Tommy's Bill pulled before action can be taken
January 27, 2012
Paul Strand / ActionDD
Olympia -- On the day that Tommy's Bill would have heard public testimony it was removed from the public hearing calendar.  Senator Adam Kline wants the issues in the bill referred to the RHC Task Force created last year by SB 5459. The bill hangs in limbo while we try to breathe life back into it.
  
Tommy's Bill
January 26, 2012
Paul Strand / ActionDD
Olympia -- Last year, Senate Bill 5459 ordered the closure of the Francis Haddon Morgan Center, in Bremerton.  It also made other changes to how people with developmental disabilities will live.  The new Tommy’s Bill would restore safeguards that Governor Gregoire vetoed out of that bill last year -- safeguards that may have saved a life.
       Tommy was a young man living at the Frances Haddon Morgan Center when it closed.  Before he was admitted there his mother, Theresa Murray, stated that her son needed full time supervision because he was a 3-year-old in a 17-year-old body.  About the FHMC, she said, "I fought like hell to get him here…I love this place."  But by the time the Center closed, Tommy had been made a ward of the state because his parents were deceased.  His new home?  The community placement where he died from negligence.  You see, Tommy, having an eating disorder called “pica,” drank laundry detergent that had been poured into a milk carton.  The full story of Tommy’s death will not be known until after investigations have been done.
      ActionDD supports Tommy's Bill.

Former employee pleads guilty to stealing from Morgan Center funds
January 5, 2012
Kitsap Sun
Seattle -- A longtime employee of a now-closed Bremerton facility for the developmentally disabled pleaded guilty Thursday to stealing government funds.
       Kristi Osborne, 66, who was a fiscal analyst at Frances Haddon Morgan Center, admitted to stealing $304,755 from three bank accounts she oversaw that held money belonging to the disabled residents and to the center.  When sentenced by U.S. District Judge Robert J. Bryan on March 30, 2012, she faces up to 10 years in prison.  Read full Kitsap Sun story.

Project LOCATE Program Aims to Help Find Missing, Vulnerable People
January 12, 2012
University Place Patch
You've seen the news reports all too often: someone with a developmental disability or a medical condition such as dementia or autism wanders away, and first responders and volunteers scour the area in a desperate search amid darkness, weather and other dangers. Local agencies in Pierce County are teaming up to support a system that reduces the search for the community's most vulnerable residents to a matter of minutes.
...Read full story

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