Fifteen years ago, Marianne Todd, then age 27 and living in a group home for the mentally retarded, was dragged by a caregiver across the carpet and up the stairs, according to her mother. For Marianne, it was devastating. When the elder Todd saw the carpet burns across her daughter's back, she confronted the director of the group home, who suspended the caregiver. Fast forward to 1993, when Rosemary Todd visits her elderly mother in an Urbana nursing home. There, to her horror, she finds the same worker who had allegedly dragged her daughter up the stairs, now caring for her mother.
Some abusers move from agency to agency committing the same acts, advocates say.
But now, a law signed last week by Ohio Gov. Bob Taft will create a public registry of such workers. Under the law, sponsored by Ohio Sen. Robert Spada and approved unanimously by both houses of the Ohio Assembly, once someone's name is in the registry, they cannot be hired to work with the mentally retarded or developmentally disabled again. It puts some teeth in existing legislation protecting the disabled from abuse. It's not just a warning. This is a statement that in Ohio, we will protect the disabled.