MPR: D-D Blues Part 2: Minorities with Developmental Disabilities and the State Systems that Serve Them

D-D Blues Part 2: Minorities with Developmental Disabilities and the State Systems that Serve Them
April 1997

New statistics are fueling concern that the Minnesota system for people with mental retardation and other developmental disabilities does not serve minorities fairly. The report says minorities are admitted disproportionately to at least one state hospital, and are more likely than whites to be on waiting lists for more desirable home-care services. In part two of our series, Minnesota Public Radio's John Biewen reports the findings are consistent with those in other states.

In its study, the department of Human Services found 20% of recent admissions to the Cambridge regional treatment center were minorities. That's more than twice the minority population in the region of southeastern Minnesota, including the Twin Cities, that the Cambridge facility serves. 60% of all new admissions to the state hospital system are now going to Cambridge. Minnesota's other five state hospitals don't keep statistics by race. The DHS study also found that across the state, minorities with developmental disabilities are more likely than whites to be on waiting lists for community-based group homes or in-home services - the kind designed to keep people out of state hospitals. DFL State Senator Linda Berglin of Minneapolis, who asked for the report, says she finds its results disturbing.

Berglin: "This would tend to imply that minority persons at the county level are not being provided the services they need to stay in the community, which is the intention of the legislature, and secondly because of that they are being admitted to the regional treatment centers."

Laura Doyle of the state Human Services Department says the report indicates the state and county systems do need to reach out more effectively to minorities. But she says those working in the system are trying; the report found that minority children in Minnesota are more likely to be getting services for the developmentally disabled than are white kids.

Doyle: "And that may tell us that some of our outreach efforts, early intervention efforts, referrals from hospitals, are working better than they have in the past."

But State Senator Berglin says the higher presence of minority children in the system may not be good news. She says it might reflect that black, Hispanic and Indian children are more likely to live in poverty and thus be exposed to lead poisoning and other environmental factors that lead to developmental disabilities.

Berglin: "Kids literally have their IQ's robbed from them when they are exposed to high levels of lead. And I have cases in my district where children have literally become mentally retarded because of the environmental factors."

The report suggesting that minorities with developmental disabilities do not fare as well as whites in Minnesota is consistent with finding elsewhere. Studies in New York, Ohio, Tennessee, California and the national VA hospital system have turned up similar results. William Lawson is a professor of psychiatry at the University of Arkansas and author of several studies on the treatment of minorities with mental illness.

Lawson: "African American patients are more likely to be involuntarily admitted; more likely to be misdiagnosed, with a more severe diagnosis; more likely to receive higher doses of medication. And occasional studies have found, more likely to be put into seclusion and restraints."

Observers differ on whether to blame racism or more subtle factors, such as class and educational background. Luther Granquist is an attorney with the Minnesota Disability Law Center and a longtime crusader against institutionalization. He says the bureaucracy and limited funding of state programs means parents have to be skilled and aggressive advocates for their developmentally disabled children.

Granquist: "And many times the persons that are heard the best are the persons that come from a socioeconomic strata in which they are accustomed to dealing with the powers that be and they can get a better deal. That's a problem in all of our social service delivery systems."

Social service workers say there's a growing awareness that programs serving minorities need to be tailored to minority cultures. Hennepin County will now set up a group home, for example, designed to serve four mentally retarded black men, and staff it with African-American workers. Officials say that makes it more likely that the men will do well in the group home and won't have to be sent to a state hospital. Ella Gross used to be an advocate for the non-profit ARC of Hennepin County. She says she was so struck by the shortage of services for minorities that she started her own organization. The Institute for Minority Services in Minnesota contracts with Hennepin county to serve disabled minorities in the system. Gross says it's an uphill battle to convince poor, black families that they have a right to the same services white people get.

Gross: "One of the things that I always say to my parents, 'Make sure you think about this as if you were a white person, what would you want. Don't think of yourself coming in from the back door as an African-American, that you don't deserve it.'"

State Senator Linda Berglin says she intends to meet with state officials, and may write legislation to address the disparate treatment of minorities with disabilities.

Part 1 - Part 2

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