What will it take for people to realize that human sex trafficking children and adults always leads to murder and crimes against all of humanity?
It's about crimes against humanity.
It's about genocide.
Stop saying these murderers are only after the children.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1702406/NHS-hospital-rape-sex-assault-figures-patients-visitors-staff-Wes-Streeting
A troubled western Iowa institution for people with severe disabilities will be closed over the next two years, state leaders announced.
The Glenwood Resource Center is home to 152 Iowa adults with deep intellectual disabilities, including some caused by severe autism or brain injuries. Many of the residents also have physical disabilities. Some have lived there for decades, and many of their families have said they shouldn't have to leave.
The southwest Iowa facility is one of two state institutions that provide residential care for people with intellectual disabilities. The other is the Woodward Resource Center in central Iowa, which is to remain open under the new plan announced Thursday.
“While necessary, the decision to close the Glenwood Resource Center is a difficult one that I take very seriously," Gov. Kim Reynolds said in a joint news release with legislative leaders. "For many residents, it’s the only home they’ve ever known. I am fully committed to a seamless and successful transition of care for them, their families and the staff at Glenwood.”
The facilities are run by the Iowa Department of Human Services, whose director, Kelly Garcia, assured residents' families in December 2021 that there was no plan to close either institution anytime soon. Garcia said at the time that the mission of the two facilities would shift to focusing on temporary, intensive services for Iowans who lived most of the time in smaller placements in their communities.
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/health/2022/04/07/glenwood-resource-center-iowa-closing-disabilities-dhs-investigation-experiments-abuse/9498913002/
But Thursday's news release suggested the closure decision was partly based on the state's struggle to attract and retain enough staff in the rural southwest region, especially with federal officials' demand that services there improve.
"Continued operation of the Glenwood Resource Center has become untenable," Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver, R-Ankeny, said in the release.
Earlier:Severely disabled Iowans are dying at a state-run institution. Staff say care has declined, while the state defends its care.
The institution has been plagued by scandal for years. In 2019, the Des Moines Register reported that frontline staffers blamed inadequate medical care for a spike in deaths among the facility's fragile residents. Jerry Foxhoven, who was the state's human services director, denied there was any problem. But he subsequently was ousted from his job, as were the Glenwood Resource Center's superintendent and In addition to the allegations of poor medical care, former managers accused the facility's ex-superintendent of organizing unethical "sexual arousal" research on residents.
Previously:DOJ investigating allegations of 'sexual arousal studies' at Iowa facility for people with disabilities
The U.S. Department of Justice launched an investigation into the controversy. In December 2020, federal investigators determined the institution appeared to have violated its residents' civil rights by denying sufficient medical care and exposing them to unethical experimentation.
The Department of Justice later declared that Iowa relies too heavily on institutional care for people with disabilities. Federal and state officials have been negotiating legal settlements to address both of those contentions.
Glenwood families are overwhelmed, stunned by news of planned closure In 2020, Garcia launched a renewed effort to find community placements for people in the two state institutions, but she said any such moves would be voluntary.
Sybil Finken, whose son, Seth, is a longtime resident of the Glenwood institution, said she was devastated by Thursday's news.
"They're putting all of these disabled people out of their safe place. It's the worst thing that could happen," she said in a phone interview.
Seth Finken, 42, has lived at the institution since 1984. He suffered severe brain damage from meningitis he had when he was a baby and was left deaf, blind and non-verbal. Sybil Finken contends he is among a minority of people with disabilities who need the kind of extensive, around-the-clock care provided in an institution.
Finken said she had figured the Glenwood Resource Center might be closed someday. "But I didn't think it would happen so soon," she said. "It's just overwhelming."
She said she planned to attend a townhall meeting Saturday with Department of Human Services leaders.
Former Glenwood Resource Center manager Kathy King said she was stunned by Thursday's news of its planned closure. She said DHS officials, including Garcia, had repeatedly assured people in Glenwood that the facility would remain open, even as its mission evolved. She said such a pledge was repeated in a meeting in February.
Shortly after she retired four years ago, King became a public critic of the poor medical care and unethical research being done under the Glenwood Resource Center's former superintendent, Jerry Rea. She is one of several former managers suing the state over what they say were their dismissals or forced departures related to their questioning of how the facility was being run.
King is the legal guardian of a resident at the Glenwood Resource Center, and she has said conditions seemed to improve after the former superintendent and DHS director were replaced. But she said Thursday that she should have known a merger was in the offing when the state decided to have Woodward Resource Center Superintendent Marsha Edgington run both facilities instead of hiring a replacement for Rea.
"I should have seen the writing on the wall," said King, who was a state employee for 43 years. "I feel blindsided and stupid."
Advocates for Iowans with disabilities have applauded efforts to rely less heavily on institutional care, but they also have noted a severe shortage of direct care workers to assist people with disabilities in their homes or other community settings. Legislators are moving to increase Medicaid spending to raise pay for those workers, in hopes to ease the shortage.
Earlier:Can a $3 raise help recruit more caregivers for Iowans with disabilities?
The two institutions have a total of nearly 1,200 state jobs, which make them major employers in the small towns where they’re located. Their annual budgets total nearly $144 million in federal and state money. State leaders said Thursday they would aim to ease the burden of the closure on the Glenwood area, which is in southwest Iowa's Mills County.
Iowa Democrats say Republican leaders failed to run Glenwood Resource Center
The two-year phaseout timeline for the Glenwood Resource Center is more gradual than the process Iowa used to shutter state mental hospitals in Clarinda and Mount Pleasant in 2015. That process was completed in a matter of months, and three former longtime patients of the facilities died soon after being transferred to nursing homes with poor quality ratings, a Des Moines Register investigation found.
Iowa Democratic legislative leaders released a statement on Twitter Thursday saying the transition of Glenwood Resource Center residents must be handled more carefully than the ones from the Clarinda and Mount Pleasant facilities were. The Democrats, Sen. Zach Wahls of Coralville and Rep. Jennifer Konfrst of Windsor Heights, called Thursday "a devastating day for the residents, families, employees and everyone who calls Glenwood home."
Wahls and Konfrst blamed Thursday's news on the Republicans controlling state government.
"This decision became inevitable because of years of indifference and neglect shown to the Glenwood community by Gov. Reynolds and Republican lawmakers," the Democrats' statement said.
Center employees to be offered bonuses
Department of Human Services spokesman Matt Highland said the Glenwood Resource Center is authorized to employ about 716 fulltime workers. The state jobs are an important part of the economy in the town of 5,000 residents.
All residents of the facility are to be transferred to the Woodward Resource Center or to community placements by June 30, 2024, according to a timeline Highland provided. Glenwood Resource Center employees will be offered bonuses of up to $12,000 to remain on their jobs during the transition.
Many other states have closed some or all such institutions in recent decades, amid a national move away from institutional care for people with disabilities. Iowa has steadily trimmed the number of people living in the Glenwood and Woodward Resource Center.