Speak Out! Media Coverage Opportunity --------------------------------------------------- New York Times Columnist Nicholas Kristof is seeking reader input for “Most Neglected Topics” for coverage in his Sunday blog. Read his first 2014 blog on mental illness and call for reader ideas here, and then call on Kristof to cover the impact of forced deinstitutionalization on people with intellectual and developmental disabilities here (character limit, including spaces, is 1,500) here. Here’s what VOR wrote: “People with intellectual disabilities (ID), a diagnosable mental disorder formerly called mental retardation,” and their care needs, are particularly neglected by the media. What coverage there is typically focuses on success stories, but neglects the underbelly of this story: The fate of thousands of individuals with profound ID, many of whom have additional physical, medical and/or behavioral disabilities, who are forcibly removed from specialized care (deinstitutionalization). The actions that cause this removal, often federal funded and instituted by groups like Protection & Advocacy and the U.S. Department of Justice, result in needless suffering from abuse, neglect, isolation and death because the necessary level of specialized care and trained staff are simply not available in most community settings. Tragedies due to forced deinstitutionalization, in a dangerous quest for normalization, need far wider coverage. So does the collateral damage felt by individuals who seek community living but end up waiting years, even decades, living with aging parents who can no longer adequately care for them, while advocacy and funding focus on moving high needs individuals from congregate facilities. As you reported, failing to provide people with mental illness adequate care results in homelessness, incarceration, or worse. Some people with ID face not homelessness and prison, but instead are suffering and dying in what are supposed to be
Posted on: Mon, 13 Jan 2014 16:31:47 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015