A History of the Deinstitutioalization of Willowbook in New York State
In New York State, currently, homes in the community for individuals who are developmentally disabled are a way of life.
It wasn't always that way.
These articles will provide the reader with a glimpse of the beginning of the movement out of the institutions and into the community.
To know history is to have a better understanding of the future.
The thrust of these articles will be on the 1970s and the early 1980s as those were the years of Class Action Litigation against the State of New York and the Willowbrook State School on Staten Island, New York, a large institution housing, at the time, over 7,000 mentally retarded and developmentally disabled residents.
The post-1975 years were also the years of large scale deinstitutionalization, an exodus of individuals who were mentally retarded from Willowbrook to the community where they would now live and attend programs.
A brief general review of the pre-1970 years will add to an understanding of the events preceding the call for deinstitutionalization.
Public residential facilities for people who were mentally and or developmentally disabled were over-crowded, under staffed and inadequately financed.
The maintenance cost per resident ranged from approximately three dollars to twelve dollars per day Almost all of the state institutions were well over their capacities and most individuals employed in these institutions were non-professionals, and many units were locked.
Even in Willowbrook State School, where there were no walls around the buildings, there were locked doors and residents lacked purposeful programming In the early 1970s a group of parents of children who were residing at Willowbrook State School, Staten Island, New York, together with the New York State Association of Retarded Children, brought Class Action Litigation against the Governor of the State of New York, the Commissioner of the Department of Mental Hygiene, which operated Willowbrook, and several other high State officials claiming that the residents of Willowbrook State School were being denied their Constitutional Rights under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
Subsequently, the case was brought to trial, but, before the trial was completed, the plaintiffs and the defendants agreed to a Consent Judgment now known as the Willowbrook Consent Decree (1973).
The Consent Decree specifically spelled out the standards and procedures necessary to obtain the residents' Constitutional Rights and protect them from harm.
Besides calling for sweeping changes within Willowbrook State School, the Willowbrook Consent Decree was instrumental in providing the impetus for the New York State Deinstitutionalization Process which has led to the establishment of hundreds of homes for retarded and developmentally disabled individuals in communities throughout the State.
It wasn't always that way.
These articles will provide the reader with a glimpse of the beginning of the movement out of the institutions and into the community.
To know history is to have a better understanding of the future.
The thrust of these articles will be on the 1970s and the early 1980s as those were the years of Class Action Litigation against the State of New York and the Willowbrook State School on Staten Island, New York, a large institution housing, at the time, over 7,000 mentally retarded and developmentally disabled residents.
The post-1975 years were also the years of large scale deinstitutionalization, an exodus of individuals who were mentally retarded from Willowbrook to the community where they would now live and attend programs.
A brief general review of the pre-1970 years will add to an understanding of the events preceding the call for deinstitutionalization.
Public residential facilities for people who were mentally and or developmentally disabled were over-crowded, under staffed and inadequately financed.
The maintenance cost per resident ranged from approximately three dollars to twelve dollars per day Almost all of the state institutions were well over their capacities and most individuals employed in these institutions were non-professionals, and many units were locked.
Even in Willowbrook State School, where there were no walls around the buildings, there were locked doors and residents lacked purposeful programming In the early 1970s a group of parents of children who were residing at Willowbrook State School, Staten Island, New York, together with the New York State Association of Retarded Children, brought Class Action Litigation against the Governor of the State of New York, the Commissioner of the Department of Mental Hygiene, which operated Willowbrook, and several other high State officials claiming that the residents of Willowbrook State School were being denied their Constitutional Rights under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
Subsequently, the case was brought to trial, but, before the trial was completed, the plaintiffs and the defendants agreed to a Consent Judgment now known as the Willowbrook Consent Decree (1973).
The Consent Decree specifically spelled out the standards and procedures necessary to obtain the residents' Constitutional Rights and protect them from harm.
Besides calling for sweeping changes within Willowbrook State School, the Willowbrook Consent Decree was instrumental in providing the impetus for the New York State Deinstitutionalization Process which has led to the establishment of hundreds of homes for retarded and developmentally disabled individuals in communities throughout the State.
