Proposed state registry would reveal caretakers' backgrounds

By: GARY WARTH - Staff Writer | Sunday, May 27, 2007 8:50 PM PDT ∞

What started as an ambitious class project by a Ramona woman may result in a statewide registry that could help employers identify caretakers who have had abuse complaints filed against them.

"I never really expected it to go this far," said Maureen Carasiti, executive director of Noah Homes, a residential program in Spring Valley for adults with developmental disabilities.

Carasiti, a Ramona resident with more than 17 years' experience working in the field, said a registry tracking complaints against caretakers would be a much-needed safeguard against people who go from job to job, leaving no record of the complaints against them.

"There's no present way of tracking it, but if you speak to people in the field, everyone pretty much recognizes that it happens," Carasiti said about how many complaints are lodged against caretakers.

She estimates she has seen about 50 complaints against caretakers in her career.

"I have let people go for substantiated cases of abuse, and then I see those people working in other care settings," she said.

The revolving door happens because different facilities for the developmentally disabled may be licensed by different agencies that do not routinely share information about complaints, Carasiti said. A home for the developmentally disabled, for instance, may be licensed under the Department of Health Services, but a day program for the developmentally disabled may be licensed by Community Care, she said.

Carasiti said private homes that are not licensed but hire respite caretakers file complaints to yet another agency: Adult Protective Services.

If all licensing agencies were to file the complaints they receive to one registry, Carasiti said, there finally would be a way to know how many are received each year.

The Registry to End Abuse Caretaker Hiring, or the REACH Project, was proposed as state Assembly Bill 1192 by state Assemblywoman Noreen Evans, a Democrat from Santa Rosa. The registry would be a resource for large organizations, such as TERI Inc. in Oceanside, which is a center offering residency and programs for the developmentally disabled, and small residential homes that hire caretakers.

Carasiti said 24 organizations are members of the coalition supporting the bill. Members include TERI Inc., Noah Homes Inc., and United Cerebral Palsy of San Diego.

TERI Inc. CEO Bill Mara said his agency has supported the bill by writing letters to families, supporters and advocates of his organization.

"We're so dependent on staff, but we don't know their backgrounds," he said. "It would be wonderful to have this as a clearing house."

Mara said a registry would be an additional safeguard in checking the backgrounds and past behavior of people being considered as caretakers. Calling past employers sometimes is not good enough, he said, because other agencies can be hesitant to give poor performance reports about former caretakers, fearing liability issues.

Carasiti said the proposed bill began last year as a project in a University of San Diego graduate class.

"I went in with an agenda," she said about professor Pat Libby's class called Advocacy Skills and Strategies, which teaches how to lobby government officials.

Carasiti teamed with classmates Paige Simpson, Becky Lee and Jessica Towne-Cardenas, who is director of prevention and education services at the Center for Community Solutions, which has offices in Escondido, San Diego and La Mesa.

"We work at preventing violence a person at a time," Towne-Cardenas said at the center, which is aimed at stopping domestic violence and rape.

"The idea of being able to make a really big change for a lot of people across the state was really appealing to me, and that's the kind of change you can make when you work in legislation," she said.

Carasiti and the other students proposed creating a registry similar to those used to track where registered sex offenders live. While that registry identifies criminal offenses, the caretaker registry would identify only complaints.

Before hiring caretakers, agencies do screen applicants for criminal records by taking their fingerprints, Carasiti said. While such screenings will expose serious offenses, they do not tell whether the person has a record of lesser complaints such as pulling clients' hair or denying them meals, both defined by the state as abuse.

"There's kind of a lack of advocacy for the developmentally disabled," she said.

Residential homes for the developmentally disabled are required to report allegations of abuse to a variety of agencies, including Adult Protective Services. The registry will compile the complaints from agencies and provide homes for the developmentally disabled with easy access to them.

Carasiti said similar registries already are in place in Delaware, Idaho, Iowa, Wisconsin, Louisiana, Vermont and New Mexico.

For more on the proposed registry, visit the Web site www.calreachproject.org.

Contact staff writer Gary Warth at (760) 740-5410 or gwarth@nctimes.com. Comment at nctimes.com.

First name only. Comments including last names, contact addresses, e-mail addresses or phone numbers will be deleted. Attempts to misrepresent your identity or impersonate any person will not be approved. All comments are screened before they appear online, so please keep them brief. Comments reflect the views of those commenting and not necessarily those of the North County Times or its staff writers. Click here to view additional comment policies.