Goal: Abuse and Neglect: Facilities and Congregate Settings
Ensure adults and youth with disabilities are not abused or neglected in facilities and congregate care settings through investigations and monitoring of settings.
Programs that serve or provide housing for people with disabilities are systems. Disability Rights Iowa protects people with disabilities from abuse and neglect by and in these systems. Systems include facilities, institutions, home and community-based settings, organizational representative payees, youth facilities, among others. Preventing, reducing, and stopping abuse and neglect in facilities through investigations is a core function of Disability Rights Iowa. Disability Rights Iowa collaborates with the Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing, the Long-Term Care Ombudsman, and others to prevent abuse or neglect. DRI also works to improve the investigations of other enforcement and oversight agencies and issues public reports, where appropriate, to create statewide change. Disability Rights Iowa is able to determine a facility’s compliance with respect to the rights and safety of residents by conducting monitoring visits to facilities. Monitoring includes, among other things, meeting and communicating privately with individuals, interviewing administrators and other staff, inspecting, viewing, and photographing all areas of a facility which are used by residents or are accessible to residents.
Individual cases DRI may consider to achieve this goal:
- Individual investigations into suspected abuse or neglect, including deaths and injuries of individuals with disabilities resulting from abuse or neglect.
- Provision of information, referrals, and individual advocacy including self-advocacy assistance, negotiation, legal or other assistance, to protect the rights of individuals with disabilities or mental illness receiving services in facilities or service settings.
Other activities DRI may consider doing to achieve this goal:
- Provide legal representation through the conclusion of the court monitoring period for the State Training School case.
- DRI will monitor a variety of settings including, but not limited to, residential care facilities, both mental health institutes, the state resource center, intermediate care facilities for individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities, providers of services for individuals with traumatic brain injuries, youth facilities, and nursing facilities.
Goal: Abuse and Neglect: Home and Community Based Services
Ensure adults and youth with disabilities are not abused or neglected in facilities and congregate care settings through investigations and monitoring of settings.
The Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing, does not investigate abuse and neglect in home and community-based settings. Instead, the Department of Health and 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.
Individual cases DRI may consider to achieve this goal:
- 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.
- Provision of individual representation or advocacy including self-advocacy assistance, negotiation, or other assistance, to protect HCBS service recipients’ rights related to abuse and neglect.
Other activities DRI may consider doing to achieve this goal:
- 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 life decisions, including what services they receive and who provides them; and
- Residents are receiving appropriate person-centered planning.
Goal: 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.
Activities DRI will do to achieve 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.
We developed this website at U.S. taxpayer expense.
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