Severe/Profound Special Needs Parents and Families: What Happens After We’re Gone?
Families of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities spend a lifetime building the supports their loved ones need. Even when someone receives […]
Why Staff Injuries Keep Happening: About the Massachusetts Nurses Association’s Workplace Violence Prevention Bill
Every time the conversation turns to staff safety — nurses, DSPs, group home workers — certain advocacy voices immediately shift the focus […]
The High Cost of Not Teaching Toileting
Medicaid keeps paying for diapers, supplies, and staffing for people with severe IDD instead of funding evidence-based toilet training that can build independence, reduce costs, and restore dignity.
Designed as an Alternative, Operated as a System
HCBS waivers were designed to expand community-based care, but they have become the backbone of disability services without a federal oversight system that has kept pace. This article examines how gaps in accountability, cost-neutrality, provider transparency, and meaningful choice affect people with intellectual and developmental disabilities—using Massachusetts as a case study in why inclusion requires enforceable oversight.
Why Zack’s Story Matters for Massachusetts: A Crisis We Must Not Ignore
Cristina Gaudio of the National Council on Severe Autism (NCSA) published one of the clearest, most unflinching accounts of what families living […]
DOJ Olmstead Opinion in a Time of Impending Massive Medicaid Cuts
Families are being asked to make sense of two threats at once: a federal policy shift that could be misread to weaken […]
DOJ Olmstead Opinion: The Real Threat Isn’t Institutionalization — It’s Monopoly
And In Massachusetts, monopoly may look like abandonment disguised as “natural supports.” The posts have been appearing on Facebook since the June […]
How Families Can Protect Themselves When Advocating With DDS
Families advocating with DDS often face fear, isolation, and uncertainty. This post offers practical ways to protect your loved one—through documentation, legal knowledge, support networks, and collective action.
Why 1915(c) Waivers Fail Medically Complex and Aging Individuals and Why the Closure of Wrentham and Hogan Would Be Devastating
For decades, Home‑ and Community‑Based Services (HCBS) waivers under §1915(c) of the Social Security Act have been promoted as the default service […]
A Quiet but Meaningful Victory for Choice and High‑Acuity Care
Some victories don’t show up in the final vote tally. They show up in who stood with us. This year’s legislative push […]