After long fight by advocates for Nicky’s Law, key state lawmakers seek postponement of its effective date
The chairs of a key state legislative committee are seeking a nearly year-long delay in establishing a long-sought registry of staff found to have abused persons with developmental disabilities in Massachusetts.
The delay would postpone the effective date of Nicky’s Law from January to November of next year, leading to objections from COFAR and other advocacy organizations that have fought for implementation of the legislation.
State Representative Kay Khan and Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz, the House and Senate chairs of the Children, Families, and Persons with Disabilities Committee, are both reportedly seeking the delay in implementation of the law at the request of the Disabled Persons Protection Commission (DPPC).
The DPPC, the state agency charged with investigating abuse and neglect of disabled adults, was put in charge of developing the registry under the new law.
A staff member for Khan declined yesterday to say why the DPPC, along with Khan and Chang-Diaz, are seeking the delay. “We appreciate your concern and are having further conversations,” the staff member wrote in an email in response to COFAR’s query.
On February 13, 2020, Governor Baker signed the bill into law. The legislation establishes a registry of names of employees of the Department of Developmental Services (DDS) and its providers who have been found by the DPPC to have committed acts of substantiated abuse resulting in serious physical or emotional injury.
Currently, persons applying for caregiver positions in the DDS system must undergo criminal background checks, which disclose previous convictions for abuse and other crimes in Massachusetts and other states. However, even when abuse against persons with developmental disabilities is substantiated by agencies such as the DPPC), it does not usually result in criminal charges. As a result, those findings of substantiated abuse are often not made known to providers or other agencies seeking to hire caregivers.
We have long maintained that these problems have gotten steadily worse as functions and services for the developmentally disabled have been steadily privatized over the years without sufficient oversight of the corporate provider-based system.
Last year, we analyzed DPPC data on a per-client basis of more than 14,000 abuse complaints in the Fiscal 2010-2019 period. That analysis underscored the relative dangers of privately provided, but publicly funded care. We have reported over the years on abuse and poor care are problems that involve providers throughout the system.
An abuse registry is needed as soon as possible in Massachusetts. At the same time, we think this registry is only a start. Ultimately, the executives of the provider agencies need to be held accountable for the bottom-line mentality in many of their organizations that fails to provide resources for training and supervision of direct caregivers.
We are asking people to call the offices of the Senate and House chairs Children and Families Committee at (617) 722-1673 and (617) 722-2011 respectively, or email Senator Change-Diaz at Sonia.Chang-Diaz@masenate.gov or Rep. Khan at Kay.Khan@mahouse.gov. Please ask them for a justification of their plan to delay the implementation of Nicky’s Law.
COFAR blog 
Justice delayed is justice denied, a well known phrase. Unfortunately, disabled children and adults are discriminated at every turn of the process. In an age where people are fighting for Black and LBTGQ rights why are valued members of families being treated worse than animals. People who are cruel to animals are tried as criminals ,but safeguards for humans who for no fault of their own are disabled are not afforded these protections. Shame on the administrators who are delaying this piece of legislation.
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In the meantime, people with bona fide complaints about abuse could find a different way of posting their concerns so they would be available.
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