Residence-based Providers for Autism – AGE OF AUTISM
Safeminds is kicking off an important conversation on their website this week. We ask: 1) Do you have any home services? 2) Can you rent yourself? 3) What is your hourly wage? Safeminds posted:
- According to a new article by doing Tennessee Lookout, Families who have a member with special needs have a hard time finding home care services. Not only does the state have a shortage of manpower to fill these positions, but the two different agencies that provide care workers experience wage differentials. Because of these employment difficulties, the Tennessee Justice Center filed a lawsuit against the Tennessee Department of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities alleging that the state violated two federal laws and discriminated against people with intellectual disabilities.
Here is the linked article
By Anita Wadhwani, Tennessee Lookout
July 29, 2021
MOHAWK, Tennessee – Drama Bryant’s whole life revolved around caring for her little brother Jay, who – aged 32 – had congenital disorders that prevented him from eating, bathing, going to the bathroom, Help needed around the clock without speaking or walking without assistance.
Jay Bryant has Down syndrome and autism, has seizures, severe reflux disease, and eczema, and lives in chronic pain. If no one is looking, they will try to eat grass, dirt, stones or other inedible objects. When desperate, he hits himself hard enough to leave a mark.
His mental and physical disabilities qualify him for a program run by the Tennessee Department of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities to provide Jay with 337 hours of professional care each month in the house he shares with his 69-year-old mother – who is herself disabled and suffers early symptoms of dementia.
Find out what’s happening in Across Tennessee with free, real-time updates from Patch.
But his family did not get any outside help. Instead, it has fallen to Drama Bryant, 38, to care for her brother full-time while their desperate search for carers continues.
Tennessee, like the rest of the nation, has long had a shortage of workers willing to take on the badly paid and stressful jobs that are vital to helping people with severe disabilities, in their own homes and outside of institutions, with dignity to live. In the new COVID era of labor shortages, the shortage of nurses has reached critical proportions … Read more here.
