Following is a list of trainings and other resources that have been developed by the Building Partnerships initiative. For more information or to schedule a training, please contact the Project Director at pm@buildingpartnershipsma.com.
Protect, Report, Preserve: Abuse Against Persons with Disabilities
(Click Here to View Video)
This video and complementary training manual will help assist providers within the Commonwealth in fulfilling their legal obligation to train their employees to recognize and report abuse against persons with disabilities.
This 25-minute training video was produced for staff providing services to persons with disabilities. Its purpose is for the viewer to effectively recognize and
report abuse and neglect committed against persons with disabilities. The video highlights domestic, physical, and sexual abuse. This training video
will provide the viewer with a better understanding of the mandated reporter law as well as how and where to report suspected abuse of persons with disabilities.
The training manual will be used to review the material in more depth, including risk factors, indicators of abuse, and what to do and what not to do when abuse is suspected. Included in the manual is a test that providers can use to document that their staff has been trained in mandated reporting requirements under MGL c19C § 10.
To obtain a free copy of the DVD and manual, please contact Diane Meehan, Project Director at pm@buildingpartnershipsma.com or 617-727-6465 x234.
The complementary training manual is available for download by clicking here.
MPTC Training
BPI provides a one-day training to new recruits in the training academies across the state through the Municipal Police Training Committees (MPTC). The curriculum Adults with Disabilities and Law Enforcement developed by BPI formally replaced the MPTC’s existing curriculum on Special Needs. The objectives include identifying the prevalence and complexities in conducting investigations of crimes committed against persons with disabilities, understanding the multidisciplinary response in reporting and investigating crimes against persons with disabilities as defined in the Memorandums of Understanding (MOU), acquiring a general knowledge of the types of disabilities police are likely to encounter and recognize how to effectively respond to victims or witnesses of a crime, and demonstrating an understanding of the federal and state statutes relevant to adults with physical and/or mental disabilities and how those statutes are to be applied.
On-Line Veteran Officer Training
On-Line training for Reporting and Investigating Crimes Committed Against Persons with Disabilities is accessible to all Massachusetts municipal and state police
officers and APS investigators through the Massachusetts State Police on-line training program. Please contact the Director of Online Training for the
Massachusetts State Police Academy at:
(508) 867-1000 to access the training.
Adult Protective Service (APS) Investigators
The Massachusetts State Police, through their training academy, provides a forty-hour sexual assault certification course and a forty-hour basic investigation certification course to APS investigators from the Disabled Persons Protection Commission (DPPC), Department of Mental Retardation (DMR), Department of Mental Health (DMH) and Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission (MRC) charged with conducting M.G.L. c.19C investigations of allegations of abuse committed against persons with disabilities. The curricula include information on victimization, interviewing and interrogation, criminal statutes, court preparation, medical examinations, hospital protocol, crime lab, report writing, computer crime, disability awareness, forensic interviewing, property laws and crimes against persons with disabilities. To date approximately 200 APS investigators have received these two trainings.
Practical Guide for Court Personnel
The Building Partnerships initiative in partnership with Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education (MCLE), wrote a book entitled, Crimes Against Persons with Disabilities: A Practical Guide to the Reporting, Investigation and Prosecution. The book includes such topics as the prevalence of violence against persons with disabilities, introduction to the state’s adult protective service and disability agencies, how Massachusetts is reporting, investigating and prosecuting crimes committed against persons with disabilities, the operations of the multidisciplinary approach used by the Building Partnerships initiative, the success of the initiative, criminal statutes as they apply to persons with disabilities, protective orders, practical tips for Guardian ad litem and guardians, access warrants and access to records. MCLE distributed the book to every courthouse in Massachusetts.
Criminal Statutes
Click here to download a summary of relevant statutes in PDF format.The following state statutes can be specifically utilized to protect people with disabilities:
- M.G.L. 265 §13F provides criminal penalties for those convicted of indecent assault and battery on a mentally retarded person (Appendix 5).
- M.G.L. c. 265 §13K provides for criminal penalties to any person who commits assault and battery upon a person with a disability and thereby causes either bodily injury and/or serious bodily injury to that person. Furthermore, §13K prohibits a caregiver from wantonly and recklessly permitting bodily injury to a person with a disability or wantonly and recklessly permitting another to commit an assault and battery upon a person with a disability that causes bodily injury (Appendix 6).
- M.G.L. 265 §39 is often referred to as the “hate-crimes statute” and makes it a crime to commit assault and battery upon a person (or damage the property of a person) with the intent to intimidate such a person because of such person’s … disability (Appendix 7).
- M.G.L. c. 266 § 30(5) provides for heightened penalties for those convicted of larceny when the victim is a person with a disability (Appendix 8).
- M.G.L. c. 272 §98 prohibits the unequal and/or different treatment of people with disabilities in places of public accommodation (Appendix 9).
- M.G.L. c. 233 § 23E provides witnesses with mental retardation with greater access to the courts by encouraging the use of expert testimony in determining competency of potential witnesses and most importantly by providing alternative means to taking testimony of these witnesses (Appendix 10).
- M.G.L. c. 209A §5 provides additional protection in that it allows for an ex parte appearance (on the part of a plaintiff) who can demonstrate a severe hardship due to a physical condition (Appendix 11).