Doctors and Disabilities

The Politics of Autism discusses health care. People with disabilities such as autism face many problems with the health care system, including the attitudes of medical professionals.

Emma Yasinski at The Atlantic:

Due in part to scant data, information about health care for people with disabilities is limited, according to Tara Lagu, a co-author of both the 2021 and 2022 papers and the director of the Institute for Public Health and Medicine’s Center for Health Services & Outcomes Research at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. The few studies that have been done suggest that people with disabilities get preventive care less frequently and have worse outcomes than their nondisabled counterparts.

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These issues are well known to Lisa Iezzoni, a health-policy researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Over the past 25 years, Iezzoni has interviewed about 300 people with disabilities for her research into their health-care experiences and outcomes, and she realized that “every single person with a disability tells me their doctors don’t respect them, has erroneous assumptions about them, or is clueless about how to provide care.” In 2016, she decided it was time to talk to doctors. Once the National Institutes of Health funded the work, she and Lagu recruited the 714 physicians that took the survey for the study published in 2021 in Health Affairs.

Not only did many doctors report feeling incapable of properly caring for people with disabilities, but a large majority held the false belief that those patients have a worse quality of life, which could prompt them to offer fewer treatment options.

During the 2021 study, Iezzoni’s team recorded three focus-group discussions with 22 anonymous physicians. Although the open-ended discussions weren’t included in the initial publication, Lagu says she was “completely shocked” by some of the comments. Some doctors in the focus groups welcomed the idea of additional education to help them better care for patients with disabilities, but others said that they were overburdened and that the 15 minutes typically allotted for office visits aren’t enough to provide these patients with proper care. Still others “started to describe that they felt these patients were a burden and that they would discharge patients with disability from their practice,” Lagu says. “We had to write it up.”

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Indeed, in the focus groups led by Lagu and Iezzoni, some of the doctors revealed that they view the ADA and the people it protects with contempt. One called people with disabilities “an entitled population.” Another said that the ADA works “against physicians.”

CARD Closures

 The Politics of Autism includes an extensive discussion of autism service providers.

Laura Lovett at Behavioral Health Business:

The Centers for Autism and Related Disorders (CARD) is shutting down – or has already halted – operations in 10 states.

Backed by private equity firm Blackstone, CARD is one of the largest autism providers in the U.S. At the end of 2021, CARD was operating in 24 states across the country and had 221 locations. Following these closures, it will operate in 14 states.

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The company was acquired by Blackstone, whose investments also include virtual behavioral health provider Ginger and consumer genomics giant Ancestry.

The decision to pull back in certain markets comes after key CARD leadership changes. In February, Jennifer Webster came on board as CEO to replace Tony Kilgore, who resigned for undisclosed reasons.

CARD is just one of the many autism providers downsizing.

Looking at the autism space overall, investors and ABA providers grew national platforms as quickly as possible to try to gain market share and leverage in payer rate negotiations. Throughout 2022, some of these companies were forced to cut back operations to match economic realities in local employment markets and limited reimbursement increases.

Lawsuits Over Noncompete and Nonsolicitation Contracts

The Politics of Autism includes an extensive discussion of autism service providers.

At The Salt Lake Tribune, Taylor Stevens reports on a lawsuit in Saratoga Springs, Utah:

The lawsuit, filed in July by Utah Behavior Services, alleges several of the company’s former employees violated the noncompete and nonsolicitation agreements in their employment contracts when they left and went to work with PBJ & Friends, which opened its doors in June.

A judge in September declined to enforce a temporary restraining order sought by Utah Behavior Services that would have barred the plaintiffs from working while the lawsuit progresses. But PBJ & Friends says a future ruling in favor of Utah Behavior Services could prevent many of its employees from working and force the new company to reduce its hours.

That outcome, the defendants say, would further limit access to autism services amid growing need and a lack of qualified providers.

“We’re hurting people here.... A lot,” if the lawsuit is successful, argued Austin Hepworth, an attorney who’s representing the defendants. “And to us from a societal perspective, that isn’t warranted when the company is not losing clients because they have a waitlist that’s, to our knowledge, longer than the noncompete period.”

