What the Public is Saying About Regional Center Service Disparities to Latinos and Blacks

If you are concerned about the differences in how regional centers are providing services, particularly to Latinos and African-Americans, we encourage you to attend: PUBLIC HEARINGS on Service Disparities Sponsored by  the California Department of  Developmental Services The Department of Developmental Services will hold four public meetings to consult with stakeholders, including consumers and families, advocates, providers, and protection/advocacy agencies, to review purchase of service data and develop recommendations to help reduce disparities. Discussion areas will include identifying cultural barriers and challenges in obtaining regional center services and the areas that need clarification for people to understand the service delivery system, as well as, plans and recommendations to promote equity and reduce disparities in the purchase of services. THERE WILL BE TWO HEARINGS IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ATTENDED BY SENIOR DDS OFFICIALS: INLAND EMPIRE: Thursday, August 25, 2016 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 Noon Molina Healthcare Molina Aliso Beach Conference Room 550 East Hospitality Lane, Suite 100 San Bernardino, CA 92408On-site translation will be provided in the following languages: Spanish, Mandarin, and Vietnamese. LOS ANGELES COUNTY: Friday, August 26, 2016 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 Noon South Central Los Angeles Regional Center 2500 S Western Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90018On-site translation will be provided in the following languages:  Spanish, Cantonese, and Korean. For more information - Click here Let's get a big turnout.  Please join us!

Governor Brown Stifles Bill That Would Provide Essential Funding Increase for Development Services

Seems our fight is NOT over. The future is not looking bright for our children as schools, states, politicians and insurance agencies realize the long term expense of caring for individuals with autism and other developmental disabilities. They are fighting to pass the expense on to someone else and stall efforts due to bipartisan inaction. This is a human issue and I'm sure Democrat, Republican, Tea Party and Independent party families are united when it comes to getting care for their loved ones. Sadly, any party being right won't be enough when it comes to budget. Families can't afford care on our own, so our only option to is be LOUD and let politicians know that Autism and developmental disabilities are not just an in topic to mention in speeches to get the attention of our families, but a real issue, and we demand their support!  

Write a letter, make a call or watch and see where the chips fall. I promise if we are not heard it will not be good. 

Donna

Bill would yield needed funding increase for developmental services

By The Editorial Board, LA Daily News

In August, when the Legislature’s special session on health care and developmental services was in still in session, we criticized Democratic leaders for not bringing forward good bills by their Republican colleagues.

Sen. Ed Hernandez, D-West Covina, talks with Senate President Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, in this file photo. Hernandez is co-chair of the Legislature's special session conference committee on health and developmental services.(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli 

Now, with more than two months of hindsight under our belts, that obviously partisan inaction looks even worse.

If Senate Bill X2-4, by Republicans Jim Nielsen and Jeff Stone, had passed and been signed into law, it would be well on the way to producing the desperately needed 10 percent increase in funding for developmental services that the Lanterman Coalitionsought in the 2015-16 budget.

Instead, Gov. Jerry Brown stiffed the developmental community in the regular budget process and punted to a special session, which has produced nothing.

But it’s not too late. The special session is still officially “on,” with a Senate-Assembly conference committee formed to address the problem. Unfortunately, that committee has not held a single meeting.

If they continue to ignore the one bill that provides hope for additional developmental funding this fiscal year, Democratic leaders would doom nearly 300,000 of their most vulnerable constituents to another year of shrinking services. After seeing their resources from the state shrivel for two decades, that’s not what the developmental community deserves.

Quite the opposite. Californians with developmental disabilities and their loves ones and those who care for them deserve the immediate 10 percent funding hike along with a stable revenue scheme that will bring the system back to the minimum level of services promised in the 1969 Lanterman Act.

SBX2-4 would sweep unanticipated revenues — tax money above and beyond that budgeted for last fiscal year and this one — into funding for developmental services and Medi-Cal. It mandates that the director of the state Department of Finance, by Jan. 10, 2016, and again by May 14, determine excess revenue, subtract the amount that must go to schools under Proposition 98 and to the state’s rainy-day fund under Prop. 2, and direct the rest to developmental services until that 10 percent increase is funded, retroactive to July 1, 2015; any money left over after that would go to Medi-Cal providers.

The 2014-15 fiscal year ended with $732 million in unanticipated revenue, according to the state Department of Finance’s July finance bulletin. In the first three months of the fiscal year, the department reports, “Year-to-date revenues are $744 million above the expected $22.855 billion.”

That’s easily enough “extra” cash to give developmental services the 10 percent funding increase, which would cost about $350 million.

So what’s the problem?

The Legislature should simply get off the dime and pass SBX2-4.

Sen. Ed Hernandez, D-West Covina, failed to bring SBX2-4 forward to be heard as chairman of the special session’s Senate committee. Now we urge him and Assemblyman Rob Bonta, D-Oakland, co-chairs of the conference committee on health and developmental services, to convene their committee and to hear and debate SBX2-4 while the money is rolling in to state coffers.

5 Minutes Can Stop Programs From Being Forced to Close as Dedicated Professionals Depart the Field Due to Poverty Wages

I won't be here forever to subsidize the entitlesment system when it fails my son and others with disabilities. However, I am here now and as a citizen and a taxpayer I have the right, no the obligation to fight for his rights, to protect him. So I am standing up for Nick, and for my own piece of mind. Will you take 5 minutes today and stand up with me, for the 85,000 individuals living in LA with developmental disabilities and their families? 

