Comments on: Disability advocates demand community-based care http://whyy.org/cms/news/health-science/behavioral-health-health-science/2009/06/26/disability-advocates-demand-community-based-care/11218 News and Information from WHYY in Philadelphia Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:07:03 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Mardys Leeper http://whyy.org/cms/news/health-science/behavioral-health-health-science/2009/06/26/disability-advocates-demand-community-based-care/11218/comment-page-1#comment-444 Mardys Leeper Fri, 24 Jul 2009 20:03:10 +0000 http://whyy.org/cms/news/?p=11218#comment-444 My daughter has velo-cardio-facial syndrome, a deletion of the 22nd chromosome. She has had open heart and palate surgery, a non-verbal IQ below seventy, but overall IQ barely above mentally retarded, and bipolar disorder. She is part of a community mental health program, Wellsprings, in Bryn Mawr. In Rendell's new budget, funding for such programs is being cut. Pigeonholing her complex health problems into the one disability which entitles her to services, the mental health diagnosis, makes it almost impossible to get a program designed specifically for her many needs. I agree with Kreider that community placements must target needs of the client, but often funding, training, and limited coordination of services for multiply handicaped individuals makes appropriate placements a dream. Wellsprings is probably one of the better programs out there and we are still lobbying and struggling. My daughter has velo-cardio-facial syndrome, a deletion of the 22nd chromosome. She has had open heart and palate surgery, a non-verbal IQ below seventy, but overall IQ barely above mentally retarded, and bipolar disorder. She is part of a community mental health program, Wellsprings, in Bryn Mawr. In Rendell's new budget, funding for such programs is being cut.

Pigeonholing her complex health problems into the one disability which entitles her to services, the mental health diagnosis, makes it almost impossible to get a program designed specifically for her many needs. I agree with Kreider that community placements must target needs of the client, but often funding, training, and limited coordination of services for multiply handicaped individuals makes appropriate placements a dream.

Wellsprings is probably one of the better programs out there and we are still lobbying and struggling.

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