Early Intervention Behavior Treatment
(EIBT)
and
Valley Mountain Regional Center (VMRC)
UPDATE JULY 2010
In July 2010, VMRC served SNAFU with a lawsuit. VMRC listed SNAFU as a
co-defendant on a countersuit to the EIBT/4-way class-action described below.
Please note, SNAFU never has been a party to the EIBT/4-way
lawsuit. Additionally, no SNAFU officers or board members of the last couple of
years are a party to the EIBT/4-way lawsuit. The EIBT/4-way lawsuit was brought
by individuals and not any organizations including SNAFU. One has to wonder,
how can you countersue someone that has never sued you? VMRC is suing SNAFU, in
part, for "malicious prosecution". One has to wonder, how can you sue someone
for malicious prosecution when they've never sued anyone? SNAFU has never sued
anyone and up until we were served with this lawsuit, didn't even
have an attorney. Why does a support group need an attorney? One has to wonder
why, especially in this economic climate where VMRC and other regional centers
have been hit with millions of dollars of budget cuts, VMRC is deciding to spend
precious dollars on pursuing a lawsuit against a support group rather than
spending that money on
helping the children and adults it is supposed to serve? To read the lawsuit,
please click
HERE. Is this what you
want your regional center to spend your tax dollars on? If not, we encourage
your support by doing one or more of the following:
1) writing letters to Richard Jacobs, VMRC Director, at
Valley Mountain Regional Center
Attn: Richard Jacobs
P.O. Box 692290
Stockton, CA 95269-2290
and/or email to
rjacobs@vmrc.net (please copy
info@valleysnafu.com)
2) attend a VMRC Board (or write to them at the above address) and/or
other meeting to express your opinion
during the open session at the beginning of each meeting. VMRC's schedule of
meetings can be found
HERE. (These are all open meetings and may be tape recorded)
3) write letters to the editor of your local newspaper
4) hold a fundraiser or make a donation to SNAFU for legal fees to defend
this frivolous lawsuit
5) spread the word to your local newstations, newspapers, friends,
family, and advocacy organizations
Please let us know if you decide to take action to support SNAFU and how you are
supporting SNAFU. As always, you can remain anonymous. SNAFU thanks you for
your ongoing support and we are dedicated to continue offering the same level of
support services throughout this upcoming legal process!
What is EIBT?
EIBT is a program and phrase coined by Valley Mountain Regional
Center (VMRC) located in the San Joaquin Valley of California that serves 5
counties (Stanislaus, San Joaquin, Calaveras, Amador, and Tuolumne). The
EIBT program is a clearly-defined program that offers Applied Behavioral
Analysis (ABA) to young children with autism. EIBT does have some
stringent guidelines for entrance to and exiting from the program. A large
document is part of the EIBT program. This document used to be called the
4-way agreement and is now called the Programs, Procedures and Guidelines (or
PP&G). This 53 page document is automatically required if you accept the
EIBT program for your child. Therefore, you must be fully-informed before
you consent to it and the EIBT program. Remember that being fully-informed
means that you have been told not only the positives of agreeing to the program,
but any possible negatives. You can read the full PP&G
HERE.
Does my child need EIBT and/or VMRC to receive ABA
treatment and therapy?
NO. According to the federal law called
IDEA, if your child is over the age of three years old, he or she must be
provided with a Free and Appropriate Public Education (or FAPE). If your
child need
s ABA, then the school district is responsible for providing it.
EIBT is merely a funding model whereby VMRC will foot half the bill of the cost
of ABA therapy in exchange for the parents to agree for their child to be a part
of the EIBT program and adhere to the PP&G. There are many children that
receive 35-40+ hours of ABA therapy per week that are not part of EIBT. In
fact, there are children that are receiving this level of treatment that are not
even VMRC clients. The fact is, your school district is responsible for
your child after the age of three. If your child is under the age of
three, he or she is covered under the Lanterman Act. Please contact us for
more information if you are being offered EIBT and your child is under the age
of three. SNAFU recommends that you write on your signature page of your
IEP: "I do not consent to the EIBT program. However, I do consent to
the ______ hours per week of ABA therapy."
Is EIBT legal?
While the question of legality is left up to attorneys and
courts, you should be aware that a 2008 due process decision found the EIBT PP&G
in conflict with the federal law IDEA on several points. You can read the
full due process decision HERE.
You should also know that a class-action lawsuit has been filed in the Eastern
District of the Federal Court regarding EIBT and how it has harmed children.
SNAFU is not a party to this lawsuit. However, many SNAFU children have
been harmed by the criteria and politics of the EIBT program. You can read
the federal lawsuit complaint HERE
and the appellate brief for this lawsuit
HERE and the oral arguement
in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals
HERE. If you have any questions on this matter, please contact us.
Again, your child can receive EIBT-type services (known throughout the
industry as Applied Behavioral Analysis) without the stringent criteria of EIBT.
We can help you!
