The Legal Center for People with Disabilities and Older People: Colorado's Protection and Advocacy System
By Randy Chapman

Randy Chapman, Esq. is the Director of Legal Services at the Legal Center for People with Disabilities and Older People

The Legal Center for People with Disabilities and Older People is a private non-profit agency whose mission is to protect and promote the rights of people with disabilities and older people through direct legal representation, advocacy, education and legislative analysis. The Legal Center fulfills that mission by applying the staff's knowledge of disability and elder law with its knowledge of the disability and senior service delivery systems to ensure people with disabilities and seniors have equal access to services and are protected from abuse and neglect. The Legal Center was established in 1976 because its founders believed there were not adequate services available in the generic legal community to meet the unique legal problems facing people with disabilities.

To be sure, people with disabilities encounter the same legal issues that people without disabilities encounter, but people with disabilities frequently must deal with complicated service delivery bureaucracies, depend on residential and other services provided by others, and do not have equal access to education, employment and other public services and accommodations. The Legal Center was not established to meet all the legal needs of people with disabilities, but rather to help meet these unique legal needs. The founders also wanted an entity that could pursue right to treatment litigation on behalf of persons with developmental disabilities who lived in Colorado's State Home and Training Schools. While, The Legal Center was initially established through the support of the Association for Retarded Citizens in Colorado and the Colorado Developmental Disabilities Planning Council, The Legal Center has always tried to serve individuals with all disabilities.

In 1977 Governor Lamm, pursuant to the federal Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act of 1975, designated The Legal Center to be the Protection and Advocacy System for Persons with Developmental Disabilities in Colorado. This 1975 act established protection and advocacy systems (P&As) for persons with developmental disabilities in every state and territory. Over time, Congress has enacted legislation establishing P&A Systems for Individuals with Mental Illness (PAIMI) , Individual Rights (PAIR) , Traumatic Brain Injury (PATBI) , Beneficiaries of Social Security (PABSS) , accessing assistive technology (PAAT) , and a program to assist clients of the vocational rehabilitation system (Client Assistance Program or CAP) . Our most recent program P&A Program is VOTE!, established under the Help America to Vote Act to assist individuals with disabilities in having equal access to the election process. Additionally, Congress has required, through the Older Americans Act, that states have a state Long-term Care Ombudsman to monitor the care of seniors in nursing homes and other long term care facilities and a Legal Services Developer to coordinate and support local providers of legal services to seniors.

Each of these Legal Center programs serves unique populations of persons with disabilities or seniors, has unique requirements for the kind of services that The Legal Center can provide to the particular population, and provides varied amounts of limited federal funding. This article will focus on The Legal Center's services related to the Protection and Advocacy Systems for Individuals with Developmental Disabilities, Individuals with Mental Illness, the Client Assistance Program, and the Older Americans Programs.

Protection and Advocacy for Persons with
Developmental Disabilities
As the Protection and Advocacy System for Persons with Developmental Disabilities, The Legal Center must be able to pursue legal, administrative and other appropriate remedies to protect and advocate for the rights of individuals with developmental disabilities throughout Colorado. Additionally, The Legal Center must have the authority to investigate incidents of abuse and neglect of individuals with developmental disabilities if The Legal Center has probable cause to believe that the incidents occurred. To facilitate abuse and neglect investigations Congress has granted P&As broad access to service agencies and records if the P&A believes there is probable cause that an individual has been abused or neglected. In such circumstances, The Legal Center would first contact the individual or the individual's guardian, conservator, or legal representative and seek permission for records access. If The Legal Center has offered assistance to the individual's representative but the representative refuses assistance and does not act on behalf of the individual, as the P&A, The Legal Center must still be given access to the individual's records and other records that are relevant to conducting the investigation. The Legal Center is required to keep the records it receives in the course of an investigation confidential.

The Legal Center has focused its efforts on protecting persons from abuse and neglect in Colorado's Developmental Disabilities service delivery system and ensuring appropriate school services for students with disabilities under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Included in those efforts, historically, has been a strong push to move individuals out of Colorado's Regional Centers and into homes in the community and ensuring students with disabilities attend school in the least restrictive environment. Today, most Coloradoans with developmental disabilities live in community homes so the focus has shifted to protecting persons from abuse and neglect in community based settings.

Protection and Advocacy for Individuals
with Mental Illness
Like the Developmental Disabilities P&A System, the Protection and Advocacy System for Individuals with Mental Illness (PAIMI) must have the authority to pursue administrative, legal, and other remedies on behalf of individuals with mental illness in Colorado and also focuses on protecting individuals with mental illness from abuse and neglect. The P&A System for Individuals with Mental Illness must give priority to pursuing issues that arise while an individual is being admitted to a treatment facility, in a facility, or the issue arises within 90 days of the individual's discharge from the facility. Recently, the P&A has been authorized to address community issues occurring outside of treatment facilities. Also, like the DD P&A, Congress has granted the PAIMI program broad facility and records access to facilitate its investigation where it has probable cause to believe a person with mental illness has been abused or neglected. The Legal Center's PAIMI Program has focused primarily on protecting individuals who are living at the Mental Health Institutes at Pueblo or Ft. Logan, but has also pursued investigations and represented persons in other public or private hospitals and children in Residential Treatment Centers.

Client Assistance Program
The Client Assistance Program (CAP) assists people with disabilities who are seeking or receiving services from the Colorado Division of Vocational Rehabilitation. The Division of Vocation Rehabilitation provides assistance to people with disabilities where the disability is a barrier to employment and the individual can benefit from rehabilitation services. In the rehabilitation process eligible individuals are entitled to an Individualized Plan for Employment which will include an agreed upon vocational goal and services to reach that goal. Individuals with disabilities may need assistance becoming eligible for rehabilitation services, getting agreement on their choice of a vocational goal, or obtaining specific services to meet that goal.

