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DD Awareness Month

Each March, the National Association of Councils on Developmental Disabilities (NACDD), partners with Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD) and National Disability Rights Network (NDRN) to create a social media campaign that highlights the many ways in which people with and without disabilities come together to form strong, diverse communities. Learn more and check out the resources on NACDD’s website.

March is also Brain Injury Awareness Month. 5.3 million people living with brain injuries want the same things we all want: a good job, someone to love, a nice home and fun in their lives. They want to be defined by who they are, not by their injuries. You can help by joining the #ChangeYourMind campaign and spreading the word. Learn more on the Brain Injury Association of America website.

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Ethan Saylor Alliance

DRM Paralegal, Teri Sparks, served on the Governor’s Commission for the Effective Community Inclusion of People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. The Commission brought together law enforcement, advocates, state agencies, family members, including the family of Ethan Saylor, and self-advocates to develop recommendations for the training of law enforcement that would provide awareness about intellectual and developmental disabilities and would lead to safe interactions.

Self-advocates made clear their wish to feel safe, understood and included.  DRM served on the subcommittee to draft training objectives that were adopted by the Maryland Police Training Commission, for cadets and veterans of law enforcement. In 2015, Maryland passed legislation creating the Ethan Saylor Alliance for Self-Advocates as Educators.

Subsequently, the Maryland Department of Disabilities established the Ethan Saylor Alliance Steering Committee, staffed by Department of Disabilities staff Jennifer Eastman and co-chaired by  Teri Sparks from DRM and Erica Wheeler, Self-Advocate & Trainer.  The steering committee works to insure that appropriate training and supports are in place for self-advocates to participate in meaningful ways as trainers of law enforcement.  In 2018, the steering committee awarded funds to two organizations, including Loyola University, to develop and implement curricula to prepare self-advocates to participate in meaningful ways as trainers of law enforcement. You can learn more about the Ethan Saylor Alliance by visiting: http://mdod.maryland.gov/about/Pages/Saylor-Alliance.aspx

CBS Baltimore shared coverage of a police training session at Loyola University. Actors with intellectual and developmental disabilities perform reality-based training scenarios to improve police encounters with people with disabilities:

On January 17, 2019, Ethan Saylor’s mother, Patti Saylor, was featured on WYPR’s “On the Record” discussing the officer training sessions.

Learn more about the program, “Learning to Lead: Training Self-Advocate Educators for Law Enforcement” on Loyola University’s website.

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DRM Reports: “Segregation & Suicide at MCIW”

12/14/2018

Disability Rights Maryland hosted a Press Conference at our offices today to announce the release of our report, “Segregation and Suicide: Confinement at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women (PDF). The report was completed by DRM and Munib Lohrasbi, a community fellow with the Open Society Institute of Baltimore (OSI). 

The report discloses the extreme isolation and harm, or risk of harm, to numerous women with significant disabilities housed in the segregation, infirmary, and mental health units at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women (MCIW). Conditions in the units varied, but DRM observed problems with access to outdoor and indoor recreation; natural light; mattresses or bedding; insufficient treatment plans; and a lack of confidentiality for health  care services. The harm caused by segregation practices is pointedly evidenced by the suicide of a young woman with mental health issues who was incarcerated for a non-violent offense and who took her life while in segregation. 

DRM’s investigation, set forth in the Report, finds that MCIW failed to exercise reasonable standards of care during the time period surrounding her suicide. The Report offers recommendations for less harmful and safer correctional practices that conform to professional standards and comply with federal and Constitutional requirements.

DRM’s Director of Litigation, Lauren Young remarked, “The use of segregation in prison – the extreme isolation, the lack of physical and social engagement, sometimes combined with a lack of bedding, clothing, natural light or exercise, are conditions which Maryland has been shamefully slow to reject, especially as applied to individuals with serious disabilities; and compared with other states. We share this information because it is indispensable to the reforms that must come, but which will not succeed if conditions are kept from public consciousness.”

View a recording of the press conference on our Facebook page (embedded below).

 

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NDRN Statement on Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting

For Immediate Release
10/29/2018                        

Washington, DC – Curt Decker, executive director of the National Disability Rights Network, issued the following statement in response to the mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and other recent acts of hate and terror in the United States:

“I am profoundly saddened by the acts of violence that have taken place in Pittsburgh, Louisville, and by the mail bombings targeting political leaders and the news media. But I am not surprised. This is the inevitable outcome of the hate filled rhetoric that has infected our national discourse. Our leaders must do better. We all must be better. Hate has no place in America and it must stop now. The National Disability Rights Network joins with the entire civil rights community to mourn those we lost. Our thoughts and prayers are with their families and our nation.”

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View original press release on NDRN’s website

The National Disability Rights Network (NDRN) is the nonprofit membership organization for the federally mandated Protection and Advocacy (P&A) Systems and the Client Assistance Programs (CAP) for individuals with disabilities. Collectively, the Network is the largest provider of legally based advocacy services to people with disabilities in the United States.

Contact: David Card
202.408.9514 x122
press@ndrn.org

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