The complaint against PBJ & Friends is one of similar lawsuits Utah Behavior Services has filed against a total of 14 former employees in the last seven years, the Utah Investigative Journalism Project has found. The other suits have been either dismissed or settled.

Senator-elect Fetterman

In The Politics of Autism, I write about the everyday struggles facing autistic people and their families -- including casual prejudice against disabled people.

Pennsylvania Senate: John Fetterman, who is recovering from a stroke, defeated Trumpist Mehmet Oz, who hosted anti-vaxxers on his TV show. Before the election, Amanda Morris wrote at WP:

Fetterman’s health has become a focal point for both campaigns, and during the debate, he was asked repeatedly by moderators about his ability to serve. The debate included closed captions as an accommodation for Fetterman, but the captions, which were provided through stenographers who transcribed everything onto a large monitor behind the moderators, lagged several seconds behind and may have resulted in some delays as Fetterman presumably took time to read the captions before answering.

The debate format also involved rapid-fire questions and 15- and 30-second response times that, at times, seemed difficult for Fetterman to manage. On Twitter, a number of people commented that watching the debate made them more aware of how the debate process is skewed in favor of people who don’t have disabilities.

The article provides some context :

Yuh-Line Niou, an openly autistic New York state assembly member, ran this year to represent New York’s 10th District in a bid to become the first openly autistic politician in Congress.

Niou lost her primary. She said has faced a certain degree of harassment from the public over her disability, including people who called her “mentally ill” or used a slur for people with intellectual disabilities. Niou said it was clear people don’t understand that people with autism are intelligent, empathic beings.

“I got all these questions like, ‘Are you going to be able to do your job? Like, can she even think?’ ” Niou said. “ ‘Can she service people if she doesn’t know what they’re feeling?’ ”

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And not all disabilities are treated equally by voters, according to Douglas L. Kruse and Lisa A. Schur, co-directors of Rutgers University’s Program for Disability Research. In their research on politicians with disabilities, they found that someone who has a hearing disability or who has difficulty walking or climbing stairs is much more likely to be in office than someone with a vision, mental or cognitive disability.

Antivaxxer Loses in Minnesota

 In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread.   And among those diseases could be COVID-19.

Unfortunately, Republican politicians and conservative media figures are increasingly joining up with the anti-vaxxers.   Even before COVID, they were fighting vaccine mandates and other public health measures.

Steve Karnowski at Associated Press

Democrat Tim Walz won a second term as Minnesota’s governor on Tuesday, fending off a challenge by Republican Scott Jensen, a family practice physician who grabbed national attention with his vaccine skepticism.

Walz led Minnesota through the COVID-19 pandemic -- including lockdowns, school shutdowns and business closures. He also led the state through the unrest that followed the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020. He made his support for abortion rights a centerpiece of his campaign.

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Jensen had a reputation as a sometimes-moderate maverick from suburban Chaska during his one term in the Minnesota Senate. But he veered sharply to the right in the early days of the pandemic, not only criticizing the Walz administration’s response but also flirting with questionable treatments and the anti-vax movement.

Before the election, Geoff Brumfel reported at NPR:

Anti-vaccine proponents used to exist in both Republican and Democratic circles, but the pandemic saw them shift definitively to the political right. It was there that they found allies fighting lockdowns and masks. Republican politicians, particularly on the far right, have eagerly brought anti-vaccine forces into their tent. Anti-vaccine activists appear regularly at some popular right-wing political events, and some politicians have appeared on anti-vaccine shows in recent years.

Among them was Scott Jensen, a Minneapolis-area physician and state senator, who pushed medical misinformation throughout the pandemic. Speaking to anti-vaccine activist Del Bigtree in 2021, Jensen said that hospitals distorted the number of COVID-19 deaths. He has also questioned vaccine safety and pushed ivermectin — a drug that has been proven to be ineffective at treating COVID but continues to be promoted as an alternative therapy in anti-vaccine circles.

