LITTLE ROCK — The mothers of two residents of the Conway Human Development Center testified Monday as a federal trial focusing on the residents’ care shifted to the state to defend itself against allegations brought by the Department of Justice.
The state also called an expert witness to testify before Chief U.S. District Judge Leon Holmes, who is presiding over the nonjury trial that began Sept. 8 and is expected to last three more weeks.
One of the mothers was Melissa Catron, a registered nurse from Cabot whose 19-year-old son has lived at the center for a little more than four years.
She testified that her son, who is severely mentally retarded and has cerebral palsy, received care from community providers before becoming too unmanageable, necessitating his admittance to the center just before his 15th birthday.
Catron said she enrolled the boy in public schools in Sherwood when he was 5. But by the age of 8, she said, he was becoming violent with his teachers, aides and others, forcing her to sometimes leave her full-time job for three or four days at a time to care for him.
An aide supplied through the Medicaid waiver program started coming over after school to take care of him, Catron said, but “she wasn’t dependable.”
She said more than one aide “didn’t seem trained to take care of a severely disabled child, as I would think they would be.”
Her son was 12 when he began attending an alternative school for disabled children in Heber Springs, Catron said, explaining, “He didn’t tolerate being around normal children. The older he got, the worse it got. He would hit, kick, punch and pull hair.”
As he got older, he also got stronger, Catron testified.
“It took both my husband and me to keep him under control in a doctors’ waiting room,” she said. “We usually came out battered from a doctor’s appointment,” with nicks and bite wounds.
Driving with him in the car also became impossible, she said.
“He would get out of his seat belt and into the front seat and grab my arms. ... I just couldn’t take it anymore.”
Noting that her son’s condition only worsened despite receiving treatment and services from various community programs since he was just a baby, she said she was faced with whether to institutionalize him at the Conway center.
“I didn’t want to do it,” she said, but “I had to do something with him.” The boy takes an anti-psychotic drug, another drug that controls the first drug’s side effects, and a third drug that controls his behavior. Catron said that center staff continued the medicines he was already taking, and while doctors there have made efforts over the years to reduce his reliance on the drugs, those efforts haven’t been successful.
She testified that she attends regular meetings at the center with his team of specialists and is actively involved in his treatment. If he injures himself or someone else, she said, she’s always readily notified.
Catron testified that she and her husband can see their son at any time, and that they sometimes take him to the park or to his grandmother’s house.
“I’m happy with where he is. I’ve been thrilled with it,” she told the judge. “I really don’t think he’d get what he needs out in the community. ... Everything he needs is right there.”
Initially, she said, “I wanted him to stay home. I wanted him to be in the community, but he just doesn’t tolerate it.”
In a lawsuit filed in 2009, the Justice Department contends that the state-run center, which houses about 500 developmentally disabled children and adults, tends to keep its residents “institutionalized” rather than helping them work toward more independence and a better quality of life out in the community.
The Justice Department wants Holmes to order the state to better comply with federal law, which requires the disabled to be housed and educated in the “least restrictive environment” possible. The department says the restrictions, as well as the center’s reliance on outdated restraints, violates the residents’ civil rights.
Catron and other parents, however, worry what will happen to their children if the case results in the center being shuttered.
Catron testified that her son has had several medical emergencies at the center “that they’ve been right on top of.”
Most of all, she said, “He seems happy there. He seems to belong there. ... They seem to care about the kids, so I’m thrilled.”
Holmes also heard from Earline Stoddard of Bryant,who is also a nurse and has a severely disabled son who can’t talk living at the center.
Stoddard testified that she’s very hands-on about her son’s treatment at the center and that center staff allow her involvement.
She said she’s confident that center staff would tell her if they become aware of a place in the community that would accommodate him, “but I’d go investigate.”
She said her son has improved significantly in responding to stimuli since she agreed to let doctors at the center implant a stimulator in him.
Until his father died a few months ago, Stoddard said, her son came home at least once a month, and she would take him places, such as the state fair. She said she knows the center’s staff also take him places.
“It’s important for me to know that the people caring for him love him,” Stoddard testified.
She said she can “see the adoration in his eyes” when he looks at certain staff members, particularly one he regards as a father figure.
“I’ve always been satisfied with the care there,” Stoddard told the judge. “He’s been there all these years. They have a special love for him that you can see.
On cross-examination by Matthew Donnelly, an attorney for the Justice Department, Stoddard said that before her son was admitted to the Conway center, she checked but, “there was nothing available in the community.”
“In my investigation, I’ve never found another place that really could do it, and have all the other things that they provide in Conway,” she said.
The trial continues at 9 a.m. today in Holmes’ Little Rock courtroom.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 09/28/2010