Keep Iowans with Disabilities Safe.
Abuse and Neglect: Home and Community Based Services
Ensure people with disabilities are not abused or neglected in home and community-based settings through investigations and monitoring of settings.
The Department of Inspections and Appeals does not investigate abuse and neglect in home and community-based settings. Instead, the Department of Human Services, which also contracts with providers of home and community-based services, investigates dependent adult abuse reports. To ensure that an independent entity investigates abuse and neglect in home and community-based service settings, DRI has made this an area of focus. This is important so that all individuals with disabilities can live in a truly integrated community.
Possible DRI activities to accomplish this goal:
- Conduct individual investigations into suspected abuse or neglect of service recipients by HCBS providers, including deaths and injuries of individuals with disabilities resulting from abuse or neglect
- Provide individual representation or advocacy including self-advocacy assistance, negotiation, or other assistance, to protect HCBS service recipients’ rights related to abuse and neglect
- Continue to monitor HCBS settings to ensure that
- the rights of individual residents are protected
- residents are free from abuse and neglect
- residents have full access to the community and control over their daily live decisions, including what services they receive and who provides them, and
- Residents are receiving appropriate person-centered planning
Abuse and Neglect: Youth Facilities
Ensure youth facilities in Iowa are not violating the legal rights of youth with disabilities in their care.
Youth with disabilities that reside in juvenile justice, child welfare, residential treatment, and other youth facilities have federal and state legal rights. These legal rights help ensure an environment safe from abuse and neglect as well as promote an environment where mental health treatment is provided in an appropriate manner. Youth with disabilities, particularly Black Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) youth and youth who identify within the LGBTQI+ community, are disproportionately represented in these facilities and are often times disproportionately subject to rights violations. It is the main function of the P&A to ensure the rights of individuals with disabilities in institutions.
Possible DRI activities to accomplish the goal:
- Monitor or investigate facilities serving youth with a focus on overuse of restraint and seclusion and lack of mental health care, using an intersectional lens
- Provide intersectional individual advocacy to youth who have been inappropriately restrained and secluded (this includes overuse of restraint/seclusion and/or use of restraint/seclusion in conflict with state/federal regulations) or who are not provided appropriate mental health care, paying particular attention to disproportionality issues
- Educate youth in out-of-home placements regarding their legal rights
- Educate administrators and staff of facilities, juvenile court officers, caseworkers, attorneys, and judges about the legal rights of individuals with disabilities residing in facilities
- Engage in systemic advocacy in reducing the number of youth in out-of-home placements in the juvenile justice, child welfare, and mental health systems and ensuring that fines/restitution do not entrap youth with disabilities into the juvenile justice/criminal justice system
- Engage in advocacy efforts to change state laws/regulations governing youth facilities in Iowa to create more safe environments for youth with disabilities
Representative Payee
Ensure that organizational representative payees are not subjecting individuals with disabilities to fiscal mismanagement.
Disability Rights Iowa has a grant from the Social Security Administration (SSA) to conduct reviews and educational visits of representative payees to verify that payees are using benefits properly on behalf of beneficiaries and carrying out payee responsibilities and duties correctly. Through this program, DRI has the unique opportunity to identify payees with histories of abuse or neglect of persons in their care through its services, programs and direct contacts with beneficiaries. The review process, the payees to be reviewed, the educational visits to be conducted, and the number of payees for both reviews and educational visits are specified by SSA. DRI’s reviews ensure that payees fully understand their duties and responsibilities, and are on the right track with respect to recordkeeping and reporting. Through this program, DRI monitors the rights, safety and wellbeing of beneficiaries to ensure their needs are being met and they are free from abuse and financial exploitation.
Possible DRI activities to accomplish this goal:
- Conduct reviews of Representative Payee’s according to assignments from the Social Security Administration
- Collaborate with DRI’s facilities team to monitor potential incidents of misuse of benefits discovered or suspected during monitoring and investigations
- Communicate regularly with DRI’s intake specialist to monitor calls related to issues or concerns by beneficiaries related to complaints about their representative payee
- Provide outreach to community partners to share information regarding DRI’s expertise regarding rights of beneficiaries with representative payees and our ability to submit requests for and conduct reviews
DRI receives funding from the Social Security Administration to provide oversight of representative payees and their services to beneficiaries, as well as giving them support to better understand their role and responsibilities. This document is funded through a Social Security grant agreement. Although Social Security reviewed this document for accuracy, it does not constitute an official Social Security communication.
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