Los Angeles Must be Heard! ~ Rally in LA on Sept. 1 There are about 85,000 people with developmental disabilities living in Los Angeles County. That is nearly one-third of all people served by California’s Regional Centers. But, the critical decisions affecting their lives are made some 400 miles north, in Sacramento. It is agonizing to watch from a distance as our state leaders listen sympathetically, debate endlessly but then no action is taken to help us. As programs are forced to close and as dedicated professionals depart the field due to poverty wages, clients, families and organizations that serve them are struggling desperately. We can be silent no longer. Too many lives are at stake! We must tell our Los Angeles legislators that, while they vote in Sacramento, they should fight for the people they represent here in Los Angeles. They must stand up to the Governor right now and demand the emergency rate relief we need. Let’s tell them! Deliver the Message in Person at a Rally in LA on September 1 Join us at the Los Angeles District Office of Senator Kevin de Leon on Tuesday, September 1 at 11 a.m.  We hope to have 100 people or more come to the Senator’s district office located at 1808 W. Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles. Bring a short personal note urging him to fight for funding now for people with developmental disabilities. View sample note (PDF) View sample note (Word) For more information contact Steve Miller atsteve.sj.miller@gmail.com or 818.540.5275. (Steve Miller is the former executive director of Tierra del Sol and now advocates for families and service providers.) Can't Make It To The Rally? ~ Show Your Support Via Phone or E-mail Deliver the Message by Phone Call Senator de Leon’s District Office at 213.483.9300. Tell them to please tell Senator de Leon to fight for funding now for people with developmental disabilities. View sample phone message (PDF) E-mail Your Message to Senator de Leon Send an e-mail athttp://sd24.senate.ca.gov/contact/email Fill out the e-mail form and use the comment box to urge the Senator to fight for developmental disabilities funding now. View sample e-mail message (PDF) See which zip codes Senator Kevin de Leon serves in the Los Angeles area. View list

Black, Hispanic kids underrepresented in autism identification - We keep talking, but there's not real change. Sad

Black, Hispanic kids underrepresented in  autism identification - We keep talking, but there's not real change. Sad

The number of children diagnosed with autism has increased in recent years, but a new study co-authored by a University of Kansas professor shows that while the number of students with

autism increased in every state from 2000 to 2007, black and Hispanic children were

significantly underrepresented. Jason Travers, assistant professor of special

education, co-authored a study that analyzed administrative identification of autism in every

state under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act for the years 2000 and 2007. The

disparity in the odds of white students identified compared with minorities might reflect a similar

phenomenon associated with the widespread increase in students diagnosed with learning

disabilities in the late '70s and attention deficit hyper disorder in the '90s, the authors argue, and

also shows that minority students probably are not getting the same services as their peers.

Travers has studied autism and diagnosis rates previously and noticed discrepancies in

the number of students diagnosed. The Centers for Disease Control have estimated that one in 68

children have autism. "That's a pretty alarming number," Travers said of the CDC

figure. "I wanted to see if there were differences in these rates. Previous research had found that

African-Americans were over-identified. But the data I was looking at showed they were under-
identified. This was during an era when autism prevalence rates were increasing across the

board." Travers and colleagues Michael Krezmien of the University of Massachusetts-
Amherst, Candace Mulcahy of Binghamton University and Matthew Tincani of Temple

University examined autism identification rates from schools in all 50 states in 2000 and 2007

for the study, published in the Journal of Special Education. The study was started while Travers

was a faculty member at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Administrative

identification reflects rates at which schools—not necessarily a clinician—identify a child as

having autism. Widely varying criteria from state to state are part of the problem, the authors

state, but not the full story. White students identified as autistic increased from 2000 to 2007 in

all states and the District of Columbia. The number of African-Americans identified increased in

all states except Alaska and Montana, and the number of Hispanics increased in all states except

Kentucky, Louisiana and the District of Columbia. While counts in all categories showed an

increase, black and Hispanic increased at much smaller rates, and all three increased at lower

numbers than predicted by the CDC. "Nearly every state that had proportional

representation of students in 2000 underidentified black and Hispanic students in 2007,"

the authors wrote. "Although there is no firm epidemiological evidence that race is predictive

of autism, we found substantial racial differences in the ways U.S. school identify students with

autism." The discrepancies indicate a number of problems, Travers said. Chief

among them, regardless of why white students are being identified with autism at higher rates,

the results may mean services are not equally accessible among the races. When more students

of one race are being identified, more services for autism will go to those students, and not to

students and schools that are underrepresented. Critics have claimed that white students are

being overidentified or that administrative diagnoses rates are not reliable. "These data

depict what's going on in schools," Travers said. "Whether or not they match with clinical

diagnoses, the numbers can be associated with a variety of costs. They tell us about the human

costs, financial resources dedicated to services, administrative costs, community costs and many

others." The disparities also suggest that white students are more likely to access

early intensive behavior intervention services, educational supports, occupational supports and

others designed for students with autism than their black and Hispanic peers.

Travers intends to address the disparities in future research and develop more accurate methods

to predict disparities in rates of autism. One possibility is to gather data from school districts,

counties and states across the country on the number of students with autism and analyze other

demographics such as neighborhood median income, teacher quality, number of students that

qualify for free and reduced lunches, staff turnover and numerous other factors. He would then

compare that data to U.S. Census information to develop advanced statistical models that could

more accurately predict indicators for autism numbers in schools. "I'm not convinced

we thoroughly understand this problem in special education right now," Travers said. "I think

what's needed is advanced statistical models that can more accurately identify predictors

associated with identification." In addition, schools and states need to identify

consistent methods of identifying autism. The longer they go without, and the more prevalence

numbers are used for political purposes, the greater the inequity will be for minority students, as

the data suggests. "Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, until this problem is

thoroughly understood and scientifically validated methods to prevent the problem are identified,

it seems that the majority of the un- or mis-identified students with autism will be children of

color," the authors wrote.