 

Supreme Courrt Case on Medicaid

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss health care issues and state Medicaid services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

A case before the Supreme Court today could have implications for people with disabilities such as autism. A September 30 release from the Arc:

Six leading disability advocacy organizations, with the support of Kellogg Hansen, have filed a “friend-of-the-court” brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in support of the estate of Gorgi Talevski, who alleges that the Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County, Indiana (HHC) abused and neglected him while in a nursing home. The amicus brief explains why it is important that individuals, particularly those with disabilities, have the ability to sue state and local governments when their civil rights are violated under Medicaid and other public programs. The case, Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County, Indiana v. Talevski, is scheduled to be heard on November 8, 2022.

The amicus brief focuses focuses on the harmful impact the case will have on people with disabilities, who have long faced pervasive discriminatory treatment within American society. People with disabilities and their families have relied on lawsuits to enforce Medicaid’s antidiscrimination protections, including the landmark Olmstead v. L.C. case. If providers of Medicaid services abuse or mistreat beneficiaries or take away or deny their benefits, private lawsuits – regularly brought by The Arc and its partners – are often the only way to hold government entities accountable and ensure people get the life-saving therapies and everyday living support services they need. Many of these lawsuits will no longer be possible if the Court rules in favor of HHC. Full access to Medicaid services and the right to enforce these services are crucial to achieving community integration for people with disabilities. The brief urges the Court to reaffirm the private right of action to enforce Medicaid guarantees and disability rights.

“This case is a large-scale assault on disability rights around the country,” said Peter Berns, CEO of The Arc of the United States. “Medicaid is the primary source of healthcare for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities, the vast majority of whom want to live with dignity in their homes and communities. Protecting their right to private action when such rights are violated would ensure they aren’t unnecessarily institutionalized and prevent the unraveling of antidiscrimination progress set forth by the ADA for over 30 years.”

“The Supreme Court has signaled that it may strike another blow against civil rights in this case,” said Ira Burnim, Legal Director of the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. “An expansive ruling could put at risk the ability of individuals to seek relief in federal court for violations of key civil rights statutes prohibiting discrimination based on sex, race, national origin, or disability.”

“Medicaid covers personal attendants and other in-home services and supports that disabled people need to live in the community and participate in society. Enforcement is a critical right,” said Claudia Center, Legal Director of Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund.

“Congress intended that people with disabilities have the right to enforce Medicaid, just as they do Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. The disability community has used this private right of action to enforce vital civil rights protections repeatedly,” said Maria Town, American Association of People with Disabilities President and CEO. “Any decision from the Supreme Court that does not recognize this right would go against Congress’ wishes, decades of legal precedent, and ultimately, put at serious risk the healthcare, community integration, and civil rights that people with disabilities have long fought to secure.”

In Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County, Indiana v. Talevski, HHC is appealing a ruling by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals that Mr. Talevski and his family could sue to enforce his rights under the Nursing Home Reform Act provisions of Medicaid. For 50 years, the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that people can sue if their rights are violated under safety net programs. The inability to pursue legal recourse will affect millions of people who rely on Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), and more.

The amici are also concerned that a broad ruling in favor of HHC may undercut individuals’ rights to sue to enforce Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (prohibiting discrimination based on sex), Title VI of the Civil Rights Act (prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, or national origin), and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (prohibiting disability discrimination).

Major health organizations, legal experts, and scholars also uphold the importance of private suits under Medicaid and other federal statutes. Over twenty other amicus briefs have been submitted in support of the defendant, Gorgi Talevski, who is being represented by Ivanka Talevski in his death.

 

Abuse in Malibu

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the use of restraint and seclusion, along with cases of abuse.

Jonah Valdez and Howard Blume at LAT:

The family of two twins who are nonverbal has won a $45-million judgment against the Santa Monica-Malibu school system after suing over alleged physical abuse by a teacher’s aide who, they said, used hand sanitizer to inflict pain on the autistic children.

The school system declined to comment on the specifics of the civil case but is weighing whether to appeal the size of the judgment or the verdict itself.

The teacher’s aide, Galit Gottlieb, also declined to comment, on the advice of attorneys representing the school system. District officials would not say whether she is currently employed by the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District.

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After a teacher reported the alleged abuse to authorities in January 2018, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department conducted a wellness check at the home of Charles and Nadine Wong, the twins’ parents, but did not charge or arrest Gottlieb, district officials told The Times. Contacted Thursday, the Sheriff’s Department confirmed that a wellness check was made on Feb. 1, 2018, but could not immediately provide additional information.

