The Four Pillars of Administrative Harm Prevention

A Framework for Documenting Statutory Failures and Preventable Harm

The Four Pillars of Harm Prevention is a Reporting Injustice framework that turns complex legal citations into a simple sequence people can recognize, document, and report.

Most preventable harm to vulnerable adults follows a predictable pattern:

Pillar 1: No Notice

Pillar 2: No or Confusing Access

Pillar 3: No Accommodations (Ableism)

Roof collapses into Pillar 4: Preventable Harm

This is the “knockout sequence.” It isn’t usually physical. It is procedural harm—delays, silence, missing steps, misstatements, and administrative and process errors—over and over until the roof of protections collapses over the person in need.

The Four Pillars give disabled people, vulnerable adults, families, and advocates a way to:

• Name what went wrong clearly

• Tie failures to legal duties

• Document harm in plain language

• Demand corrective action before the damage becomes irreversible

Most harm against disabled people and vulnerable adults is carried out through process: paperwork, deadlines, silence, and withheld accommodations.

When Notice fails, Access fails. When Access fails, Accommodations fail. And the result is Preventable Harm.

The Four Pillars make each legal failure visible and documentable—before the system can rewrite the story as “confusion” or “just how it works.”

Each pillar is designed to support reporting that is clearer, better organized, and more legally usable under disability and vulnerable-adult protections (including ADA/504 and Minnesota protections).