The Alabama Department of Mental Health has decertified a Baldwin County nonprofit that operates a group home for people with disabilities and ordered its residents relocated, after state investigators found severe problems at the facility — including supervision and medical care failures that resulted in at least one death.
Arc Baldwin County Director Kathy Fleet said the organization was notified July 1 that it was no longer certified by ADMH, and that she was told not to discuss the matter publicly. She declined to speak further with a reporter.
What the state found
According to an ADMH letter sent to Fleet, the nonprofit has been decertified and is required to relocate residents who were there on a “residential waiver” to other certified facilities. Among the issues listed, the most serious was “supervision, training, and medical care compliance failures resulting in critical incidents and death.”
“At this time, the resulting determination is that ARCBC programs do not meet our certification standards,” ADMH Commissioner Kimberly Boswell wrote in the July 1 letter.
Boswell’s letter detailed a broader list of problems at the facility:
• Lack of administrative and executive-level response.
• Inadequate supervision and failure to implement person-centered plans.
• Document deficiencies and record integrity concerns.
• Staff training deficits and language barriers.
• Nursing oversight and medical care noncompliance.
The commissioner wrote that the investigation was “conducted in response to health and safety concerns and has been ongoing throughout this process,” and that enhanced monitoring reports had shown “ongoing concerns with compliance, including missing documentation, staffing concerns, and continued deficiencies in medical care.”
An appeal, and a search for new homes
Fleet has appealed the decertification, which will produce an administrative hearing that has not yet been scheduled and will not be open to the public, according to ADMH Public Information Officer Malissa Valdes.
“Ensuring safe and secure placement for individuals previously served by the Arc of Baldwin is the department’s focus,” Valdes said in a written response. “ADMH cannot offer additional information at this time.”
About Arc Baldwin County
Arc Baldwin County is based in Loxley on South Magnolia Street and is a local chapter of the larger Arc of Alabama network. Founded in 1957, the statewide organization describes itself as the largest in Alabama dedicated to advocating for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, with 30 chapters including one in Mobile.
“The Arc of Alabama, Inc., is a non-profit, volunteer-based membership organization whose primary role is to advocate for the rights and protections of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families,” its website reads. The organization provides information and referral services, educational programming including an annual Alabama disAbility Conference, and public policy advocacy.
A pattern across the state
Arc Baldwin County is not the only local chapter to lose its certification this year. In May, the statewide organization disaffiliated from its Montgomery chapter after ADMH decertified it. An ADMH investigation preceded that decision, and the people who had been housed there were relocated to other providers, including other Arc chapters. A spokesperson for The Arc of Alabama did not respond to a request for comment.
Decertification cuts an agency off from state waiver funding, which pays for most residential services for Alabamians with intellectual and developmental disabilities. For families, the immediate consequence is disruption: loved ones must move to new certified providers, often with little notice, and the state must find placements in a system that already runs short of beds.
Residents previously served by Arc Baldwin County are being relocated to other certified ADMH facilities, and the department says their safe placement is now its priority while the appeal process runs its course.