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The boys, who have a form of nonverbal autism, were seven at the time, and the Wongs said they had been making progress: attending birthday and Halloween costume parties, socializing with relatives and friends and interacting with other children at Juan Cabrillo Elementary School in Malibu.


The complaint alleged that Gottlieb, who was assigned as an aide to the twins, used inappropriate methods to control their behavior in the classroom and on the bus to and from school. These methods included twisting their arms and putting hand sanitizer onto the twins’ dry, cracked hands, knowing it would cause them pain, court documents said.

Amy Schumer on Her Husband's Autism

 In The Politics of Autism, I discuss depictions of ASD in popular culture.  

Christy Pina at Hollywood Reporter:

Amy Schumer’s opening monologue on Saturday Night Live touched on abortion access, the upcoming midterm elections and her husband’s autism spectrum disorder.
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Schumer also discussed her husband, Chris Fischer’s, autism spectrum disorder, which used to be called Asperger’s until it was discovered that Dr. Hans Asperger had Nazi ties. “Kanye?” she joked, before going on to say that Fischer’s diagnosis has been really positive for their family.

“We understand so much more about his behavior,” she said. “And it’s given him so many tools like, now if somebody’s in the middle of a long, boring story, he will straight up just walk away. And when people find out that he has autism, like they don’t know much about it. They’re like, ‘Oh does he love to count? Should we drop a bunch of straws on the floor, and he can gather them and count them?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, that sounds pretty fun.'”

See the clip starting around 3:42: 

Special Ed, Head Start, and COVID

In The Politics of Autism, I write about special education and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. II also discuss the day-to-day challenges facing autistic people and their families. Those challenges get far more intense during disasters.  And coronavirus is proving to be the biggest disaster of all. 

A letter from Valerie C. Williams,Director Office of Special Education Programs,U.S. Department of Education, and  Katie Hamm,  Acting Director Office of Head Start U.S. Department of Health and Human Services:

The Departments acknowledge that the pandemic continues to present challenges toimplementing appropriate programs and services for young children. Further, opportunities for some young children with disabilities to participate in inclusive early childhood settings have been more limited. However, OSEP and OHS want to emphasize that, notwithstanding these challenges, children with disabilities retain their rights under IDEA to receive appropriate specialeducation and related services in accordance with their individualized education programs (IEP). No IDEA requirements have been waived. However, particularly since the pandemic, both OSEP and OHS have quantitative data and other information that indicate—  

• Initial evaluations to determine eligibility of children suspected of having a disability are being delayed;
• Special education and related services included in IEPs are not being provided timely, or IEPs are not being fully implemented; and
• Educational placement decisions for children with disabilities are not being made in accordance with IDEA’s LRE requirements.

SEAs, LEAs, and Head Start programs all have responsibilities for implementing IDEA:

• SEAs are responsible for establishing and enforcing policies and procedures to ensure full implementation of child find and other IDEA requirements to ensure that FAPE is made available to all eligible children with disabilities in the State;
• LEAs are responsible for identifying, locating, and evaluating children suspected of having disabilities in a timely fashion and developing and implementing IEPs for eligible children with disabilities in accordance with the applicable IDEA requirements; and
• Head Start programs are responsible for referring children and families for IDEA evaluations as well as supporting implementation of children’s IEPs.

Autism and Accommodation in College

 In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the growing number of college students on the autism spectrum. 

Laura Spitalniak at Higher Ed Dive: interview Sarah Howorth, professor of special education at the University of Maine.

In 2019, Howorth led the pilot for the University of Maine’s Step Up to College, a program meant to model how colleges can effectively support students with autism spectrum disorder. During that five-week session, she incorporated the Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills, or PEERS, a social skills program for neurodivergent students developed by Elizabeth Laugeson at the University of California, Los Angeles.

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What can accessibility offices on campuses without specialized programs like Step Up do to support students on the spectrum?

There’s lots of room for improvement on college campuses. The typical accommodations that are offered, like note takers, closed captioning or extended time on tests, are not necessarily what students with autism need.

