ABUSER REGISTRY ANNUAL NOTICE
The Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities (“department”) maintains an Abuser Registry (“registry”), which is a list of employees who the department has determined have committed one of the registry offenses listed below. The developmental disabilities (DD) employees that may be placed on the registry include: department employees, county board of developmental disabilities employees, independent providers under Ohio Revised Code (R.C.) section 5123.16, an employee providing specialized services to an individual with a developmental disability, including an entity licensed or certified by the department.
If your name is placed on the registry you are barred from employment as a DD employee in the state of Ohio.
Since other state agencies require employers to check the registry, placement may also prohibit:
(1) being employed by a Medicaid agency, being an owner (five percent or more) of an agency or having a Medicaid Provider Agreement as a non-agency provider;
(2) being in a position to provide Ombudsman services or direct care services to anyone enrolled in a program administered by the Ohio Department of Aging; and
(3) being employed by a home health agency, a nursing home, or residential care facility in a direct care position.
Registry Offenses:
• Physical Abuse - the use of any physical force that could reasonably be expected to result in physical harm.
• Sexual Abuse - unlawful sexual conduct (unprivileged intercourse or other sexual penetration) and unlawful sexual contact (unprivileged touching of another’s erogenous zone).
• Verbal Abuse - purposely using words to threaten, coerce, intimidate, harass, or humiliate an individual.
• Prohibited Sexual Relations- Consensual touching of an erogenous zone for sexual gratification and the individual is in the employee’s care and the individual is not the employee’s spouse.
• Neglect - when there is a duty to do so, failing to provide an individual with any treatment, care, goods, or services necessary to maintain the health or safety of the individual.
• Misappropriation (Theft) - obtaining the property of an individual or individuals, without consent, with a combined value of at least $100. Theft of the individual’s prescribed medication, check, credit card, ATM card and the like of any monetary value are also registry offenses.
• Failure to Report Abuse, Neglect or Misappropriation - the employee unreasonably does not report abuse, neglect, or misappropriation of the property of a person with developmental disabilities, or the substantial risk to such an individual of abuse, neglect, or misappropriation, when the employee should know that their non-reporting will result in a substantial risk of harm to such individual.
• Conviction or plea of guilty to -
Offense of Violence - R. C. 2901.01, including convictions for the offense of Assault, Menacing, Domestic Violence or Attempting to commit any offense of violence;
Sexual Offenses - R. C. Chapter 2907;
Theft Offenses - R. C. Chapter 2913;
Failing to provide for a functionally impaired person – R.C. 2903.16;
Patient Abuse or Neglect - R.C. 2903.34;
Patient Endangerment – R.C. 2903.341; and/or
Endangering Children – R.C. 2919.22.
More information is available on the department’s website under the Health and Welfare tab. The registry website is at: https://its.prodapps.dodd.ohio.gov/ABR_Default.aspx.
Please call the department at 614-995-3810 with any questions regarding the registry.