrodes after shocking students. Rather it exemplifies that the electric shocks approach were not appropriate for the student, and that other approaches should have been found.

Dr. Israel has previously compared the electric shock devices to bee stings. I vividly remember nearly getting the wind knocked out of me during training at JRC back in 2003 when (I was) permitted to test out the weakest of JRC’s electric shock devices on my own arm. That was no bee sting!

I would encourage readers to read the entire letter Mr. Miller wrote.

Judge Rotenberg Center lobbies against seclusion and restraint bill

14 Nov

The Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC) is a special needs school which employs controversial behavior modification techiniques, including electric shock. The JRC has been the focus of much criticism for this practice, which is illegal in many (possibly most) states. Even its home state of Massachusetts has made, and continues to make, efforts to curb this practice.

In Judge Rotenberg Center lobbies D.C. against bill, the Canton Journal (a local newspaper for the JRC) notes that the JRC is lobbying to stop state legislation and federal legislation:

As the Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton gears up to oppose new state regulations that limit the use of controversial shock treatment, the school is also covering its bases in Washington.

So far this year, the Judge Rotenberg Center has paid $16,500 to Malkin & Ross, a New York-based lobbying firm, according to recent lobbying reports filed with the secretary of the Senate.

This lobbying effort includes targeting a seclusion and restraint bill:

A bill filed by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., now the senior Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee, would ban the use of physical restraint and seclusion in schools. The bill is co-sponsored by 27 Democrats, including Rep. John Tierney, D-Salem, and one Republican.

Seclusion and restraint legislation has been a major focus of autism organizations as diverse as the National Autism Association and the Autistic Self Advocacy Network.

The Miller seclusion and restraint bill, House Resolution 1381, includes language calling for children to have the right to be “Free from physical or mental abuse, aversive behavioral interventions that compromise health and safety…”

(2) Behavioral interventions for children must promote the right of all children to be treated with dignity. All children have the right to be free from physical or mental abuse, aversive behavioral interventions that compromise health and safety, and any physical restraint or seclusion imposed solely for purposes of discipline or convenience.

and specifically call for the prohibition of restraints and aversives that “compromise health and safety”:

(1) School personnel shall be prohibited from imposing on any student the following:

(A) Mechanical restraints.

(B) Chemical restraints.

(C) Physical restraint or physical escort that restricts breathing.

(D) Aversive behavioral interventions that compromise health and safety.

I guess rather than argue that their methods do not “compromise health and safety”, JRC would prefer to quash this bill. Unfortunately, JRC may get their wish. H.R. 1381 appears to be stalled, with no actions taken since it was referred to committee in March.

Letter to Massachusetts DDS Commissioner Urging Elimination of Electric Shock, Other Aversives

19 Jul

The National Council on Disability (NCD) has sent a letter to the Massachusetts Department of Developmental Services Commissioner on electric shocks and other aversives. Massachusetts is the home of the Judge Rotenberg Center which uses electric shocks as a main part of their program.

July 18, 2011

Elin Howe, Commissioner
Department of Developmental Services
500 Harrison Avenue
Boston, Massachusetts 02118

COMMENTS OF THE NATIONAL COUNCIL ON DISABILITY IN SUPPORT OF PROPOSED AMENDMENTS TO REGULATIONS ON BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION AT 115 CMR 5.14[i]

The National Council on Disability (NCD) is an independent federal agency charged with advising the President, Congress, and other Federal agencies regarding laws, policies, practices, and procedures affecting people with disabilities. NCD strongly opposes the use of aversive treatments and accordingly submits these comments.

NCD has a longstanding history of opposing aversive treatments.[ii] As stated in NCD’s 1995 Report Improving the Implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act: Making Schools Work for All of America’s Children,

While it is possible to understand the desperation of these parents, to share their exasperation with ineffective programs and treatments, and to sympathize with them in their frustration to locate appropriate programs, there are limits to what society can permit in the name of treatment. There are those in our society who would advocate for severe physical punishment or even the mutilation of prisoners convicted of what everyone would agree are heinous crimes. Yet these prisoners are afforded protection under the law from this treatment, even though there are those who would claim that such treatment would “teach them a lesson.” Students with severe behavioral disabilities are not criminals, and yet present law allows them to be subjected to procedures which cannot be used on the most hardened criminals, or, in some cases, even on animals.[iii]

NCD applauds the Massachusetts Department of Developmental Services (DDS) for taking steps toward drastically restricting use of aversive punishment, and we urge complete elimination of such methods. The use of electric shock is not a legitimate method of treatment for any person. Such measures – whose use against non-disabled individuals is already recognized as illegal and immoral – are contrary to the letter and the spirit of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act. We urge the Department of Developmental Services to protect both future students and current ones from the use of contingent electric shock and all other such aversive techniques.

