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Governor
Signs Jonathan’s Law
Thanks to Weisenberg, Parents of
Children with Disabilities Have Access to Reports of Mistreatment
Summer 2007
Assemblyman Weisenberg speaks out
for Jonathan’s Law on the floor of the Assembly. Parents of children
with special needs often face an extremely difficult situation:
entrusting the care and nurturing of their beloved sons and
daughters to other people. While in most circumstances, those people
are dedicated and caring individuals, that is not always the case.
If the children have limited or no verbal skills there may be no way
to verify suspected mistreatment without viewing records.
Because of a law I introduced,
parents and guardians of children and adults with mental
disabilities now have access to reports of abuse or other incidents
occurring in a mental hygiene facility. Passed unanimously by the
Assembly, the law was named in honor of Jonathan Carey, a
13-year-old with autism who tragically died while in the care of an
OMRDD-operated facility.
In 2004, Jonathan Carey was an
11-year-old nonverbal child living at a facility designed to care
for and educate children with autism and other disabilities. While a
resident, Jonathan was reportedly subjected to various forms of
abuse, including having his meals withheld. When his father made a
surprise visit, he found his son hungry, isolated, with bruises on
60 percent of his body. Jonathan’s parents, Michael and Lisa Carey,
brought their son home and began their search for answers. They have
spent years attempting to gain full access to information maintained
by several state agencies and facilities about the realities of
their child’s experience.
It is horrendous enough that
parents have to live through knowing or suspecting that their child
has been abused by a caretaker. It is unconscionable that, on top of
that, the state was stonewalling their access to information. The
new law will prevent parents from enduring this excruciating
experience
Under the provisions of Jonathan’s
Law, the director of a mental hygiene facility has 24 hours to
notify a parent or guardian by phone when a patient has been
involved in an incident. An incident will be defined as an accident
or injury that affects the health and safety of a patient. Prior law
only required telephone notification to parents when the child
needed medical or dental treatment that was more than first aid,
which may have discouraged securing medical services to an injured
child to avoid activating the mandated notification and reporting
statute.
Previously, parents were not
entitled to a copy of an incident report. Jonathan’s Law requires
that, upon request, the parents must be provided with a written copy
of the incident report, a copy of investigative reports about
patient abuse or mistreatment, be offered a meeting about the
incident and, within ten days, receive a written report on the
actions taken. Jonathan’s Law also widens the net of protection by
requiring that incident reporting requirements be applied to all
licensed and certified facilities providing services to people with
mental disabilities, not only state-operated facilities.
In the past 40 years, we have made
great progress in the care of those with mental disabilities; but we
have so much more to do. The system, despite wide protections
afforded to children with disabilities, failed Jonathan and we
cannot let that be repeated. I’m pleased that the legislature has
joined the Careys in turning the sorrowful last chapter of
Jonathan’s young life into a legacy of hope for other families.
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