COFAR blog

While members of a legislative committee heard testimony on Tuesday about sexual abuse of the developmentally disabled in Massachusetts, the state lawmakers on the committee gave little indication as to what they plan to do with the information.

COFAR was one of several organizations invited by the Children, Families, and Persons with Disabilities Committee to testify. The committee members asked no questions of any of the three members of COFAR’s panel, who testified about serious and, in one case, fatal abuse of their family members in Department of Developmental Services-funded group homes.

Tuesday’s hearing on sexual abuse in the DDS system. The committee members asked no questions of COFAR’s panel.

COFAR President Thomas Frain, Vice President Anna Eves, and COFAR member Richard Buckley also offered recommendations to the committee, including establishing a registry of caregivers found to have committed abuse of disabled persons, and potentially giving local police and district attorneys the sole authority to investigate and prosecute cases of abuse and neglect.

The hearing drew some mainstream media coverage (here and here); but, while COFAR had alerted media outlets around the state to the hearing, most of the state’s media outlets, including The Boston Globe, did not cover it.

Committee asks no questions

Following the hearing, Frain said he was glad to get the opportunity to testify, but frustrated that the members of the committee seemed to lack interest in what he and COFAR’s other panel members had to say.

“It crossed my mind, were the committee members told not to ask any questions?” Frain said. “How divorced and disengaged is the Legislature that they can hear this testimony and not even have a follow-up question about an agency they’ve voted to fund?”

The hearing was the second since January involving testimony invited by the Children and Families Committee on the Department of Developmental Services system. The general public was allowed to attend, but not permitted to testify publicly before the committee in either hearing. The committee has given no information regarding the scope of its review of DDS.

COFAR has continued to ask for information from the committee as to the full scope of its review, and whether the committee intends to produce a report at the end of that review.

COFAR panel describes abuse and neglect

On Tuesday, Richard Buckley testified about his 17-year quest for answers to his and his family’s questions about his brother’s death in a group home in West Peabody in 2001. Buckley’s developmentally disabled brother, David, had previously been sexually abused in a group home in Hamilton, and was ultimately fatally injured in the group home in West Peabody.

David Buckley received second and third degree burns to his buttocks, legs, and genital area while being showered by staff in the West Peabody residence run by the Department of Developmental Services. The temperature of the water in the residence was later measured at over 160 degrees.

David died from complications from the burns some 12 days later, yet no one was ever charged criminally in the case, and the DDS (then Department of Mental Retardation) report on the incident did not substantiate any allegations of abuse or neglect.

Richard Buckley urged the committee to take action to reform the DDS system. “If nothing is done, the next rape, assault or death, will be on you,” he said. “And we will remember that.”

Buckley also read testimony from another COFAR member, Barbara Bradley, whose 53-year-old, intellectually disabled daughter is currently living in a residence with a man who has been paid by a DDS-funded agency to be her personal care attendant. In her testimony, Bradley said the man initiated a sexual relationship with her daughter, and later brought another woman, with whom he also became sexually involved, to live in the same residence.

Anna Eves discussed the near-death of her son, Yianni Baglaneas, in April 2017, after he had aspirated on a piece of cake in a provider-operated group home. The group home staff failed to obtain proper medical care for Yianni for nearly a week after he aspirated. He was finally admitted to a hospital in critical condition and placed on a ventilator for 11 days.

DDS later concluded that seven employees of Yianni’s residential provider were at fault in the matter. Nevertheless, at least two of those employees have continued to work for the provider, Eves said.

“The systems that are in place are not working and we are failing to protect people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Massachusetts,” Eves testified. “We have to do better.”

Eves urged the committee to support a minimum wage of $15 an hour for direct care workers, more funding for the Disabled Persons Protection Commission, and passage of “Nicky’s Law,” which would establish a registry of caregivers found to have committed abuse or neglect. Such persons would be banned from future employment in DDS-funded facilities.

Eves also noted that licensing reports on DDS residential and day program providers that she reviewed — including the provider operating her son’s group home — did not mention substantiated incidents of abuse or neglect. She said Massachusetts is falling behind a number of other states, which provide that information to families and guardians.

In his testimony, Frain also urged the committee to support more funding for the Disabled Persons Protection Commission, the state’s independent agency for investigating abuse and neglect of disabled adults. Because the agency is so grossly underfunded, he suggested that the committee consider either “fully funding” the agency or “partnering with the local police and district attorneys’ offices and let them investigate” the complaints.

Frain maintained that staffs of corporate providers, in particular, face pressure not to report complaints to the DPPC, and that the agency, in most cases, has to refer most of the complaints it receives to DDS. That is because the DPPC lacks the resources to investigate the complaints on its own.

Moreover, Frain maintained, the current investigative system is cumbersome. It can sometimes take weeks or months before either the DPPC or DDS begins investigating particular complaints, whereas police will show up in minutes and start such investigations immediately.

Frain also contended that “privatization of DDS services has been at the root of many of these problems.”

Other persons and organizations that testified Tuesday included DDS Commissioner Jane Ryder, the Arc of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Disability Law Center, and the Massachusetts Developmental Disability Council.

COFAR is continuing to urge the Children and Families Committee to hold at least one additional hearing at which all members of the public to testify publicly before the panel. COFAR has also been trying to obtain a clear statement from the committee as to the scope of its ongoing review of the Department of Developmental Services.

For a number of years, COFAR has sought a comprehensive legislative investigation of the DDS-funded group home system, which is subject to continuing reports of abuse, neglect and inadequate financial oversight.