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Resources and References
Document Americans with Disabilities Act Overview - A description of the Americans with Disabilities Act. 
Other Topics: Civil Rights  Employment  Government and Governmental Services  Technology 
Contributor: WV DDC
Document Analysis of State Statutes on Advance Directives - There is increasing interest among people with mental illness and their clinicians and service providers that advance health care planning may enable individuals to have greater control of their treatment, may provide important information to guide health care providers to make treatment decisions, may reduce the need for formal court adjudications of treatment, and may reduce the costs associated with involuntary care. Likewise, it has been argued that use of written advance directive instruments may have significant therapeutic value and function as an important "safety valve" for difficult treatment and legal issues. However, advance written health care directives are not without significant limitations and are uniquely products of state law. 
Other Topics: Advance Directives  Community Services  Health Care 
Contributor: WVDDC
Document Competency to Vote - Analyzing a Challenge Based on Lack of Mental Competence to Vote 
Other Topics: Elections  Voting 
Contributor: WVDDC
Document Deaf Rights in Mental Health Facilities - Facilities which receive any federal money, either directly or through a state agency, must comply with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, 29 U.S.C. sec 794. Section 504 requires that federal financial recipients' programs be equally accessible to handicapped persons. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) regulations to Section 504 require provision of necessary auxiliary aids, such as sign language interpreters, to ensure equal access to these programs.  
Other Topics: Facility Based Services  Rehab Act  Americans with Disabilities Act 
Contributor: WVDDC
Document Deaf Rights in inpatient health care facilities - Inpatient health care facilities have important responsibilities under federal law to be accessible to deaf and hard of hearing individuals. Failing to provide interpreters and adapted equipment may be discrimination on the basis of disability. In addition, failure to establish effective communication with a deaf patient may expose a health care provider to liability for medical malpractice. 
Other Topics: Facility Based Services  Health Care  Americans with Disabilities Act  Rehab Act 
Contributor: WVDDC
Document Emergency Department Treatment of the Psychiatric Patient - A discussion of the legal requirements and policy discussions for the treatment of individuals with mental illness in emergency rooms. 
Other Topics: Health  Community Services 
Contributor: WVDDC
Document FAQs for Persons With Mental Illness - If you or a friend or a loved one must deal with mental illness issues, you may have many questions. This 26 page booklet from the LAWV Behavioral Health Advocacy Project covers a wide range of topics: "Individual Rights," "Getting Legal Help," "Psychiatric Advance Directives" and many more.  
Other Topics: Brochures 
Document FQA - Employment and Mental Illness - Frequently asked questions about protections against employment discrimination and people with mental illness.  
Other Topics: Community Services  Other ADA 
Contributor: WVDDC
Document Federal Disability Laws - An overview of Federal Disability Laws 
Other Topics: Civil Rights  Employment  Technology  Education 
Contributor: WVDCC
Document Guide to Your Mental Health Treatment Plan - Brochure - PDF brochure published by West Virginia Advocates. This is a guide for mental health consumers for developing their treatment plan, and explains legal rights and protections in that process. 
Other Topics: Brochures  Facility Based Services 
Document Handling Your Psychiatric Disability in Work and School - Link to an interactive and informative web site for people with a psychiatric condition. The site addresses issues and reasonable accommodations related to work and school. This is the only site designed exclusively to provide information about the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and other employment and education issues for people with psychiatric disabilities.  
Other Topics: Americans with Disabilities Act  Discrimination 
Document Help America Vote Act - Text of the Act 
Other Topics: Civil Rights  Elections  Voting Rights Act  Voting 
Contributor: WVDDC
Document Information about Alzheimer's Disease - The Alzheimer's Association, West Virginia chapter, created this brochure about Alzheimer's Disease, the programs offered by the Association, and how to contact the Association. 
Other Topics: Other Health  Nursing homes 
Document Links and Information about Disabilities - Web page with a vast array of web sites with information about disabilities. This is maintained by the International Center for Disability Information, at West Virginia University. 