In light of the effect on children and youth and with disabilities nationwide, NCD is gravely concerned by the use of aversive treatments at the Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC), in Canton, Massachusetts — the only known school in the United States to provide such treatment. We are aware that students from an estimated 17 other states and the District of Columbia attend JRC and are therefore potential recipients of such aversive treatments.[iv] As such, NCD views this as a significant issue of national importance.

The treatment being provided at JRC is contrary to federal policy and the findings of mental health research. The 2003 President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health stated that restraint will be used only as safety interventions of last resort, not as treatment interventions.[v] Similarly, the US Department of Health and Human Services Substance Abuse (HHS) and Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA) has found that seclusion and restraints are detrimental to the recovery of persons with mental illnesses.[vi]

The practices of JRC are equally contrary to the Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act (DD Act) which states in part:

“…The Federal Government and the States both have an obligation to ensure that public funds are provided only to institutional programs, residential programs, and other community programs, including educational programs in which individuals with developmental disabilities participate, that… meet minimum standards relating to- provision of care that is free of abuse, neglect, sexual and financial exploitation, and violations of legal and human rights and that subjects individuals with developmental disabilities to no greater risk of harm than others in the general population… and prohibition of the use of such restraint and seclusion as a punishment or as a substitute for a habilitation program…” (emphasis added).[vii]

The objectionable practices at JRC have not only attracted national attention but have also been scrutinized internationally. According to the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, “. . . the term torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted . . . for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.”[viii]

In April 2010, Disability Rights International (formerly Mental Disability Rights International) issued an urgent appeal to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture concerning the practices at JRC.[ix] Subsequently, in June 2010, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture stated that the practices of the Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton, Massachusetts equate to torture and urged the US government to appeal.[x] The US Department of Justice (DOJ) is now investigating these, and other, allegations.[xi]

The regulations proposed by the Department of Developmental Services (DDS) send a strong message that aversive treatment should not be readily provided, but they must go further. It is critical that the DDS address the concerns identified here and supplement its regulations accordingly.

Thank you for considering our comments and recommendations. NCD stands ready to assist you in ways that our collaboration can best benefit students with disabilities and their families while promoting safe learning environments for all students across America. We are available to discuss these matters at your earliest convenience. Please contact me through NCD’s offices at (202) 272-2004.

Respectfully,

Ari Ne’eman
Policy and Program Evaluation Committee Chair
National Council on Disability

[i] With thanks to NCD Council Member Marylyn Howe and NCD Staff Robyn Powell for their invaluable support and assistance in research and drafting.

[ii] National Council on Disability, From Privileges to Rights: People Labeled with Psychiatric Disabilities Speak for Themselves (2002), available at http://www.ncd.gov/publications/2000/Jan202000; National Council on Disability, Improving the Implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act: Making Schools Work for All of America’s Children (1995), available at http://www.ncd.gov/publications/1995/09051995.

[iii] Id.

[iv] CNN, New York Education Officials Ban Shock Therapy (2006), available at http://articles.cnn.com/2006-06-21/politics/shock.therapy.school_1_shock-therapy-electric-shock-geds?_s=PM:EDUCATION.

[v] Mental Disability Rights International, Torture Not Treatment: Electric Shock and Long-Term Restraint in the United States on Children and Adults with Disabilities at the Judge Rotenberg Center (2010), 12, available at http://www.disabilityrightsintl.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/USReportandUrgentAppeal.pdf.

[vi] Id.

[vii] 42 U.S.C. § 15009(a)(3)(B)(i-iii) (2000).

[viii] UN General Assembly, Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Article 1(1), 10 December 1984, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 1465, p. 85, available at http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3ae6b3a94.html.

[ix] Mental Disability Rights International, Torture Not Treatment: Electric Shock and Long-Term Restraint in the United States on Children and Adults with Disabilities at the Judge Rotenberg Center (2010), 12, available at http://www.disabilityrightsintl.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/USReportandUrgentAppeal.pdf.

