Physical Disabilities

Community Service Options, Inc (CSO) is an organization dedicated to assisting persons with developmental disability to receive service and live in the “least restrictive” setting. CSO provides screening, eligibility assessment, service coordination, and advocacy throughout the Chicago area. The website provides links to their services and assessment tools.

Community Service Options, Inc. (CSO), has put together this Question and Answer document regarding its housing initiative. This worksheet discusses independent living and “least restrictive” options for disabled and elderly persons, while including information about the limitations in eligibility for such housing. Finally, CSO discusses advocacy methods for increasing the availability of independent living options.

The Independent Housing Development worksheet presents a series of steps that allow a person to determine whether he/she can consider him/herself eligible for homeownership and provides guidance as he/she embarks on this process.

Special Needs Plans (SNPs), authorized by the Medicare Modernization Act, offer state Medicaid programs a new potential vehicle for coordinating Medicare and Medicaid benefits for dual eligibles. This report investigates the degree to which states (and plans) are using this option to develop more fully integrated Medicare-Medicaid models for dual eligibles needing long-term care services.

Many disability advocates need up to date statistics by State or county for people with disabilities. The 2005 American Community Survey provides useful current data available by State and county level. Advocates can use this data and the information can inform public planning processes.

For more than three decades, CQL has been at the forefront of the movement to improve the quality of services and supports for people with intellectual disabilities and people with mental illness. Plan to attend one of their upcoming regional conferences or review the overview from last year's session on the Community Life Initiatives. Visitors to the website can register for Capstone, the CQL Newsletter, read archived issues, or review their innovative and one-of-a-kind tools and resources.

Forty-three states and territories have received three-year competitive grants since the ADRC program was launched. This report details findings at the overall ADRC level and the pilot level on the outcomes, accomplishments, and contributions of the ADRC program over the grant period, including more immediate results related to key consumer and program outcomes. It also documents lessons learned and program and policy implications at the pilot, state, and national level.

The report presents six strategies or policy levers, gleaned from previous research reports that can be implemented on the federal and local levels to promote collaboration and coordination and support livable community objectives. Examples were selected from a vast array of actions that can be taken. Each of the strategies is illustrated by actual promising practices at both the federal and state levels that can be adapted and replicated elsewhere.

ADRCs can be affected by both external and internal changes in leadership. Organizations that plan for and carefully manage a leadership transition, however, can minimize disruption and even use the change to shift direction and strengthen organizational capacity. This issue brief offers suggestions for ways ADRCs can manage transition and position themselves to take advantage of opportunities to strengthen collaboration and advance the goals of the ADRC program.

Launched in 2004, Flexible Services and Supports (the Pilot) gave participants control in calculating an individual budget where they then purchased services and goods to meet their community living needs. What were the experiences that provide lessons for the design and implementation of this model on a larger scale? This report reviews: design issues and implementation barriers, makes recommendations for future work, and describes any financial impacts of the Pilot on Medicaid utilization.