Other Topics: Self Advocacy Tools 
Document Monitoring Residential Facilities Serving Adults with Mental Illness - There is little national information on the policies and procedures used by States to regulate residential treatment facilities for adults with mental illness. As a result, policymakers and program administrators face major difficulties in determining both the effectiveness of current policies and the potential need for new policies that are responsive to emerging trends in mental health care. Based on a survey of State officials, this report provides the most accurate national data available concerning methods that States use to license, regulate, and monitor residential facilities for adults with mental illness. The information in this report can help Federal and State policymakers improve procedures for monitoring quality of care provided in these facilities. 
Other Topics: Facility Based Services 
Contributor: WVDDC
Document Monitoring Residential Facilities for Children with MI - There is little national information on the policies and procedures used by States to regulate residential treatment facilities for children with mental illness. As a result, policymakers and program administrators face major difficulties in determining both the effectiveness of current policies and the potential need for new policies that are responsive to emerging trends in child mental health care. Based on a survey of State officials, this report provides the most accurate national data available concerning methods that States use to license and regulate residential facilities for children with mental illness. The information in this report can help Federal and State policymakers improve procedures for monitoring the quality of care provided in these facilities. 
Other Topics: Facility Based Services 
Contributor: WVDDC
Document Monitoring Residential Facilities for Children with MI - There is little national information on the policies and procedures used by States to regulate residential treatment facilities for children with mental illness. As a result, policymakers and program administrators face major difficulties in determining both the effectiveness of current policies and the potential need for new policies that are responsive to emerging trends in child mental health care. Based on a survey of State officials, this report provides the most accurate national data available concerning methods that States use to license and regulate residential facilities for children with mental illness. The information in this report can help Federal and State policymakers improve procedures for monitoring the quality of care provided in these facilities. 
Other Topics: Facility Based Services 
Contributor: WVDDC
Document Psychiatric Advance Directives and Treatment of Committed Patients - Advance directives have been one of the more promising innovations in recent years to give patients a greater voice in their psychiatric treatment. Completed when patients are competent, advance directives allow patients to appoint proxy decision makers and to make choices about particular treatments, all to take effect should patients later become incompetent to make decisions for themselves. Advance directives have been hailed as a way of encouraging patients and treaters to discuss future contingencies and to negotiate mutually acceptable approaches to care. All states have statutes that govern the use of advance directives, which can be applied to general medical and psychiatric care, and many states now have special provisions for advance directives for psychiatric care per se. 
Other Topics: Health Care  Commitment Procedures  Right to Refuse Treatment  Other Mental Health 
Contributor: WVDDC
Document Removing Barriers to Voting - Removing Barriers to Voting for People with Mental Disabilities 
Other Topics: Elections  Voting 
Contributor: WVDDC
Document Report on Litigation on Community Services for People with Disabilities - concerning home and community services for people with disabilities. Many lawsuits challenge state poli-cies that limit access to Medicaid home and commu-nity services. Others aim at securing community ser-vices in the most integrated setting for institutionalized persons as provided by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Still others challenge state policies that prevent individuals with disabilities from accessing the full range of community services. This periodic report tracks the status of lawsuits that revolve around home and community services for people with disabilities. We caution that the report is not necessarily inclusive of all lawsuits in this arena. 
Other Topics: Health Care  Community Services 
Contributor: WVDDC
Document Resources for Adults with Disabilities - Link to a web page maintained by the WV Developmental Disabilities Council, with a long list of organizations and agencies that provide services that could benefit adults with disabilities. 
Other Topics: Self Advocacy Tools 
Document Resources for Children with Disabilities - Link to a web page maintained by the WV Developmental Disabilities Council, with a long list of organizations and agencies that provide services that could benefit children with disabilities. 
Other Topics: Self Advocacy Tools 
Document Right to a Qualified Sign Language Interpreter - Description of patient right to a qualified sign language interpreter when seeking medical services. 
Other Topics: Civil Rights  Health  Technology  Health Care  Americans with Disabilities Act 
Contributor: WVDCC
Document Voting Rights of People Under Guardianship - A discussion of the voting rights of people under different levels of guardianship. 
Other Topics: Elections  Voting 
Contributor: WVDDC
Document Web site - ADA Hot Links and Document Center - Deep and extensive set of resources about the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA). Articles, web sites, text of statutes and regulations, accessibility standards, and much more. Maintained by the Job Accommodation Network (JAN) housed at West Virginia University. 
