The Washington Post - Florida kept disabled kids in institutions. A judge is sending them home.
Photos by Sydney Walsh for The Washington Post | Read the full story by Amanda Morris
Cayden Armour has lived most of his life in a Florida nursing home, where his father, Conlan, said his 9-year-old son was often left alone in his room, sitting in soiled diapers for hours. Cayden, who has multiple medical complications after nearly drowning as an infant, is one of many children in Florida who have been separated from their families and institutionalized rather than getting state-provided at-home care. A federal judge has ruled that Florida has been unlawfully segregating children with complex medical needs and putting other disabled children at risk of unnecessary institutionalization. In court records and interviews with The Washington Post, parents of disabled children described a broken system in which they often felt forced to send their children to nursing homes because they couldn't get reliable state-provided home care.
