03/12/2022
Please consider signing the petition and helping end one of the facets of discrimination those with development disabilities are facing.
People with developmental disabilities are facing discrimination at the hands of the very agency that has been tasked to help them – New Jersey’s Division of Disabilities (DDD). At the completion of a long and tedious process, DDD assigns a person with a disability a budget to fund their “Plan of Care.” Thousands of NJ families use this budget to hire their own staff, known as self-hires or Self-Directed Employees (SDE), to care for their loved ones.
In 2020 without public, professional, or family input, DDD enacted arbitrary restrictions on how a budget can be used by the person who is disabled if a Self Directed Family-but not for Provider agencies.
Self-Directed Employees, the lifeline of people with disabilities, now have an arbitrary hourly wage cap of $25/hr. Agency cap is $53.16/hr. This cap to Self Directed Families, ignores the individual needs of each person and lumps everyone in the same disabled pot with the assumption that $25/hr. is appropriate for all 5 levels of care set forth by DDD. How absurd! This makes hiring and retaining self-hire staff even more difficult, if not impossible which means a disabled person has no care or support.
Additionally, if a family can’t hire SDE as appropriate for the level of care the other options are vastly more expensive for the state: Placement in a group home or a DDD-approved provider agency.
DDD has given provider agencies and homes a lot of leeway allowing 100% expenditure of a person’s budget while limiting the amount families of individuals who use self-hires can spend. This is discriminatory.
Why is it that DDD has no issue with their approved agencies spending all of a person’s budget but prevents self-directing families from doing the same? DDD’s own research demonstrates self-directed families have lower costs and better outcomes.
Anything which benefits the disabled community, their aides, and saves money for the government and taxpayers should be implemented immediately.
It is time for the bias to end! A large and growing organization, Advocating for Self-Direction, has come together to reform DDD and stop its discriminatory practices. They have championed a bi-partisan bill, S957, sponsored by Senators Kristen Corrado (R-40th District) and Andrew Zwicker (D-16th District), and ask that you notify your state senators and assembly persons to support it.
NJ S957 ENDS DISCRIMINATION AGAINST THE DISABLED BY THE AGENCY TASKED WITH HELPING THEM
