Quality Trust for Individuals with Disabilities has supported children, youth and adults with developmental disabilities for over 18 years with many innovative, person-centered projects and supports to impact thousands of people lead better lives as they choose. A few of our achievements are noted below:

• Secured multi-year funding from the Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) for a three-year project to focus on the intersection of sexual violence and people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.  Project ACTION!, the Department on Disability Services (DDS) and the DC Rape Crisis Center (DCRCC) collaborate with us on this project. 

• Created Family Ties of DC, the first peer parent-to-parent support network in the District of Columbia for parents who have children with disabilities, trained an initial group of a support parents and made successful parent matches. 

• Convened a National Symposium on Supported Decision-Making (SDM), “Taking Stock and Forging Ahead” (with support from our partners at American University, Washington College of Law), which was attended by over 150 people from 26 states, as well as Canada and Australia.

• Successfully supported the National Council on Disability (NCD) to conduct research that guided its examination of adult guardianship and alternatives for people with disabilities that resulted in two comprehensive reports. The first report “Beyond Guardianship: Toward Alternatives That Promote Greater Self-Determination” based on qualitative research into real experiences of people was published in 2018.   The follow-up report, “Turning Rights into Reality,” was published in June 2019 and provided a closer look at the issues around guardianship and alternatives for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

• Served on the Steering Committee of the Council for Court Excellence’s project that published a comprehensive guide on guardianship and alternatives in the District of Columbia. “When Adults Need Help Making Decisions:  A Non-Lawyer’s Guide to D.C.’s Legal Tools for Assisting Adults”.

• Successfully led and completed a five-year Project of National Significance that created a National Resource Center on Supported Decision-Making (SDM) to provide information and technical assistance.  Since its founding, the NRC-SDM to has met and exceeded many of its original goals with activities such as:  
  • Over 500 in-person and virtual presentations on SDM, reaching thousands of people with disabilities, older adults, families, and professionals around the country.
  • Providing resources and technical assistance on SDM to stakeholders in all 50 states and D.C.
  • Funding SDM innovation projects in 14 states.
  • Informing the work of Quality Trust’s Jenny Hatch Justice Project (www.JennyHatchJusticeProject.org), which provides legal representation to adults who are in or facing overbroad or undue guardianship.
  • Conducting research for, writing, and publishing at least 40 articles on SDM.

• Successfully represented the first court case in the District of Columbia to terminate a guardianship in favor of supported decision-making for resident R. King.  The family had tried to get to do this on their own for five years without success. 

• Implemented Annual Monitoring plans that sample services provided to District residents with developmental disabilities receiving services funded by the DC government.  Reports are produced quarterly and summarized annually to provide an independent assessment of the service systems’ performance.