According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, people with intellectual or developmental disabilities are seven times more likely to be sexually assaulted or raped and the likelihood is 12 times greater for females.
Melissa Van Hook chairs the Arizona Developmental Disabilities Planning Council. During a Zoom call with educators, she talked about the challenges facing these families. What was discovered was that individuals and families are not receiving the information they needed to be safe as possible, she said. What makes things even harder for these families is that when some kids with disabilities get into their teen years, families feel like they re walking in the dark. They re struggling with balancing their wants, their loved ones needs for dating, and relationships, with also being over protective, at the same time that their youth are trying to seek some autonomy.
Erica McFadden is the executive director of the Arizona Developmental Disabilities Planning Council. Her group commissioned the report to understand what’s happening now and what are best practices when it comes to preventing sexual abuse. Researchers talked to families, law enforcement and providers. It looks like we are kind of where we were around the days of Hacienda. Now there is more awareness based on the responses; it looks like that the vendors are doing more training on abuse recognition.
But the biggest gap, she said, is making sure those living with disabilities and their families are trained to recognize and report it.
A Woman With Developmental Disabilities Was Abused in Arizona. The State Promised Changes. It Has Not Made Them Yet.
A woman with DD living in a state home was raped and had a baby. A task force was made to come up with changes to protect people like her. Most of those changes have not happened yet.
Jan. 20, 5 a.m. EST
This is Hacienda HealthCare. It is in Phoenix. This is where a woman with DD was raped. She had a baby here two years ago. (Matt York/AP)
Inside Arizona’s Division of Developmental Disabilities
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