On the bright side, when I have spoken to our students’ accessibility service, they’ve seen a large increase in the number of students with autism not just coming to university but asking for support. That’s a testament to how we as a society have enabled them to be self-advocates.

If you think of the social skills involved in finding the student accessibility services on campus and talking to a stranger about your challenges, that’s brave.

On the other hand, it can be hard to fulfill their requests without modifying the curriculum. As an example, our student accessibility services director told me that students with autism sometimes ask to be excluded from group work. That’s not necessarily an accommodation, because a lot of college courses are more interactive. Plus you have internships and job placements. Life is honestly one big group experience.So what could help in this situation is giving those students somebody to sit down with and unpack a social situation that happened, so they can ask questions like, “What could have been done differently?” That’s not necessarily counseling, because it’s not that they are having mental health issues. It’s just that they are having interpersonal social communication issues.

Antivaxxer Might Lose Medical License

  In The Politics of Autism, I write:

Many articles and blog posts arguing for the vaccine-autism link have the trappings of genuine academic research: tables, graphs, citations, and scientific jargon. Some of the authors have credentials such as M.D. or Ph.D. degrees. None of these things is a guarantee of scientific value, as the history of science is full of crackpot theories (e.g., AIDS denialism) that are the heavily-footnoted products of people with letters after their names. But most people will not be able to spot the scientific weaknesses of such work. Outside of academia, few understand concepts such as peer review. Jordynn Jack describes one dubious article that appeared in a non-peer-reviewed publication: “Regardless of the scientific validity of the article, though, the writers perform the writing style quite effectively. It would be difficult for the layperson to distinguish this article from any other scientific research paper, especially if one did not investigate the nature of the journal … or of the scientific response to the article.”

Dr. Sherri Tenpenny is one of the Disinformation Dozen,  In an example of the overlap of multiple conspiracy theories, her name appeared on a whiteboard at a Flynn-Lindell event.

Jake Zuckerman at Cleveland.com:

A Cleveland area physician who told an Ohio House committee in the summer of 2021 that coronavirus vaccines could “interface” with cell towers and magnetize recipients now is in danger of losing her license to practice medicine in Ohio.

A state board that licenses doctors notified Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, a Cleveland area osteopathic physician, that it’s considering punishment that could go as far as revoking her license to practice medicine in Ohio after she ignored investigators and flouted a subpoena. Tenpenny made national headlines in June 2021 when she appeared before the Ohio House Health Committee to spread false claims about COVID-19 vaccines.

A Sept. 14 letter from the State Medical Board doesn’t specify what prompted the regulators to launch their investigation. However, it alleges that Tenpenny for months ignored investigators’ requests for information and defied a subpoena seeking her deposition.

Ohio law allows the board to limit, revoke or suspend a medical license for an array of offenses including failure to cooperate with an investigation. Tenpenny, per the letter, told the board it had no “lawful basis” issuing her a subpoena.

Tenpenny’s conspiratorial June 8, 2021, testimony to the Ohio House Health Committee included a series of false claims about purported dangers of vaccines. She baselessly claimed vaccines run a risk of causing ALS, cancer, and other potentially lethal diseases. Her claims about vaccines’ magnetizing effects drew Ohio into lampooning national media coverage and cemented enough political opposition to kill a broad anti-vaccination bill Tenpenny testified to support.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

 In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread.   And among those diseases could be COVID-19.

Antivaxxers are sometimes violent, often abusive, and always wrong.  

Unfortunately, Republican politicians and conservative media figures are increasingly joining up with the anti-vaxxers.  There is a great deal of overlap between MAGA World and the antivax movement.

Barbara Pfeffer Billauer at the American Council on Science and Health:

In fact, Trump’s initial anti-vax tweets were associated with increased anti-vax sentiment. But it took until April of 2022 for the phenomenon to be identified. Early on this might have been countered had Trump changed his stance. Researchers found that compilations of former President Donald Trump’s Fox News interview recommending the COVID-19 vaccine were able to overcome some anti-vax sentiment. Sadly, Trump’s initial position became entrenched in the party line.

