COFAR blog

Hilda Natal and her husband Jose Moran said they have not seen their son Ryan for the past four months.

Ryan is a resident of a group home in Worcester and has been subject to visitation restrictions that appear to violate Department of Developmental Services (DDS) regulations.

For the past year, we have been asking DDS, including Commissioner Sarah Peterson, to look into this case, which seems to be one of the more egregious examples of potentially unnecessary restrictions on family contact. So far, we have received virtually no response to our concerns.

The situation appears to be getting worse.

We met last week on Zoom with Hilda and Diana Biagioli, an advocate for individuals and families, who has been translating for us because Hilda and her husband primarily speak Spanish. Hilda said she hadn’t been able to speak with her son for the past two weeks. It appears that staff at the group home, which is run by Venture Community Services, may have confiscated his phone, she said.

Hilda said she believes that DDS “doesn’t want to deal with this case.” She and Jose want Ryan to come back home with them to live.

We are encouraging Hilda and her husband to contact the DDS Human Rights Office and ombudsman. Diana, meanwhile, has filed a complaint with the Commission for the Protection of Persons with Disabilities (CPPD, formerly the DPPC), regarding Ryan’s isolation from his family. If indeed Ryan is being prevented from all contact with his family, we believe that this could be a form of emotional abuse.

Hilda said that when she has talked to her son, he tells her, “‘Mommy, I miss you,’” and that she is unable to tell him when or if she will be able to visit him.

Hilda told us that the residence does not return their calls and that she is concerned about Ryan’s safety.

Possible intimidation in apparent filming incident

In September, we had previously talked to Hilda and Jose, who expressed concerns about an incident that occurred during Hilda’s last visit with her son on May 22. The incident raises questions of intimidation and harassment and the possibility that Hilda and her son were illegally recorded by a Venture employee without her consent.

May 22 was the date of a scheduled visit between Hilda and her son at a Subway restaurant in Worcester. This was an important day for her because, as we have reported, family visits to Ryan had been sharply restricted for months.

On that day, Ryan was brought to the restaurant by a Venture employee who, Hilda said, acted in an intimidating manner toward her by appearing to try to record her with his cell phone. She doesn’t know the name of the employee, but she did take two photographs of him pointing his phone at her. We have sent the photos to both Commissioner Peterson and Mike Hyland, president and CEO of Venture.

Hilda said she stood up at one point and asked if the Venture employee was recording her, and he abruptly told her to sit down. “I want to keep my eyes on Ryan,” he said, according to Hilda. She expressed her desire for privacy for her son, and the staff member reportedly replied, “’I have to listen to everything discussed. He’s my client.’”

Hilda said she tried to speak reasonably to the staff member, but he began to gesture with his hands in an intimidating manner, and then abruptly left the restaurant with her son.

Hilda said the visit was supposed to last 45 minutes, but her son was taken away after less than 10 minutes. Since then, she has not seen him.

Requests to DDS commissioner and Venture CEO for comment

On September 15 and 17, I emailed Commissioner Peterson and Venture CEO Hyland respectively, expressing our concerns about the May 22 incident.  In my message to Peterson, I noted we were renewing a request to her to investigate the visitation restrictions on Ryan’s family and to work to bring the group home’s visitation policy and practices into compliance with the Department’s regulations.

It is unacceptable, I noted, that the family has been subjected to onerous visitation restrictions for so long. It is reportedly taking a negative emotional toll on Ryan as well as on his parents.

Questions about corporate guardian

In November of last year, I first wrote to Peterson that Ryan’s guardian in this case is a corporation, TLC Trust, which appears to have been involved in preventing the family from visiting both Ryan and another DDS client from a different family. In each case, the parents were concerned that they would be barred from visits on Thanksgiving and Christmas last year, which turned out to be the case.

Ryan was placed in the group home in 2020, when he was 24. It is unclear why TLC was appointed as his guardian.

We have noted that there are questions about TLC’s contracts with DDS involving guardianship. Key contract documents appear to be missing in connection with the procurement of TLC, and we have forwarded information about that to the state auditor.

Apparent violations of regulations

DDS regulations (115 CMR 5.04 (3)(a)) assert an individual’s right to receive visitors, and that family members and others “shall be permitted to visit at all times, unless the individual objects.” While reasonable restrictions may be placed on visits in certain instances, we are aware of no circumstances that would appear to warrant the sweeping and continuing restrictions that have been imposed on Ryan’s family.

The regulations further assert “the right to communicate, including the right to have reasonable access to a telephone… and the opportunity to make and receive confidential communications…” (115 CMR 5.04(1)(a)). The Venture employee’s statement that he needed to listen to everything discussed with Ryan would appear to be a potential violation of this regulation. So would the reported confiscation of Ryan’s phone by the group home.

Also, 115 CMR 5.04 (4) discusses, “The right to enjoy basic goods and services without threat of denial or delay for any purpose by providers…” Section (4)(f) mentions the right to keep and use personal possessions.

We frequently receive calls about visitation restrictions on families. It seems to be a practice that is widespread within the DDS group home system.

Restricted visitation is one of the most devastating things that can happen to families and residents in the system. (See here, here, and here.) Unfortunately, the imposition of visitation restrictions can sometimes be used as a weapon of intimidation, or to retaliate against families or clients for any number of reasons.

We have asked Peterson in the past for a meeting about this situation. We think it’s long overdue for DDS to address this problem as part of its obligation and responsibility to its clients and the public.