Insult to Injury: Expungement?

Re: Talk about insult to injury?!! Fwd: [lme_providers] Expunction of Criminal Records in North Carolina
From: Crystal J. De la Cruz
Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 1:35 PM


Dear Families, People of Conscience, Senators and House Members, and Federal Representatives,

Pardon my French, but seriously, WHAT THE HELL?

Please see below an listserv I received today in which Eastpointe MCO's CEO, Karen Salaki, offers up to her colleagues and underlings a helpful reference guide to Expunction of Criminal Records in North Carolina presumably for MHDDSA professionals and staff... which, in my humble opinion, is not only completely inappropriate for this field, but begs to question:

1. Is criminal activity really such a problem for employees in North Carolina's field of Health and Human Services that it warrants dissemination of this information to the entire NC Local Management Providers listserv?
2. And this problem, is it a global epidemic throughout the entire I/DD field or is it isolated to say, direct care staff who work with clients who can neither defend themselves and, in most cases, communicate their needs or fears?
3. Is there such a shortage of decent, trustworthy, qualified applicants that we gotta break the levy in order to widen the pool because it's near impossible to find direct care staff willing and able to work for what pitiful portion of funds are left after the hierarchy trickle-down?
4. Would you knowingly allow a convicted felon (even a non-violent one?) access to your home and more importantly, to babysit your children? How about a someone with just a little ole Class 2 Misdemeanor charge (in NC, charges of Simple Assault and Shoplifting are both Class 2 Misdemeanors, while Speeding is a Class 1) And would you allow this same individual to care for your elderly mother with dementia?
5. When are we as a society, as a state, as a community - going to STOP subscribing to this unwritten American caste system of human value?

I really hope this is a misunderstanding, however, given the trends of this entire Medicaid process, it feels more par for the course.

We, the parents and family members, are still waiting to be heard and taken seriously regarding our experiences, knowledge, expertise, fears, concerns, and stuff like this that we're simply shocked and appalled about. Gosh, there's really no end to all we could accomplish if we all chose to work together... Just sayin'.

Thank you in advance for you time and attention. As always, please do not hesitate to contact me at any time.


Kind regards,
--
Crystal J. De la Cruz - Hopper
Mother, Advocate & Concerned Citizen

When we allow the value of human life to be determined by capital gain, when we sacrifice the well-being of the most innocent among us to compensate our own shortcomings, and when we judge the worth of our most fragile, not by their character nor intention, but rather their abilities – We Are in Crisis.

http://no2nchb916.blogspot.com/

"The moral test of government is how it treats those who are in the dawn of life . . . the children; those who are in the twilight of life . . . the elderly; and those who are in the shadow of life . . . the sick . . . the needy . . . and the disabled."
--Hubert H. Humphrey


----- Forwarded Message
From: Listserve Administration
Reply-To: Listserve Administration
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2013 16:53:33 -0500
To: NC Local Management Providers
Subject: [lme_providers] Expunction of Criminal Records in North Carolina

To: Provider Network
From: Karen Salacki, Chief of External Operations
Re: Expunction of Criminal Records in North Carolina

Attached is a very helpful guide on how to have eligible offenses removed from criminal records. Please share with applicable staff within your agencies.


This e-mail is for informative purposes ONLY.

Please do not reply to this e-mail.

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EXPUNCTION OF CRIMINAL RECORDS IN NORTH CAROLINA.PDF [460K]

Years of CAP Service vs. No. of CAP Workers

I posed a question today in the Facebook group, "For those receiving CAP services: How long have you received services?... and to the best of your recollection, how many CAP workers have been employed to work with your child in that time?"

Responses:

• Crystal (me) = 19 CAP employees over 10 years
• JC. = 2 CAP employees over 7 years
• PF. (child 1) = 6 CAP employees in less than 3 years
• PF. (child 2) = 6 CAP employees in less than 3 years
• CT. = 23 CAP employees over 8 years
• LB. = 3 CAP employees over 3 years
• BF. = an estimated 50 CAP employees over 7 years
• TH. = 5 CAP employees over 7 years
• SG. = 9 CAP employees over 5 years
• LW. = 6 or 7 CAP employees over 2 years
• AC. = approximately 15 CAP employees over 5 years
• RB. = 3 CAP employees in 3 years
• KF. (child 1) = 9 CAP employees in 7 years
• KF (child 2) = 12 CAP employees in 6 years

Can you guess the lucky exception? 

Care to speculate the reasons behind such extreme turnover rates?