Today, former President Trump finds himself like the sorcerer’s apprentice, wielding a power, like the brooms fetching water, that he can no longer control. After being the first President on record with anti-vaccine sentiments, Trump belatedly seemed to come around. In December of 2021, Trump about-faced and revealed a lukewarm embrace of boosters (which has only a 40% US uptake, compared to 70% in, for example, the UK). But the prior mindset had already stuck. Trump was booed by his base, which rejected him, vilified him, and generated the feared backlash of group ostracism.

In sum, for the great majority of those averse to vaccination, that aversion is politically-driven. And for that cohort, persuasion won’t work. It’s time to start noticing the nuances and stop pining for a perfect world.

Disparities in California

 In The Politics of Autism, I discuss services for people with disabilities.

Regional centers are private nonprofits that contract with Califorinia's Department of Developmental Services to coordinate or provide services for people with developmental disabilities. The 21 regional centers help disabled people and their families help find and access a variety of services.

From Disability Voices United

Disability rights advocates released an alarming new report this week outlining deepening racial and ethnic disparities within California’s developmental disability services system, leading to dramatically reduced opportunities and potentially dangerous situations for adults with developmental disabilities.

DOWNLOAD REPORT: A MATTER OF RACE AND PLACE

“The 2022 Disability Voices United report paints a disturbing picture of systemic discrimination throughout California, despite numerous programs and $66 million spent to reduce chronic inequities,” said Judy Mark, Disability Voices United President, and mother of a son with autism. “In a state that claims to be as progressive and multi-cultural as California, people with developmental disabilities receive radically different levels of services depending on their race, ethnicity, or the region where they live. Our government cannot continue to allow this discrimination to continue.”

The new data show disparities are most glaring in Latino communities, where adults can receive as little as 43 cents for every dollar spent on services for white adults. Geography also plays a role. For example: a white adult in Golden Gate Regional Center (San Francisco) gets an average of $85,295 in services annually versus Latino adults at Inland Regional Center (San Bernardino) who receive $19,813 and Asians at Central Valley Regional Center (Fresno) who get only $17,299 in average annual services.

“As parents and advocates, we know that a day that goes by without services for our children is a day that can never be replaced. We need to see that same level of urgency from all of the 21 regional centers,” said Fernando Gomez, co-founder of the Integrated Community Collaborative and father of a teenage son with developmental disabilities. “We’re tired of excuses and our children can’t afford to wait. We can’t leave behind another generation of Latinos because the State allows inequities to plague our regional center system.”

The new Disability Voices United report is entitled “A Matter of Race and Place: Racial and Geographic Disparities Within California’s Regional Centers Serving Adults with Developmental Disabilities.” It looks at service funding levels at regional centers across California and includes detailed analysis based on race, ethnicity and geography. The DVU report follows a study released earlier this year by Public Counsel focusing on children of color with developmental disabilities, called “Examining Racial and Ethnic Inequities Among Children Served Under California’s Developmental Services System: Where Things Currently Stand.” The Public Counsel report also found that inequitable funding remains deeply rooted and is worsening between Hispanic and white children at most regional centers.

“Sadly, California’s regional center system still operates haphazardly with wild inconsistencies in funding,” said Brian Capra, senior staff attorney with Public Counsel and author of the report. “DDS continues to use a convoluted funding formula that gives unequal resources to different regional centers and employs a laissez-faire approach to service delivery that allows inequities to fester. Tragically, our most disadvantaged families continue to get the least amount of support.”

The reports include a list of recommendations to end disparities, including more regional center oversight, transparency and monitoring. They also recommend targeting funding that is tied to accountability and results

Disability Voices United is a California statewide advocacy organization exclusively directed by and for individuals with developmental disabilities and their families. DisabilityVoicesUnited.org

Public Counsel is the nation’s largest provider of pro bono legal services, utilizing an innovative legal model to promote justice, hope, and opportunity in lower-income and communities of color in Los Angeles and across the nation. PublicCounsel.org

The Integrated Community Collaborative supports Latino families affected by developmental disabilities in navigating support systems on a peer-to-peer basis through its Integradora Program to address cultural and language barriers to obtaining equitable services. IntegratedCommunityCollaborative.org