Statewide Summit Focuses on Fighting Abuse, Neglect

Of People with Developmental Disabilities

TRENTON, NJ – The Department of the Public Advocate tomorrow will co-host a statewide summit that will explore ways to combat abuse, neglect and violence targeted at people with developmental disabilities.

The full-day event will focus on the nature and prevalence of abuse, neglect and violence in the lives of people with developmental disabilities. Among those who are attending are police, medical professionals, self-advocates, families, service providers and government and community stakeholders.

Beverly Frantz, Ph.D., coordinator of the Criminal Justice Initiative and National Academy for Equal Justice for People with Developmental Disabilities at Temple University, will deliver the keynote address.

Public Advocate Ronald K. Chen will give opening remarks at the event sponsored by Partners in Justice New Jersey, a collaboration of organizations that promotes safety and equal justice for victims, witnesses and defendants who have developmental disabilities.

The co-chairs are The Arc of New Jersey, Developmentally Disabled Offender Program, and the Department of the Public Advocate’s Division of Developmental Disability Advocacy.

Registration and breakfast begin at 8 a.m. with the program running from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.  It will be at The Conference Center at Mercer, located on the campus of Mercer County Community College in West Windsor Township.

The event is free and lunch will be served.  Space is limited.

Other speakers are: Kenneth W. Ritchey, assistant commissioner of the Division of Developmental Disabilities in the state Department of Human Services; Dan Baker, Ph.D., of the Elizabeth M. Boggs Center on Developmental Disabilities; Detective Sgt. John Rodriguez of the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office; Bernadette West, Ph.D., of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey’s School of Public Health; and Sam Jenkins and Adelaide Daskim of the Self Advocacy Project.

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