We condemn the use of inflammatory language that reinforces false and inappropriate stereotypes and raises irrational fears instead of educating our communities about issues facing individuals with disabilities and the history of the independent living movement.

SEIU has a strong track record of working together with allies in the disability rights movement to transition individuals with disabilities out of institutions and into community-based settings while valuing both quality services and quality jobs.  We are committed to continuing this work both at the state and national level.

We are also committed to working together with our partners in the disability rights community to continue our work promoting the Guiding Principles For Partnerships with Unions and Emerging Worker Organizations When Individuals Direct Their Own Services and Supports as developed by ADAPT and SEIU in conjunction with other partner organizations.

Finally, we are committed to ensuring that individuals with MH-I/DD have the opportunity to become fully integrated into the communities of their choice. That’s why SEIU passed a resolution in support of the community imperative.

I am deeply thankful for the President’s leadership in acknowledging that both gun violence and unaddressed and severe mental health issues have all too often played a role in tragedies like those in Newtown, Connecticut and communities across the nation and the need for increased dialogue on mental health in our country is imminent.

Whether at a school, group home, clinic or hospital, SEIU members believe that the right to a safe, secure workplace should be fundamental for all workers. When direct support workers and mental health providers go to work every day, they should never have to worry about getting hurt or losing their lives.  And while the vast majority of people with mental illness are not violent, unaddressed and severe mental health issues have been a common thread in too many of the recent mass killings.

Sadly, the SEIU family has also been deeply affected by violence in the workplace. Four SEIU members in the healthcare and mental health industry have lost their lives recently.

It is up to us to continue to promote a culture of safety not just on our jobs, but in our communities as well.

Have you been impacted by workplace violence? Click here to share your story of support for a system that will improve workplace and public safety and the mental health system to prevent future senseless acts of violence. 

As the Office for People With Developmental Disabilities undergoes changes in New York state, workers see self-directed care and a voice for direct care staff through unionization as the way forward.  If front line workers are to continue supporting for people with disabilities effectively, they will need the right to raise their voices for quality care.

Dawn Clement (as pictured above) is a Direct Care Worker and a proud member of SEIU Local 200United. She gave a testimony at the “OPWDD Public Hearing Statewide Comprehensive Plan: 2012-2016 Capital District DDSO.”

OPWDD Public Hearing: Testimony Given by Dawn Clement, Direct Care Worker

Transcript:

My name is Dawn Clement, and I work as a consumer assistant at Community Work and Independence, which serves people with disabilities the Warren, Washington, Essex and Saratoga counties. I am also a member of SEIU Local 200 United, a union the represents many direct workers throughout upstate New York Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak today. I want to speak from the point of view of a front line worker, about where we are today, and where we need to be in the future.

The five year plan is based on a principle we all support, providing the opportunity for every individual to live in the most integrated setting and with dignity and quality of life. However, in our agency we are feeling the effects of cuts in funding that make it difficult to continue to provide the best quality of life for our consumers. I have worked in the field for 27 years , and I have seen us go from a great quality of care to a reduced quality of care . We once cared for our disabled persons, but now it feels more like a business that cares only for the bottom line. My concern is how are we going to use the plan to fix a problem that we as a state have created in our cuts.

Staffing is often strained in day programs and residences. Our direct care workers often wind up doing the work of two people, and this adds mental stress for everyone. While safety is always a primary concern, the shortage of staff can put staff in situations where the risk level increases. For example, if we have a consumer who needs one on one attention, but we also have an outing scheduled, without enough staff, it puts the worker in very difficult position. More importantly, it makes it hard for us to give our consumers the attention and support they need.

Another specific example of the effect of reduced staffing is that in one of our day programs the consumers have to eat in the same room where they go to the bathroom, because there are not enough staff to take them out of the room while maintaining coverage. A small thing like this can really impact quality of life.

A more serious situation occurs in residences where you have only one or two staff overnight. If we have an individual who has a tendency to wander outside, this puts the worker in a very difficult position, to either go out and search for them, or to stay with the rest of the residents. We are all very concerned about insuring the safety of our residents, but in situations like this, the bare bones staffing can make it nearly impossible to really do the job right.

Overall, what I would like to communicate is that the accomplish this five year plan to serve many more consumers in a less restrictive community setting, the state will have to allocate sufficient resources to the voluntary agencies to provide the staff needed to do it right. You also need to make sure they spend it on staff and not on overhead expenses. Those of us who are direct care workers really want to do the best possible job for our consumers. I hope that as OPWDD implements this transition plan, it will make an effort to listen to the workers and to our union because we can help make it work.

A union ensures dignity and respect on the job. Workers and their union strive to create the best environment and experience for their clients. Staff training, on-going supports and wages allow workers to remain in the career path of their choice while keeping up with standards and quality of care.

