“We were really struck by the fact that people were incredibly acute in their need,” a disability rights attorney said after touring Sonoma County's main jail. “Higher than we’ve seen in units that are licensed designated hospital units. Something was wrong here.”
Cornelius James Evans had just turned 18 when he died, before his mother could establish formal legal guardianship, and the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities is now using that to deny her a copy of its investigation into his death.
The state has not put a good system in place to support developmentally disabled patients moved from state facilities into community care, and it’s unclear if it is following recommendations to better investigate patient deaths, according to an independent monitor.
What began as two Georgia mental health patients seeking community care has become a national crusade by the U.S. Department of Justice to move patients out of state facilities and into community care, with what some say are fatal consequences.
Christen Shermaine Hope Gordon was one of 500 patients in 2013 who died in community care while under the auspices of the Georgia Dept. of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities. While the community placements were halted, parents are worried over state plans to resume the program.
The Augusta Chronicle requested the investigative reports of all 2013 deaths of developmentally disabled people living in community-based care homes. Here's how the reporters used those records.
According to a 2005 U.S. Department of Education longitudinal study, about half of those with disabilities enrolled in post-secondary coursework did not define themselves as disabled.
Derrick Coleman Jr., one of the running backs for the Seattle Seahawks, shows that defining people by what they can’t do is much less compelling than defining people by what they can do.
When I tackled the topic of loneliness as a 2013 National Health Journalism Fellowship project, I honestly didn't think it would be hard to find people who were lonely so that I could write about the issue. I was right and wrong.
Stanislaus was one of the first counties in California to submit a plan for funding from the Mental Health Services Act, the voter-supported tax on millionaires to expand the state’s mental health services.
