2021 Priorities
Promotion of Racial and Social Justice Outreach and Advocacy
NDALC will understand the intersectionality of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and gender identity and expression in the lives of individuals with disabilities, and the agency will promote racial and social justice in all its outreach and advocacy services.
NDALC sets annual service priorities based on input from individuals with disabilities, their families and members of the disability community at large. In August of every year, NDALC collects input and public comments about our current and future service priorities. If you would like to give your input, please email your request to admin@ndalc.org to be placed on our mailing list for future Priorities surveys.
NDALC may assist individuals who meet the statutory eligibility criteria for its protection and advocacy programs and whose complaints or problems fall under NDALC’s current service priorities.
Abuse and Neglect
Goal: Reduce or eliminate instances of abuse and neglect among people with traumatic brain injuries, developmental disabilities and/or mental illness.
Priority 1: Investigate cases of alleged seclusion and restraint against persons with developmental disabilities and/or mental illness in public and private facilities.
Priority 2: Ensure the investigation of reported deaths of persons with developmental disabilities and/or mental illness in public and private facilities.
Priority 3: Monitor facilities, group homes, supported living arrangements and community-based living arrangements where persons with traumatic brain injury, developmental disabilities and/or mental illness reside.
Assistive Technology
Goal: Children and adults with disabilities will have access to services and to assistive technology.
Priority 1: Ensure consumer choice is considered when selecting assistive technology.
Priority 2: Ensure appropriate assistive technology is provided to transition age students.
Client Assistance Program
Goal: Assist people with disabilities in resolving problems they are experiencing with Nevada’s federally funded rehabilitation programs.
Priority 1: NDALC will advocate for applicants or clients of the Bureau of Vocational Rehabilitation.
Priority 2: NDALC will advocate for applicants or clients of the Bureau of Services to the Blind/Visually Impaired.
Priority 3: NDALC will advocate for applicants or clients of Independent Living program services.
Priority 4: NDALC will provide information on vocational rehabilitation services or Title I of the ADA.
Protection & Advocacy for Voting Access
Goal: People with disabilities will be educated about their voting rights; barriers to voting will be eliminated.
Individual Rights
Goal: People with disabilities will have their rights protected.
Priority 1: Accept cases of alleged denial of rights of individuals with disabilities by care and treatment service providers.
Priority 2: Provide self-advocacy training and resource materials about personal rights; including supported decision making and psychiatric advanced directives.
Priority 3: NDALC will assess the needs of children/adolescents with disabilities in the juvenile justice system.
Community Integration
Goal: People with disabilities will live in the community of their choice with the supports they need for successful integration.
Priority 1: Assist people with disabilities to remain in the least restrictive environment possible.
Priority 2: Assist people with disabilities to move from an institutional placement to living in the community, including children returning from out-of-state residential treatment centers.
Priority 3: Ensure access to adequate community-based treatment and services for people with disabilities.
Priority 4: Ensure appropriate discharge planning by state and private facilities that provide care for persons with disabilities.
Developmental Disabilities Partners
Goal: NDALC will support the activities of the Developmental Disability partners in the State of Nevada.
Priority: NDALC will collaborate with the Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities and the Nevada Center for Excellence in Disabilities on activities that support persons with developmental disabilities.
Representative Payee Project
Goal: NDALC will conduct representative payee reviews and educational visits to ensure payees are using benefits properly on behalf of beneficiaries and are carrying out the representative payee responsibilities and duties correctly.
Disability Discrimination
Goal: Public entities and places of public accommodation will not discriminate on the basis of disability in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.
Priority 1: Identify and address instances of alleged illegal discrimination by a place of public accommodation or by a state or local government entity.
Priority 2: Ensure individuals with disabilities have access to transportation services; including paratransit services.
Health Care
Goal: Persons with disabilities will have increased access to the health care services they need.
Priority 1: Address systemic issues in the Medicaid program that decrease access to services to individuals with disabilities.
Priority 2: Ensure access to Health Care coverage and services, including managed care, for people with disabilities.
Priority 3: Provide information to individuals with disabilities about health care rights during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Education
Goal: Students with developmental disabilities in Nevada will have access to quality special education services.
Priority 1: Accept cases of students with developmental disabilities where eligibility, discipline, programming, and/or placement issues seriously threaten the provision of a free appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment.
Priority 2: Ensure appropriate transition services are provided to students.
Employment
Goal: Social Security beneficiaries will obtain or retain employment.
Priority 1: Reduce barriers to employment for beneficiaries of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI).
Priority 2: Provide individual and systemic advocacy to ensure eligible transition age students with disabilities have access to vocational rehabilitation services and employment supports.
Priority 3: Promote integrated and competitive wage employment for persons with developmental disabilities.
Protection & Advocacy for Individuals with Mental Illness Advisory Council
Goal: NDALC will support the activities of the Advisory Council.
Work Incentives Planning and Assistance
Goal: Social Security beneficiaries will be able to make informed choices about work and will be able to successfully transition to self-sufficiency.
Priority 1: Provide information about work incentives and/or referral to other agencies or employment networks.
Priority 2: Provide benefits analysis and explanations of work incentives.
Priority 3: Provide work incentives planning including development of customized Work Incentives Plans that will assist beneficiaries in becoming self-sufficient.
Priority 4: Provide periodic benefits management, adjustments, and information to assist in maintaining work and moving toward self-sufficiency.
Fiscal Year PRIORITIES
NDALC Case Selection Criteria
- The applicant must meet the program eligibility guidelines
and the legal problems must fall within an objective or
priority for services. - Services will be provided only to persons whose legal
problems are related to their status as an individual with a
disability, whose legal problems are susceptible to
resolution by NDALC staff, and whose claims have legal
merit. - Services will generally only be provided to individuals
whose problems cannot be solved through self-advocacy or
by other individuals, agencies, attorneys or organizations. - While NDALC will provide direct legal representation to
individual clients, legal issues that are systemic in nature
will receive priority. - The demand for NDALC services exceeds the available
resources, and the agency must plan its activities in a
strategic manner to effectively utilize its limited resources.
Therefore, NDALC may decline to provide direct advocacy
assistance even in situations where a case may be within
the priorities and meet case acceptance criteria. - NDALC resolves disputes whenever possible through non-adversarial means such as negotiation, mediation,
conciliation, and exhaustion of administrative remedies,
where appropriate, prior to initiating legal action in a
Federal or State court.