You should also know that some providers and VMRC have attached
additional criteria such as Therapeutic Pathways/Kendall School observation
policy released in July 2009 which includes a policy that, on its face, is
retaliatory in nature. Specifically it states that if a parent has made a
complaint about the program, Therapeutic Pathways/Kendall school can have their
attorney present for your parental observation. Some parents have reported
they are no longer allowed inside the Kendall School building and must pick up
and drop off their children outside the classroom. Parents may wish to
explore their feelings about leaving their children in a place they are not
allowed to observe and/or observe under very strict guidelines. The rest
of the Therapeutic Pathways/Kendall School Visitation and Observation Policy and
Procedures can be found HERE.
Parents whose children receive Therapeutic Pathways/Kendall School or other
providers on a school campus and are subject to these policies that differ from
the policies of general education students are encouraged to ask the providers
to rescind the policies. If they refuse, we strongly recommend filing a
complaint of discrimination with the U.S. Department of Education Office for
Civil Rights (OCR). More information on how to file a complaint with OCR
can be found HERE under "Section
504 and the Americans with Disabilities Act" or you may contact us.
Update August 2009: After posting this information, we received many phone
calls and emails including THIS
letter from a parent.
Is EIBT a research project?
YES. Although on page 19 of 53 of the PP&G
(see above), question number 33 indicates participating in research is not a
requirement to participate in EIBT. We suggest specifically stating that
you do not consent to your child being a part of any research project on the
signature page of the IEP. There are several studies that have used EIBT
children. Read CVAP's correspondence with the State of California
Committee for the Protection of Human Studies
HERE. These studies have come under scrutiny in professional journals.
You can read about two of the studies HERE
(Central Valley Autism Project or CVAP) and
HERE (The Kendall School and
Therapeutic Pathways).
Even though your child may not be in an ABA program provided by
CVAP, Therapeutic Pathways/Kendall School, BEST, ABC or Genesis Behavior Center,
your child's information may still be used for the research project. You
may want to write a letter or email asking if your child is part of the research
project...particularly if your child is in one of the Autism Matrix placements
which you can read about
HERE.
This document was provided by Tara Sisemore of VMRC.
The Howard et al study prompted an ongoing debate and defense of
the study. The first scrutiny of the study can be found
HERE followed
by the first rebuttal by Tristam Smith which can be found
HERE. A special education attorney wrote a rebuttal which can be found
HERE. The
professional journal was compelled to publish an interesting editorial note
HERE along with Howard et al's rebuttal which
can be found
HERE.
Finally, currently the last page in this hot debate can be found
HERE.
While it is a considerable amount of reading, SNAFU's mission is
to fully-inform parents so they in turn can make fully-informed decisions
regarding their children. In the Howard et al rebuttal, some key points to
think about if your child is or has been in EIBT:
"* The
nonpublic
agency that provided intensive behavior analytic treatment to the experimental
group in our study has never refused to serve a child with autism who was
referred to its in-home or center-based programs from any of its 17 different
funding sources (Special Education Local Planning Agencies, Regional Centers,
and school districts), as long as there were adequate resources to staff and
supervise the programming."
We know of many children and their parents who were refused entrance into
EIBT for many reasons. Some examples include: child is non-verbal,
absence of english-speaking supervision in the home, child is too
low-functioning, child is too high-functioning, and many more.
"*
Neither the staff of the nonpublic agency nor any Regional Center staff person
ever directed a child to be placed in any particular intervention program."
We know of many children and their parents who were not
even told about the existence of EIBT. We know of parents that were talked
out of the program ("oh, that program is a much more restrictive pr
ogram than
the county autism program), your child doesn't qualify for this program, there
is a waiting list (or interest list), etc. One VMRC staff person has
repeatedly indicated she controls who gets EIBT and who doesn't.
"* All
61 IEP/IFSP teams responsible for the educational placements of the children in
the study acted in accordance with state and federal laws governing special
education placement and procedures. That is, those teams--not the authors of the
study or any other single individuals--decided which type of intervention
children would receive."
This is incorrect. See above discussion. If
an authority figure at VMRC touts she controls who gets EIBT and who doesn't,
that flies directly in the face of this comment. Additionally, many parents have
reported that they were not given the full continuum of placement options to
consider. And even if they were, signing the 53-page PP&G document was a
requirement for their child to receive ABA therapy. By removing choices,
the "types of intervention children would receive" was limited and parents were
not given enough information and options to make fully-informed decisions.
You should also be aware that if your child is in EIBT,
they are bound to the provisions in the PP&G. One of these provisions is
that your child may be assessed at any time. You should also be aware that
your child must continually meet the 80% acquisition criteria or could face
exiting from the program. If your child is facing exiting (or
"transition") from EIBT, please contact us. If your child is over the age
of three, the federal law called IDEA contains certain safeguards, including
stay-put, that might be very important to your child.
The Point
The point of providing you with all this information is
not to overwhelm you but to insure you have access to all the information
necessary to make a fully-informed decision regarding your child. If you
have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Additionally, due to recent threats, we feel we must make an additional
disclaimer on this page. Please understand that no information on
this site is intended, nor should be construed, as a personal attack on anyone.
SNAFU strives to freely share accurate information. Should you feel any
information is inaccurate, SNAFU welcomes your input.