The implementation of the new 1915(b)(c) Medicaid / Innovations Waivers and the service cuts it brings, will steepen and compound the improbabilities of finding and retaining reliable, trustworthy and professional direct-care staff to aid in the care, supports and life-skill goals of our children. 

While for most families, the bulk of service hours allotted will remain in the same ballpark, many others will have their hours cut due to a maximum ceiling, irrespective of individual level of need. Of the total service hours for an individual recipient, much of those hours will be shifted from the  higher paying Home and Community Supports (HCS) rate to the much lower Personal Care Services (PCS) rate, essentially resulting in a very substantial pay cut (in some cases, nearly half a worker's salary) for direct-care staff who already make less than peanuts for the important and vital work that they do - and with no benefits.

From my letter to Governor Perdue:

In the last 10 years, I can recall no less than 19 CAP Workers / care providers to whom I have entrusted my helpless little girl; I cannot even remember all their names as the turn-over rates for these positions is quite high. (In special parent circles, a CAP Worker who sticks around past one year is Gold.) Consider the emotional and developmental damage that such constant inconsistency creates in the daily life of a child with special needs; learning a new person, loving a new person, and losing that person – over and over again (never mind what it does to the parent). And while there have been some wonderful trustworthy care providers in our life, I wish that were the only issue... During this parade of CAP Workers, practical strangers in my home and personal space, I have experienced: the physical abuse of my child when an employee pinched my 3 ½ year old numerous times leaving dark purple and green bruises on her tiny body, thousands of dollars worth of property stolen from my home, and a week’s worth of groceries devoured that I could not afford to replace; I had an employee who took my daughter on a date with her ex-husband she’d previously had a DVPO against who was unaware she was living with a new guy; I once had two employees who became friends and later found that they spend quite a bit of time hanging out together in bars smoking and drinking with my child in their care; one girl who was fired for drug abuse; and last but not least, yet another who filed a DSS complaint against me for “abuse and neglect” in retaliation for being terminated – an incident that wasted the time and resources of 5 separate agencies, including the Morrisville Police Department, Cedar Fork Elementary School, Wake County Human Services, and the Department of Social Services. And that’s just the stuff I know about; anything else that has happened throughout the years, my daughter is unable to tell me. 

During the last Bush Administration, the federal Medicaid reimbursement rate was cut by eight dollars ($8.00) per hour, a significant amount when one considers the cost of overhead and employee salaries. Today, the average CAP Worker makes between nine to twelve dollars ($9.00-12.00) per hour when performing “Home and Community Supports” (HCS) services (this is the minimal time designated for working on pages and pages of specific life-skill goals and continuation of therapies, not unlike an IEP) and minimum wage to eight dollars ($7.15-8.00) per hour for “Personal Care Supports” (PCS) services (the bulk of allotted hours which includes bathing, grooming, toileting, etc.) and “Respite” (time built in for unscheduled relief). Comparatively, a Certified Nurse Aide 1 working in a long-term care environment in Wake County makes roughly $13.03 hourly, while a Wake County Teacher Assistant in Special Education averages $10.27 per hour and a Wake County Public Schools Custodian, $12.80 per hour, not including benefits or shift differential. For the record, the average Garbage Collector in the State of North Carolina is paid an average hourly rate of $11.75. A CAP Worker receives only their hourly wages with no benefits whatsoever when working consistently less than 30 hours weekly, not even mileage reimbursement to offset the cost of driving their clients around in their personal vehicles attending community activities as dictated by their care plan.

Suffice it to say that the vast majority of families not utilizing the maximum amount of service hours allotted are not choosing not to do so because the need is not present. Quite the contrary, there is a critical need that cannot be staffed with competent, quality, reliable, professional care providers dedicated to a profession that includes a daily routine of cleaning feces, urine, and vomit; preparing special foods and feeding; heavy lifting; changing G-tubes and catheters and diapers; administering medications; bathing and dressing; utilizing sign language and specialized communication devices; and completing endless amounts of paperwork tailored to a non-applicable medical model to justify their existence all while being subjected to nerve-racking and often abusive behaviors such as hitting and biting, because frankly, people can make a better salary emptying garbage cans than caring for an innocent human being unable to do for themselves.

* If you would care to share your stats regarding years your loved one has received CAP direct-care services and the number of CAP workers that have been employed in your home to care for your child, likewise any related stories regarding difficulties in direct-care coverage, experiences, etc. please feel free to respond to this blog post, post in our Facebook group or contact me privately via no2nchb916@gmail.com.