Roadmap for Change: Maine's Response to the Olmstead Decision
a report prepared by Maine’s Work Group for Community-Based Living

Preface
This Roadmap for Change was prepared by Maine’s Work Group for Community-Based Living in response to the 1999 Olmstead Supreme Court decision. The Olmstead decision, holding that unnecessary segregation of persons with disabilities is discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), requires States to administer their services, programs and activities in the “most integrated setting appropriate to the needs of qualified individuals with disabilities”. (footnote 1)

In February 2000, Maine’s Commissioner of the Department of Human Services partnered with fellow commissioners to establish the Work Group for Community-Based Living to develop an interdepartmental approach for ensuring that publicly funded services are provided to people with disabilities in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs and preferences. The Work Group, first convened in May 2000, consisted of persons with disabilities, parents and advocates, and representatives from the Maine Departments of Human Services, Behavioral and Developmental Services, Labor, Education and Corrections. Meeting monthly over a three-year period, the Work Group defined its procedures and goals, established planning priorities, reviewed Sub-Group reports, devised a public communications strategy to solicit public input, and prepared a final report, Roadmap for Change.

Early in the planning process, the Work Group agreed to a set of operating procedures that would provide a basis for moving forward. The Work Group decided, for example, not to limit its vision by lack of resources or to assign a permanent chair. The Work Group also recognized the importance of developing a common vocabulary, developing and adhering to procedures for making decisions (i.e., modified consensus), and building in a process-check for evaluating progress toward its goals. To ensure continuing and diverse participation, the Work Group was provided funds for consumers to attend meetings (i.e., stipends or travel reimbursement) and for various in-meeting accommodations.

To meet its goal of community integration, the Work Group identified core values and principles that would lay the foundation for the Roadmap, assessed service and infrastructure needs that would later be used to establish planning priorities, and identified three priority areas on which to focus attention:

Services—ensuring that persons with disabilities have access to health, mental health developmental, allied, and other supportive services needed to live in integrated settings.

Workforce—improving the quality and capacity of the direct care workforce charged with supporting people in integrated settings.

Service Coordination—making sure that State coordinates its services and programs to maximize responsiveness and flexibility.

These priorities and additional issues of concern (i.e., access to and availability of transportation, housing, and employment for people with disabilities) are addressed in the following reports:

• Advocacy, Self Advocacy, and Quality Monitoring
• Flexible Funding to Promote Integrated Services and Choice and Control
• Using Data to Make Sure Needed Services Are Funded
• Coordination of Services
• Improving Quality and Availability of Direct Care Workers
• Affordable, Appropriate, Integrated Housing
• Transportation Issues and Problems
• Barriers and Issues for Employment

Recommendations in the Roadmap for Change, derived from this series of reports, reflect the Work Group’s conviction that the following themes must underlie any comprehensive, integrated response to the Olmstead decision:

• Helping people control and deliver the services and supports they need.
• Supporting individuals in finding their voice and speaking for themselves.
• Organizing services around the person served.
• Creating a single, integrated system of coordinated services.
• Integrating access to services so that there is no wrong door into the system.
• Building standards for quality and accountability of services and evaluating quality on on-going basis.
• Improving access to and availability of transportation, housing, and jobs.

The Work Group for Community-Based Living submits its Roadmap for Change as an interdepartmental approach for improving home and community services for people with disabilities, and invites the State to join it in implementing the Work Group’s vision:

All of us together in community with equality in rights and dignity, in pursuit of happiness and fulfillment.