Protecting and Expanding Medicaid

Priority: Preserve and expand Medicaid as the leading source of coverage for health care and community based services for persons with disabilities.

Objective: Promote full funding of Medicaid in state FY 2008 in order to avoid reductions in eligibility or benefits and reduce waiting lists for waiver services.

Objective: Promote expansion of Medicaid eligibility to 100% FPL Federal Poverty Level) for adults without reduction in current benefits.

Objective: Review and comment on proposed regulatory changes in the Medicaid program that would have a significant effect on eligibility, benefits, or procedural protections for persons with disabilities.

Objective: Support, oppose or attempt to modify the state's plan for coordinated (managed) long-term services ("CLTS") based on whether it has the clear potential to provide opportunities for more people to receive long-term services that are timely, adequate and suitable to their individual needs in the most integrated setting possible.

Improving the Quality and Adequacy of Community Services

Priority: Assure that community programs provide services that meet the needs of individuals qualifying for or receiving those services.

Objective: Monitor implementation of the new self-directed Medicaid waiver ("Mi Via") and assist consumers who are having problems in eligibility, service planning, consumer choice or transition into the program.

Objective: Assist eligible individuals or applicants who have been denied or terminated from Medicaid funded community based long-term services, or who face inappropriate modification/reduction in such services.

Objective: Assist eligible individuals or applicants who have been denied or terminated from appropriate community based services from the Brain Injury Trust Fund, BITF contractors or TBI Service Coordinators, or who face inappropriate modification/reduction in such services.

Objective: Assist eligible individuals who have dual diagnoses (any combination of Developmental Disability, Mental Illness and Traumatic Brain Injury) to obtain appropriate community based services.

Objective: Promote improvement in the quality of staff who work with persons with disabilities by enhancing consumer authority over training and qualification standards for staff who work for them, and by encouraging career opportunities in this field through higher wages and job benefits, better training and appropriate job qualifications .

Objective: Ensure that the state Defendants are complying with the court orders in the Jackson case to improve services for persons with developmental disabilities.

Objective: Assist people with disabilities to obtain necessary assistive devices through their health insurance, public schools, or other available programs.

Objective: Strengthen and/or preserve protections for children with disabilities in the Children's Mental Health/Developmental Disabilities Code.

Assuring Public School Services for Students Who Need Behavior Support

Priority: Reduce the number of children who are excluded from appropriate services and placements due to behavior issues.

Objective: Promote best practices in evaluation and planning for behavior supports and services for children with disabilities.

Objective: Assure implementation of Individualized Education Plans and Behavior Intervention Plans that address behavior services.

Objective: Assure that students placed in Interim Alternative Education Settings because of behavior issues receive appropriate services and supports in compliance with state and federal laws.

Improving Employment and Rehabilitation Services

Priority: Persons with disabilities receive appropriate services and supports needed to obtain or return to employment.services from vocational rehabilitation and independent living programs.

Objective: Review/investigate complaints of Social Security beneficiaries who have experienced a denial, delay or barrier in services necessary to the success of their return to work or maintenance of work efforts.

Advocating for Transition from Facilities to Community

Priority: Advocate for the development of community supports, including housing, for individuals with disabilities who are currently institutionalized or at risk of being institutionalized.

Objective: Promote the implementation of Money Follows the Person, pursuant to state law, and assist individuals who are having problems in eligibility, service planning, choice or transition into the program.

Objective: Develop recommendations for how available funding can be used to increase housing opportunities and other supports and services in local communities for persons with disabilities, including persons with mental illness.

Objective: Encourage state agencies to define eligibility criteria for long term care services (i.e. "nursing home level of care") by regulation, thus assuring public input into the criteria. and Care Homes.

Objective: Advocate for appropriate transition plans for military veterans with Traumatic Brain Injury who are leaving VA hospitals to return to their homes and communities.

Promoting the Development of Crisis Mental Health Services

Priority: Promote the creation and expansion of alternative community based services for persons with mental illness who are in crisis.

Objective: Promote the establishment of a system of crisis response for individuals using person-to-person contact for stabilization and linkage to appropriate follow-up services.

Objective: Promote voluntary alternatives to mandated treatment.

Objective: Advocate for individuals who have requested and been denied medically necessary psychotropic medications because the medication is not on the Value Option's formulary.

Promoting Self-Determination

Priority: Persons with disabilities have control over decisions that affect them.

Objective: Ensure that persons with disabilities are able to exercise their right to vote.

Objective: Promote the least restrictive level and form of guardianship necessary, promote meaningful input from the individual with disabilities when a guardianship is proposed or changed, and
assure that guardians are qualified, suitable, effective, and active in the lives of the wards for whom they are responsible.

Decreasing Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of Persons with Disabilities

Priority: Improve the practices and procedures of programs where there are recurring allegations of abuse, neglect, or exploitation of individuals with disabilities.

Objective: Use P&A investigations at targeted programs alleged to have committed acts of significant abuse/neglect/exploitation in order to improve the quality of service delivered to our clients and others served.

Objective: Promote the development of state-wide standards for the delivery of services to juveniles and adults with disabilities in detention centers.

Objective: Reduce the frequency and duration of restraint usage.

Objective: Ensure that facilities which are required to report serious incidents of injuries and death caused by restraint actually report such incidents to the proper authorities, including P&A where applicable.

Improving the Quality and Adequacy of Services in Detention Facilities

Priority: Improve services for persons with disabilities in detention facilities.

Objective: Ensure the delivery of at least minimally adequate mental health treatment and medical care to individuals with disabilities in the Dona Ana County Detention Center.

Objective: Ensure that the Defendants operating the Metropolitan Detention Center in Bernalillo County are complying with the court orders in the McClendon case.