Fast Resolution of Center Probe Needed : * Accused Nonprofit Agency Serves Children, Adults With Neurological Disorders

It’s difficult to know where to point the finger in the recent controversy involving a nonprofit agency that services the developmentally disabled in Orange County. The agency, the Developmental Disabilities Center, is one of 21 nonprofit centers in the state that provide assessment, diagnosis and counseling services for children and adults who suffer from mental retardation, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, autism and other neurological disorders. The center has been criticized by a parent group and a watchdog organization. Now it is under investigation by the state Department of Developmental Services, which oversees the regional agencies.

What we do know is that families and the general public rely heavily on such centers to provide much needed oversight. The sooner the state can get to the bottom of these allegations and restore confidence in the process, the better.

Since the Department of Developmental Services won’t reveal the specific reasons for the investigation, families of the developmentally disabled are left with questions that can only add to their concerns. The department has confirmed, however, that the investigation comes in the wake of the closures last summer of two board-and-care homes under contract with the Developmental Disabilities Center.

One of the homes, the Pearlmarck Home Annex in Anaheim, was closed after two clients died within a three-month period. The other, Jackson Place in Santa Ana, was accused by the state of, among other things, failing to provide medical care and accepting clients in need of skilled nursing care that the home was not licensed to provide.

Developmental Disabilities Center chief executive officer Elaine Bamberg is saying very little publicly about the investigation. The center’s critics, however, have been much more vocal. Among them is Area Board XI, based in Tustin. The group accused the center, which administers $45 million in state funds for services to about 7,000 clients, of not sufficiently monitoring the two board-and-care facilities that were closed and of not properly managing the relocation of clients affected by the closures. Bamberg says the center will be cleared in the end, but public confidence in her agency must suffer in the meantime.

The center is undergoing cutbacks in the wake of both the state budget crisis and an increasing caseload. The investigation adds anxiety to a system already at the breaking point. It should be resolved as quickly as possible.