Children's Freedom Initiative

2022

The Children?s Freedom Initiative: In the spring of 2005, the Georgia General Assembly passed House Resolution 633. This legislation urges the Georgia Department of Human Resources, The Department of Community Health, the Department of Education, The Department of Labor, and the Department of Juvenile Justice to work together to provide the General Assembly with a plan (that can be put into effect within the next five years) that will provide home and community-based care for all Georgian?s with disabilities who have not yet reached the age of 22. These agencies are being asked to develop this plan with special consideration for the more than 150 children and youth who currently living in nursing homes and state hospitals and for those who are currently on Georgia?s waiting list for disability services. The Institute on Human Development and Disability/UCEDD is one of the five organizations that proposed HR 633 (the other four are: Governor's Council on DD, the Georgia Advocacy Office, People First of Georgia, and the Statewide Independent Living Network) This parntership has joined forces under the Children?s Freedom Initiative. This initiative was formed to make sure that children now living in nursing homes and institutions are placed with permanent families and to ensure that ?in the future no child will be institutionalized.? The mission of the Children?s Freedom Initiative reflects the understanding that children belong with loving families ? not in facilities. We know that, without the influence of stable and supportive family and community-based supports, children often experience delays in physical, emotional, and social development and are at greater risk for abuse, and neglect. When families struggle to meet the needs of their children with disabilities and turn to state agencies for assistance, there must be a plan in place that acknowledges the importance of families. The priority should always be care and assistance that enables the child to grow and thrive in the nurturing arms of a family ? either the child?s biological family or with a loving adoptive or foster family. Any other alternative will compromise the child?s development and will perpetuate the idea that children with disabilities are unwanted and unvalued. Through this effort we hope that legislators and others will come to understand that value and quality of life are not dependent upon ability but upon the love and the sense of family and community that we all share. The fact that children are now being housed (for years) in nursing homes and hospitals contradicts the value that we place both upon the family and upon the value and quality of human life.

Children Nursing Homes State Hospitals

Performing Research or Evaluation, Developing & Disseminating Information

Quality Assurance, Quality of Life

Students/Trainees (long or intermediate trainees), Professionals and Para-Professionals, Family Members/Caregivers, Children/Adolescents with Disabilities/SHCN, Legislators/Policy Makers, General Public

Racial or Ethnic Minorities, Disadvantaged Circumstances, Specific Groups

State

N/A