In this webinar, we’ll explore the unpleasant and paradoxical reality that patients in medical settings are exposed to dangers which can jeopardize their health and safety. This is a reality for all people, but it is especially ominous for people who are members of a socially disadvantaged class, including those who are elderly and/or impaired. Attendees will receive practical guidelines and measures for protecting people in medical settings, gleaned from thirty years experience with the Medical Safeguards Project of Shriver Clinical Services Corporation in Massachusetts.
This webinar will be open captioned and ASL interpretation will be provided. Please email info@wpdhac.org if you require any additional accommodations.
Cathy Ludlum’s personal and professional activities focus on the inclusion of people with disabilities in all areas of community life. As a person with a disability and an employer of personal assistants since 1988, Cathy brings an extensive background in the recruitment, hiring, and management of support staff. She has written several books, including a manual on how to hire personal assistants. Most recently, as the Employer Liaison for the Connecticut Association of Personal Assistants (CTAPA), Cathy has been assisting employers by providing information about Medicaid waiver programs, management tips, and creative brainstorming. Cathy Ludlum is an associate of the SRV Implementation Project, working on the issue of the vulnerability of people with impairments in medical settings.She teaches workshops with Jo Massarelli on medical safeguarding and on demystifying assisted hydration and nutrition, or what it is like to have a g-tube. She has lived independently (with support) since 1992.
Jo Massarelli is Director of the SRV Implementation Project based in Massachusetts (USA). She divides her time between teaching Social Role Valorization and related topics and working to effect positive change for elders, people with impairments, and the poor. She has taught at workshops and lectured at conferences across the United States, Canada, Japan, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand to a variety of human service workers serving a wide range of people. Ms. Massarelli has evaluated dozens of human service programs for children, adults and elders, including in-home services, residential, day and work programs, schools, hospice, prisons, and homeless shelters. Jo Massarelli is a consultant to Family Lives, a home nursing service for children with significant medical needs, and the Medical Safeguards Project, an effort of physicians and nurses who seek to protect the lives of impaired people in medical settings. She has a particular interest in advocacy in hospitals. She and her colleagues teach workshops on defending vulnerable people in hospitals and on medical decision-making. Jo Massarelli has been a close associate of the late Dr. Wolf Wolfensberger and his Training Institute in Syracuse, New York since 1983. She and her husband Marc Tumeinski are members of a community responding to the needs of homeless people in downtown Worcester, Massachusetts, by providing hospitality in their homes.
PA Developmental Disabilities Council