Feeling unsafe on the job is a cold, hard fact, some workers said.

“Something like that could easily happen to us,” said Noah Campbell, speaking of Moulton’s murder. For the past three years, Campbell, a member of Service Employees International 509, worked as a counselor for Alternatives Inc., a CBFS vendor providing mental health services in western Massachusetts. “And I don’t think there is anything to prevent that.”

Read more or listen to the piece, Gaps Found in Care, Safety in Mass. Group Homes

“I’m organizing because changes are needed within the agency for the staff, our families and the people we care for,” said Carina Kerr, a direct support worker at the Mentor Network, REM.

Simone Dacres says that she supports forming a union because, “We need to support each other as we support our consumers here at REM.”

Workers at the Mentor Network, REM in Connecticut join over 200 human service workers at CHI in Maryland who voted to join SEIU Local 500 last month.

Direct support professionals are increasingly seeing that the best way to have a real voice in important decisions that impact their jobs and the services they provide is by joining together in a union.

Explaining why she and so many others chose to join SEIU Local 500, Delphine Achi said, “Our union will help us speak out.”

Our partnership with FundMentalHealth.org made significant progress restoring past cuts and providing services to those living with a mental illness. The 2013 state budget increases funding for adult and children’s community-based mental health services by more than $16 million.  As a result, more children, adolescents, adults and seniors began the journey to recovery.

Senate Majority Leader Fred Berry insured that a $100,000 will go for the Stephanie Moulton Safety Symposium.  This forum will be a first of its kind in Massachusetts that will be conducted by the DMH annually for direct care community workers. Named for Stephanie Moulton, a mental health counselor from Peabody who was killed in the line of work on January 20^th, 2011, this event will focus on improving safety, best  practices, policies and risk management.

Lastly, the mental health budget includes $5.1 million to keep 45 psychiatric beds open at Taunton State Hospital. This is great news since the state is already strained with a lack of available acute care beds across Massachusetts, forcing hospitals to discharge patients going through a mental health crisis.

The CMS proposal would give states more flexibility to provide home- and community-based services.

That means more resources for services that value individual choices, independence and the ability for individuals to live in their community with control over their immediate environment and day-to-day activities.

CMS needs to hear from us about why these values are so important and why we need to encourage states to move away from providing services in expensive institutional settings that do not meet individuals’ needs. It’s up to us to be a strong voice for the least-restrictive, most consumer-directed settings for individuals to receive the supports they need.

Send your note today supporting the CMS proposal to promote home- and community-based services for adults and children with mental illness and developmental disabilities.

Thank you for joining with us and making your voice heard.

These service cuts would hurt millions of people with mental illness and developmental disabilities. At the same time, some in Congress want to give the richest 1% and big corporations more than $4 trillion in tax cuts.

Money from the federal government is by far the single largest source of revenue for state and local governments. So what Congress does matters a lot.

Direct support professional, Cantave Pamphile, tells Congress to get its priorities straight

Cantave Pamphile, Direct Support Professional, Massachusetts

My name is Cantave Pamphile. I started this work because of the experience I had with my nephew. He has Down Syndrome and I saw what my sister was doing to take care of him. I wanted to be able to provide that assistance to others who need it. I see that if these individuals are given a hand, they can really be able to live the independent lives that they want to.

The best part of the job for me is just working with the individuals and spending time with them. We can see how much our work means to them and contributes to their well-being.

We’re often staffed just enough to maintain the proper level of care for our individuals, and there are so many more things that we could do with the individuals if we had the resources.

If funding for the individuals that we serve were cut, it would affect them a lot. There are eight individuals in the house that I work in, but we only have three staff at a time. The people that I work with need a lot of assistance, so if we were to lose just one staff person, the result would be dramatic. The whole system could fall apart.

Every one of the individuals that I work with has become a part of my family, and I feel like I’ve become a part of theirs. We spend so much time with them, making sure that they have the support they need, that it’s just natural to be close with them and their families. I can’t imagine not being a part of their lives.

Members of Congress need to hear about the individuals that I work with and how much they depend on the services that we deliver. They need to know how the work we do allows individuals to live as independently as possible, and without our work they would be left hanging.

In the largest union victory for human services workers in New England, Bridgewell staff formed a union in May 2001 to address concerns about the quality of services and to win respect for the work they do.

Cantave Pamphile, a direct care worker in Saugus, said they joined with SEIU Local 509 because “we want to make Bridgewell a better provider of services. The union will help us keep staff who are committed to our work.”

SEIU Local 509 represents over 13,000 human service workers in Massachusetts, and is the fastest growing union of human service worker in the state. Since 2009 over 1800 private sector human service workers have voted to unite with SEIU Local 509.