Everything with them is, let’s sedate the kid instead of trying to solve the problem,” Ms. Strignano said. “They want to dope her up; they want her to sit there like she doesn’t exist.”
Tens of thousands of powerful pills created to treat serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia are given to developmentally disabled people in the care of New York State every day. .....
This articles speaks to the ways in which the disabled population is treated. It seems that when it comes to treatment few rules apply. Those who work with people with disabilities' main focus is to control the behaviour of their clients and if this means packing them with medication to make them into zombies, so be it.
We see the same thing happening to children with behavioural problems in our school systems. As soon as the child misbehaves frequently, this is seen as a problem that needs fixing. The problem is seen as being with the child and not with the school system that forces all square pegs into round holes or vice versa.
People with disabilities are people too and need to be protected from unscrupulous practices that cater more to the provider than the clients. Instead of putting untrained people most of the time to work with people with disabilities, maybe we need more trained staff who can deal with disruptive and abhorrent behaviours in a different manner.
Although this article speaks about an American situation, here in Manitoba there are many group homes and services for people with disabilities and I am wondering if there are parallels here.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/23/nyregion/potent-pills-few-rules-in-states-treatment-of-the-disabled.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha29
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