[x] ABC News/Nightline, UN Calls Treatment at Mass. School ‘Torture’ (2010), available at http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/shock-therapy-massachussetts-school/story?id=11047334.

[xi] US Department of Justice, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Thomas E. Perez Speaks at the National Council on Independent Living Annual Conference (2010), available at http://www.justice.gov/crt/opa/pr/speeches/2010/crt-speech-100719.html.

Disabled Children: A Legal Handbook

13 Jun

This for UK parents only but if you are such – its free for PDF download from here

That’s not for our kids

28 Apr

A recent Guardian Roundtable touched on an interesting subject for those of us who are responsible for children with learning difficulties. The article was written, sourced and published in the UK but I believe it applies everywhere in the world where there are children with learning difficulties.

Just 6.4% of people with learning disabilities are in paid employment and that stark statistic – and the shocking waste of financial (and human) resources behind it – formed the backdrop for a recent Guardian roundtable discussion.

This issue has its root, I believe, in the way we are led to think about our children from birth:

When it comes to setting expectations for a child with learning disabilities, things can start to go wrong the moment they are born. The roundtable heard how health staff use their “breaking bad news” training to counsel parents, leaving them with the impression that there’s not much incentive to look forward to the future.

I remember the day we received the news that our child was autistic with profound learning difficulties. There were 3 calm staff members and a box of tissues on the table. By the time we left, the tissues had been used – and although the staff were gentle, kind and wonderful people who clearly were fond of our child – they too fell into that trap of ‘breaking bad news’ mode. A mode that, by its very tenor, fulfills the expectation of _being_ bad news.

The truth is, in my opinion, that with a little effort from health care agencies we can move from:

staff at one special school who, when the issue of employment was raised, replied: “That’s not for our kids.”

to a de facto position as espoused by agencies like Remploy who are the UK’s leading provider of employment services to people with disabilities.

But we’re not anywhere near that yet. In my own experience too many parents of people with special needs are content to wallow in the comfort of ‘putting it off’ – their children are still young. But consider this – we are far longer a time adults than we are children. Our children need to learn how to function in the world. This won’t be brought about by sham cures and ideaslistic fights against a strawman army. Neither will it be brought about by those who insist on misrepresenting the nature of what autism is to all rather than some.

One speaker summed up the fundamental question underpinning the whole debate: “Do we believe that people with learning disabilities and their families are worth it?”

Are they worth the upheaval and political effort it would take to transform a system that often fails them when it come to finding work?

In any society that claims to be fair, children with learning disabilities surely deserve the same life chances as other young people, the roundtable heard. They should be encouraged to have ambition

Mother who withheld cancer treatment from autistic son sentenced

16 Apr

Kristen LaBrie was sentenced today to 8 years in prison in the death of her son. Her son was autistic and developed cancer. Doctors thought the cancer (non-Hodgkins lymphoma) was treatable, and gave the child a 90% chance of surviving. His mother didn’t give him the chemotherapy and he developed leukaemia. In the end, the leukaemia killed him.

Courtroom video is here (I can’t figure out how to embed the video).

The announcer in that video states “her mental state was weakened after providing 99% of his care”

Her attorney is shown towards the end of the video stating: “She made a decision in her mind to stop the medication. But the decision was not made consciously. It was a result of her losing her ability to be objective”

From the Boston Herald:

LaBrie’s lawyer, Kevin James, told the jury LaBrie was depressed and overwhelmed by caring for her son. She made a “tragic mistake” in stopping her son’s at-home medication, James said, but her actions were not criminal.

From the Boston Globe:

LaBrie, 38, told the jury she stopped giving him the medications because she couldn’t bear to see how sick the side effects made him.

Prosecutors portrayed her as a single mother seething with resentment because she had to care for Jeremy alone.

TIME Magazine posed this question:

Was justice done? It’s hard to know. Certainly, disabled children have rights. But moms do too, and it appears that LaBrie did not have adequate support. Being a single mother of a healthy child is tough enough. Factor in autism and a kid who can’t communicate makes it that much harder. Add non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and the burden is fierce.

Do autistics get enough support? No.
Do parents get enough support? No.
Is this an excuse for withholding medication? No.

There are cases through the years of parents of disabled kids either actively or passively assisting in the deaths of those children. How can we as a people figure out ahead of time that these parents are making these tragic, and criminal, decisions?

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