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National Down Syndrome Congress Governmental Affairs Newsline

June 11, 2009

Also In This Issue

APRAIS

Texas "Improvements"

Positive Behavior for Safe and Effective Schools

Please send questions or comments to susan@....::

Dear NDSC Members and Friends,

NDSC Represented at White House Meeting

On May 26, NDSC Governmental Affairs Director, Goodman, met with White House officials to discuss the use of restraint, seclusion and aversive interventions on students with disabilities. This meeting followed a hearing on this subject several days earlier by the House Committee on Education and Labor.

Also in attendance were other members of APRAIS, a coalition of national organizations of which NDSC is a founding member. Among its goals, APRAIS (Alliance for the Prevention of Restraint, Aversive Interventions and Seclusion) seeks the elimination of the use of seclusion, aversive interventions, and restraint to respond to or control the behavior of children and youth. The alliance was founded in 2004. Representatives of the Department of Education were also at the meeting, as were congressional staff members and representatives from professional education groups such as school boards associations, state special education directors and, teachers' and administrators' organizations. APRAIS representatives suggested several actions that could be accomplished by Executive Order of the President. APRAIS will continue the advocacy efforts with the White House, Department of Education and

Congress.

State of Texas Agrees to "Improve" Institutions and Improve Access to Community Services

The state of Texas has reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice to put more than $110 million dollars in improvements to the state institutions for persons with disabilities. The state has been the subject of media coverage recently over the abhorrent conditions in state institutions as witnessed by the "Texas School Fight Club Scandal". In the "Fight Club", institution residents were forced by staff to fight each other resulting in severe injuries to some of the residents.

According to the June 4th edition of the Dallas Morning News, Texas lawmakers passed an emergency safety bill that creates an independent ombudsman to investigate injuries and deaths at state schools; requires fingerprinting, background checks and random drug testing of all state school employees; and installation of monitors. They also approved a five-year, $112 million settlement with the Justice Department to hire more than 1,000 new state school workers, dramatically improve health care, and install independent monitors to oversee conditions at the facilities.

Unfortunately, there is no plan for phasing out institutional services.

The legislature also approved $210 million for community based services to the 8000 individuals on the waiting list for services in Texas. This is great news for parents whose family members are waiting for services in Texas!

Parents should contact their local parent group, area service coordinators, the state Protection and Advocacy agency and/or their state developmental disabilities advisory committee to keep apprised of the status of implementation of this agreement.

Federal Bill Encourages Use of School-Wide Positive Behavior Supports

NDSC is part of the School Success for All coalition of national disability organizations who have actively advocated for a bill that was recently introduced on May 21st by Representative Phil Hare (D-IL) called the Positive Behavior for Safe and Effective Schools Act (H.R. 2597). The legislation is designed to encourage the use of school-wide positive behavior support (PBS) for all students. School-wide PBS reinforces desired behavior and eliminates inadvertent reinforcement of problem behavior.

For more information on this bill, go to http://thomas.loc.gov and key in the bill number (H.R. 2597).