Inclusion Daily Express -- Six Years After Ruling, West Virginia Finally Adopts Olmstead Plan

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Six Years After Ruling, West Virginia Finally Adopts Olmstead Plan
December 14, 2005

CHARLESTON, WEST VIRGINIA--The following six paragraphs are excerpts from a story in Sunday's Charleston Gazette:

Ken Ervin was born with cerebral palsy and spent much of his childhood in an out-of-state institution where officials read his mail, listened to his telephone calls and told him he would never be able to read.

"I know what it's like to be institutionalized, and that's why I'm out here every day," said Ervin, who organized the West Virginia chapter of Americans with Disabilities for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT), and is a member of the state's Olmstead Advisory Council.

Ervin hopes West Virginia's approximately 400,000 disabled residents will learn more about their civil rights and their opportunities through a plan designed to give them more access to community-based services.

Yet, it's taken about six years for the state to develop a plan to comply with a 1999 U.S. Supreme Court ruling involving the institutionalization of people with disabilities. The ruling, which became known as the Olmstead decision, said that the Americans with Disabilities Act requires states to provide services to persons in the most integrated setting when appropriate.

On Wednesday, Gov. Joe Manchin will sign the state's plan to comply with the ruling.

"People have been working on this for quite some time," Manchin told The Associated Press in an interview last week. "I'm the third administration that this has come before."

Entire article:
"Disabled ready for mainstream" (Charleston Gazette)
http://wvgazette.com/section/News/2005121020
Related:
The States' Response to the Olmstead Decision (National Conference of State Legislatures)
http://www.ncsl.org/programs/health/forum/olmsreport.htm

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