Olmstead AMA Video 3

Speaker: Talley Wells

Talley Wells: Hi everybody, this is Talley Wells. I'm the Executive Director of the North Carolina Council on Developmental Disabilities and I am here with our third question of our Ask Me Anything series for June of 2022. June 2022 means that we are at the 23rd anniversary of the Olmstead Decision. And today's Ask Me Anything question is what plans are there for expanding Olmstead to impact formerly incarcerated people? This is such an important question, particularly because tomorrow I'm going to have the chance to meet with a good friend and colleague of ours at the Department of Public Safety, one of our council members as well as um uh friends of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Alliance of Disability Advocates, which is the Center for Independent Living in Raleigh. All of them are part of our reentry initiative. And we're going to be discussing how we do an even better job of supporting individuals with intellectual developmental disabilities who are returning from jails and prisons into the community, make sure that they have the supports they need. So hopefully there's not a re offense that they don't um get re involved with the criminal justice system and so that they can have what they need to live full and meaningful lives in the community. And what's exciting is that we've been doing this initiative for the last two years and the recidivism rate, which means the return to the criminal justice system rate is low. And so we've been very pleased with already the progress that's been made and most of that has been made during the pandemic. And so we're really looking for even better numbers as we come out of the pandemic and we're working to build the system so that more and more individuals with intellectual developmental disabilities, particularly as we enter into Medicaid transformation, that tailored plans the 1915(i), which is an entitlement service, which says that people who have Medicaid and a developmental disability can get community living supports, they can get supported employment. We want to make sure that folks who are coming out of our criminal justice system who have these types of disabilities, intellectual developmental disabilities are able to access those services able to access the care management. And so we are working very much with our partners to ensure that that can happen. So that Olmstead can more and more be part of the lives of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities who are formally incarcerated. Thank you!