Surveys

Thank you to the team at Disability Rights Texas for making the trip to Bryan, TX on 3/19/2014 to listen to what our community has to say about disability-related issues.

If you were unable to attend and would still like your opinion to be heard, please complete the online survey by clicking HERE.

Here’s a brief overview from the 3/19/2014 community forum:

Who was there?

Disability Rights Texas Team Members:

• Mary Faithfull, Executive Director;
• Lydia focusing on education;
• Susan focusing on community integration;
• Steve representing policy issues;
• Leah focusing on housing, employment and transportation.

Local community groups and organizations in attendance:

• Brazos Valley Center for Independent Living
• FACETS
• Early Childhood Intervention (ECI)

In addition to the community groups and organizations, a few individual community members were in attendance.

What did we hear?

• EDUCATION
  • Difference in the types and quality of services offered from one school to another — even in the same district;
  • Concerns about transition planning either being non-existent or not emphasized;
  • School Resource Officers and law enforcement in general need to receive training on working with youth with disabilities;
  • School district personnel misinterpret confidentiality laws when they deny parents the right to observe children in special education classes.  A specific example given was a parent not being allowed to observe his/her own child without the written consent of the other parents of children in the same classroom.
• HOUSING
  • Difficult for certain individuals to obtain rental housing based on past history – many of these individuals have mental health disabilities;
  • Limited availability of accessible rental units and sometimes the accessible units are rented to people who do not require them making them unavailable for someone that does;
  • Waiting list for the Housing Choice Voucher program.
• EMPLOYMENT
  • Some people lose jobs because of outbursts (or similar) in the workplace.  The outburst would have been preventable if appropriate supports (such as job coach and/or vocational rehabilitation counselor) had been in place for the employee and the employer.
  • Workplace supports need to be identified and made available before a critical problem in the workplace exists.
  • A few employers have the practice of not providing Sign Language interpreters during the interview process only during the hiring process.
• TRANSPORTATION
  • Public transportation is not available on nights, weekends or holidays;
  • No accessible private transportation.
• COMMUNITY INTEGRATION
  • Long waiting lists for waiver programs;
  • Individuals don’t learn about waiver waiting lists early enough in the process to deal with 10+ year waitlists;
  • ECI is helping parents sign their children up for waitlists;
  • Difficulties in understanding Medicaid Managed Care;
  • Providers have a lot of difficulty with medicaid reimbursements being denied because of fluctuations in client eligibility. This causes some providers to not accept medicaid and for those that do, it severely restricts the quality of services they can deliver.
• POLICY
  • Department of Justice has funds available to local law enforcement agencies to make GPS tracking devices available to families who have children at risk of wandering.  These funds can be accessed through the Byrne Grant program – for more information click HERE.

Thanks for reading!