Protection and Advocacy for Individual Rights
The Protection and Advocacy of Individual Rights (PAIR) program was established to protect the legal and human rights of individuals with disabilities who are not eligible for the Client Assistance Program or the Protection and Advocacy Systems for persons with developmental disabilities or individuals with mental illness. Thus, through this program The Legal Center serves individuals with other physical disabilities, including HIV/AIDS. The Legal Center has focused on housing discrimination, eligible persons in institutional settings, and assisting persons living with HIV/AIDS.

VOTE!
In 2002 Congress enacted the Help America to Vote Act (HAVA) to improve the administration of elections nation wide and to ensure fairness and equal access to voting. Among other things HAVA established a Protection and Advocacy System to protect the rights of people with disabilities in the election process. The Legal Center's VOTE! Program focuses on ensuring that polls and the voting process are accessible to people with disabilities, reaching out to increase voter registration of people with disabilities, and protecting the rights of people with disabilities to vote.

Older Americans Programs
The Long-term Care Ombudsman Program is a statewide network of advocates for residents in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. The State Ombudsman Program is administered by The Legal Center under a contract with the Colorado Department of Human Services, Division of Aging and Adult Services. The State Ombudsman is responsible for providing training, technical assistance and certification to the regional ombudsmen who are volunteers for or employed by the 16 Area Agencies on Aging in Colorado. The regional ombudsmen visit nursing homes and assisted living facilities in the state and help residents and family members resolve issues related to care and residents' rights.

The Legal Assistance Developer is responsible for providing training and technical assistance to local legal providers who contract with the Area Agencies on Aging to provide legal assistance to older people. These local programs provide legal advice and representation to Colorado residents 60 years of age or older.

Generally, The Legal Center's Older Americans programs do not provide direct representation. These programs provide support and technical assistance to either regional ombudsmen or legal service providers who provide that direct assistance.

Conclusion
The Legal Center promotes independence and inclusion for people with disabilities and older people. Thus, we try to help individuals advocate for themselves as much as possible. Receiving technical assistance, whether through advocate/attorney consultation, written information, or educational seminars can help many people. Frequently, however, the legal issue is too complex and/or the individual has disabilities that impair effective self-advocacy so that direct representation is required. In 2002 The Legal Center directly represented 479 individuals. Additionally, The Legal Center provided legal information to 1,700 individuals and reached over 1,600 individuals through over 60 educational seminars. Unfortunately, The Legal Center does not have sufficient resources to directly represent all the individuals who need direct representation. Yearly, each of the programs set priorities for the kinds of issues the program targets for direct representation. For information about those priorities or other assistance you can contact The Legal Center in Denver at 303-722-0300 or 1-800-288-1376 or at the Grand Junction office at 970-241-2105 or 1-800-531-2105.


1In its early years it was called The Legal Center for Handicapped Citizens.
2Thus, The Legal Center does not provide direct representation in areas where there is expertise in the generic legal community, even though there may be cost for those services, nor does The Legal Center provide representation where there are no cost or low cost services available such as Colorado Legal Services, public defenders, or other court appointed counsel. The Legal center will provide technical assistance related to disability law to those other attorneys.
3Ultimately this goal led to The Legal Center filing Association for Retarded Citizens in Colorado v. Frazier, 517 F. Supp. 105 (D.Co.1981). This lawsuit led to children living in State Home and Training Schools receiving educational services under the federal Education for All Handicapped Children Act now the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
4Now the Arc of Colorado.
5For example, in Silverstein v. Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Health Services Corporation, 43 Colo. App. 446, 614 P.2d. 891 (1979) The Legal Center represented a respiratory therapist with a seizure disorder in successfully challenging a hospital's hiring policy because the policy violated the Colorado Civil Rights Act.
642 USC 15043. In 1975 persons with developmental disabilities were often warehoused in institutions without adequate services and frequently abused and neglected. Congress passed this legislation to help remedy this situation.
742 USC 10801 et. seq.
829 USC 794e.
942 USC 300d-53.
1042 USC 1320b-21.
1129 USC 3012.
1229 USC 732.
1342 USC 15461
1442 USC 3027(a)(12).
1542 USC 3027(a)(18).
1642 USC 15002(8) a developmental disability is chronic, lifelong and attributable to a mental or physical impairment which is evident before the age of twenty-two.
1742 USC 15043(2)(B).
1842 USC 15043(I)
1942 USC 10801 to 10805.
2042 USC 10804(d).
2142 USC 10805(4) and 10806 and see Center for Legal Advocacy v. Earnest M.D., 2003 WL 464027 (10th Cir. Colo. 2003) a homeless person died while being treated for a cut forehead at Denver General Hospital's emergency room. The P&A System initiated an investigation of the death, but records access was blocked by the hospital's claim the records were drug and alcohol treatment records and thus confidential under the Public Health Services Act (PHSA). The 10th Circuit held as a matter of law the emergency room did not qualify as a drug and alcohol treatment program under the PHSA and records were not protected. The PAIMI Program also has The Center for legal Advocacy v. Hammons pending in the 10th Circuit, in which The Legal Center is seeking access to peer review records at the Mental Health Institute in Pueblo in the course of investigating several suicides that occurred there in the late 1990's.
2229USC 732.
2329 USC 794e.
24The Legal Center has received some private grants and donations to specifically serve persons with HIV/AIDS and has established an HIVAIDS Program within the PAIR Program.