Other Topics: Americans with Disabilities Act 
Document Web site - Consumer Organization and Networking Technical Assistance Center - CONTAC is a resource center for consumers and consumer-run organizations. The West Virginia Mental Health Consumer’s Association, Inc. (WVMHCA) provides services as a national consumer-run technical assistance center, created to strengthen and support consumer networks, to identify technical assistance needs and implement related strategies for diverse consumer groups, and to encourage relationship building through its Consumer Organization and Networking Technical Assistance Center (CONTAC).  
Other Topics:
Document Web site - NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness - NAMI (the National Alliance on Mental Illness) is the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to improving the lives of persons living with serious mental illness and their families. Founded in 1979, NAMI has become the nation’s voice on mental illness, a national organization including NAMI organizations in every state and in over 1100 local communities across the country who join together to meet the NAMI mission through advocacy, research, support, and education.  
Document Web site - National Assistive Technology Advocacy Project - The National Assistive Technology Funding Link supports the advocacy efforts of attorneys, advocates, service agencies, persons with disabilities and their families as they seek funding for AT services and devices.  
Other Topics: Assistive Technology 
Document Web site - National Association for Rights Protection and Advocacy - NARPA is an independent organization, solely supported by its members. It is a unique mix of people who've survived psychiatric intervention, advocates, civil rights activists, mental health workers, and lawyers. NARPA exists to expose abuse, to shed light on coercive and dangerous practices, and to promote real alternatives to a mental health system that even professionals find disgraceful.  
Document Web site - National Mental Health Consumers Self-Help Clearinghouse - The National Mental Health Consumers' Self-Help Clearinghouse, the nation's first national consumer technical assistance center, has played a major role in the development of the mental health consumer movement. They "help connect individuals to self-help and advocacy resources, and offer expertise to self-help groups and other peer-run services for mental health consumers." 
Document Web site - National Mental Health Information Center - A rich resource of mental health programs, services, resources and information. Maintained by the "Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration" of the US Department of Health & Human Services. 
Other Topics: Disability 
Document Web site - Organizations providing assistance - Listing from the CONTAC web site, of national organizations providing technical assistance or advocacy on behavioral health issues  
Document Web site - WV Developmental Disabilities Council - The WV Developmental Disabilities Council is a 32 member organization established by the Governor of WV in 1972. The Council’s mission is to assure that West Virginians with developmental disabilities receive the services, supports and opportunities they need to achieve independence, productivity, integration and inclusion into the community of their choice. This web site contains a wide variety of resources, links, and information for people with disabilities, and especially developmental disabilities. 
Other Topics: Disability 
Document Web site - West Virginia Advocates (WVA) - West Virginia Advocates is a statewide network of advocates, assisting individuals and families. WVA provides information, referral and technical assistance on legal, civil and service rights to people with disabilities and their families, friends, advocates, guardians and representatives, service and support providers, and the public. WVA provides direct advocacy, including negotiation, mediation, investigation and legal representation in individual or class actions, to selected eligible people whose problems meet WVA priorities and case selection criteria. WVA provides education and training for individuals, groups, private and public organizations, elected and appointed officials, and other policymakers regarding the legal, civil and service rights of people with disabilities.  
Other Topics: Disability  Community Programs 
Document Web site - database of service agencies in WV - Compiled by Mountain State Center for Independent Living. Click here for an on-line database of hundreds of agencies (governmental and private, statewide and local) offering all types of services: food banks, homeless shelters, family counseling, medical and health care, and much much more. Searchable by type of service; or by county; or by using a word search. 
Other Topics: Government and Governmental Services  Other  Self Advocacy Tools 
 
Forms
Document Uniform Forensic Court Orders - State - Link to web page of the WV DHHR Bureau for Behavioral Health and Health Facilities. Provides eleven form orders for use by courts in cases involving criminal case defendants who may be alleged to have impaired mental health. This page lists the form orders, which can be downloaded in Adobe Acrobat format. 
Other Topics: Commitment Procedures 

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