Self-Advocacy and Support Worker Atrocities

A support worker who helped people with developmental disabilities to manage their bank accounts also "helped" herself to thousands of her clients' dollars.

This happened in my county, in my city, in my state.

Even more horrific, so much so that there is no appropriate adjective to describe it, are the cell phone "Fight Club" videos that were recently exposed by accident when a cell phone was lost,

Terrified residents at a Corpus Christi, Texas, state school for the mentally disabled were forced to be part of a brutal "fight club" operated by night shift employees, who made videos of the sessions with their cell phones, the newly released videos show.

The ABC News report includes video clips, so upsetting that I couldn't watch more than a few seconds. I do not recommend viewing the clips if you have ever been subject of this kind of abuse.

This may have happened in your county, in your city, in your state.

The woman in Oregon worked for the reputable organization United Cerebral Palsy which, despite the name, does provide services for autistic people in my area. The residents in Texas were simply described as "mentally disabled" which may or may not have included some autistic people. But it really doesn't matter--these atrocities illustrate a larger, ongoing, key problem that effects anyone who needs daily living support.

These things happen every day. They happen where I live, where you live. They may be happening right now to someone reading this.

Yes, background checks are done. And yes, organizations are very careful about who they hire. But those items alone obviously do not stop con artists and sadists from entering the system. Especially when financial cuts to services affect the kind of support staff who is hired ("Some state legislators say the problems began with Perry administration budget cuts in 2003 that reduced money for health and human services in Texas.") Especially when power imbalances by default silence us with fear and threats to our survival.

I asked a self-advocate recently why he got involved in disability rights activism. "One of my support workers stole money from me. I got really angry. I wasn't going to take that ever again."

This is one of the many reasons why giving people on the spectrum (or other DD or ID or any sort of disability at all) every opportunity possible to learn self-advocacy skills is critical. While it would be nice to think that support workers and the agencies they work for will protect us from predators, and that laws help too, the reality is that no agency, individual, or law is ultimately able to make that sort of promise. Precautions can filter out the worst, but never all. Which leaves, in the end, only us to protect ourselves and each other. How?