Intellectual Disabilities Protections
Texas Law
- Provides that facility residents with intellectual disabilities have the right to medical and dental treatment, fair compensation for labor, humane physical environment, communication, and visitation. Residents also have the right to own personal property and the right to due process of the law in issues of guardianship.
- Provides that individuals with intellectual disabilities have the right to live at home or in residential facilities where they can receive training toward the goal of reaching their maximum potential in the least confining manner.
- Provides for protection from exploitation and abuse of individuals with intellectual disabilities.
- Provides individuals with intellectual disabilities the right to participate in all areas of planning.
- Prohibits the use of certain restraints and seclusion techniques and provides whistleblower protections.
- Provides requirements for managing and maintaining a state-supported living center and provides criminal penalties for abuse and non-compliance.
- Provides for a missing person alert, known as an Endangered Missing Person alert, when a person with an intellectual disability is missing.
- Provides rules limiting the use of mechanical restraints in state supported living centers.
- Provides for criminal history record-keeping and reporting standards on people who have been accused of abusing a person who has a disability.
- Allows the Department of Protectice and Family Services to use an emergency order to provide protective services to an elderly person or a person with a disability who is unable to consent to these services.
- Makes the deliberate false accusation of abuse of an elderly person or a person with a disability a Class A misdemeanor.
- Requires representatives of the Department of Aging and Disability Services (DADS) to counsel individuals with intellectual disabilities about all available options for care, including options that allow the individuals to stay within their communities.
- Authorizes workers in care facilities who are not licensed health care professionals to administer medicine to a person with an intellectual disability under limited circumstances.
Texas Statutes
Contact
Relevant Federal Laws
- Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act:
Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on Developmental Disabilities
- (202) 690-6590