1) What’s Happening in the Nation’s Capital?
A New Year's Message from ADAPT: Ask Your Members of Congress to Resolve to Eliminate the Institutional Bias!
2) National News
Department of Justice Seeks Public Comment on Development of New ADA Regulations on Equipment and Furniture: Your Comments Urgently Needed by January 24
New Mobility's Person of the Year: Judith Heumann
3) State News
Advocates Set to Sue D.C. on Behalf of People Confined to Nursing Homes
Florida Modifies Standards for Students with Disabilities
4) Announcements and Additional Resources
Through the Looking Glass Launches a New Study: ADA Complementary Paratransit Access for Parents with Disabilities and Their Children
A New Year's Message from ADAPT: Ask Your Members of Congress to Resolve to Eliminate the Institutional Bias!
Source: ADAPT
We contacted the Congressional candidates during the election and a number of them pledged to eliminate the institutional bias, but a lot of these folks didn't. Congress is about to come back into session, se we need to make sure that they know we want them to free our people.
We've posted a Congressional New Year's Resolution you can use to ask your members of Congress to end the institutional bias. The Congressional New Year's Resolution is at: www.cdrnys.org/resolution.
We know this will be a tough Congress to work with, but there is widespread support for this issue within the disability community. Every major national disability organization supports ending the institutional bias through the Community Choice Act. There is support for it beyond the disability community as well. We have estimated that the cost of CCA to middle class folks is only about $6 a year. Giving seniors and Americans with disabilities their freedom would cost as little as a big cup of coffee. And based on a Harris survey, 89% of those surveyed supported the legislation.
We are working with Congress on reintroducing the legislation, but we aren't waiting to ask our Senators and Congressional representatives to sign on and support it. Please give them a call or send an email asking them to make a New Year's resolution to eliminate the institutional bias. We will send you back the information we have on your state, if you just send an email asking for it.
Department of Justice Seeks Public Comment on Development of New ADA Regulations on Equipment and Furniture: Your Comments Urgently Needed by January 24
Source: Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF) and other disability rights organizations
The U.S. Department of Justice published four Advance Notices of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRMs) on July 26, 2010, seeking public comment on the development of regulations under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in new areas, including various kinds of equipment and furniture. Many are critical to the everyday lives of people with disabilities:
- Medical Equipment and Furniture
- Electronic and Information Technology such as ticket kiosks and point-of-sale devices
- Beds in Accessible Guest Rooms and Sleeping Rooms
- Exercise Equipment and Furniture
- Accessible Golf Cars
- Beds in Nursing Homes and Other Care Facilities
- Other Types of Equipment and Furniture
It is important for DOJ to receive comments from the disability community urging strong regulation to provide genuine full and equal access. Your stories are needed! There is extensive guidance to assist you at DREDF's website. DREDF's model comments can help you write your own comments. There is also helpful information on how to file your comments and tips on commenting.
Important: Your comments will have the most impact if you revise our drafts to add your own thoughts, and especially your own personal experiences or those of friends, family, colleagues, or clients with disabilities. See all the DOJ ANPRMs at www.ada.gov/anprm2010/anprm2010.htm. There are also ANPRMs on access to the Internet, movie captioning and video description, and Next Generation 911 services.
New Mobility's Person of the Year: Judith Heumann
Source: New Mobility, by Douglas Lathrop
The life and career of Judith Heumann — teacher, scholar, activist, diplomat — closely parallel the rise and growth of the American disability-rights movement.
As a child disabled by polio, and as a wheelchair-using college graduate entering the workforce, she had to fight her native New York City’s school system for both the right to an education and the right to teach. During the 1970s she co-founded one of New York’s first disability activist groups, worked with Ed Roberts to launch the independent living movement in California, and helped organize the landmark Section 504 sit-ins of 1977. She assisted in crafting what was to become the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and helped build bridges between activists and elected officials to smooth the way for passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Over the past four decades, Heumann has had a direct hand in improving access, integration and quality of life for all disabled Americans, and has served as a role model for a new generation of outspoken, well-educated and rights-minded people with disabilities.
Now, with her recent appointment to the U.S. State Department — as Special Advisor for International Disability Rights — Heumann has become an ambassador not just for the United States, but for the disability community throughout the world. Since taking on the position in June 2010, Heumann — already a seasoned traveler — has journeyed to numerous countries, exchanging ideas with both disabled and nondisabled leaders, and seeking to make sure the voices of people with disabilities are heard in an increasingly fast-moving and tightly knit global village.
For her unwavering commitment to secure equal rights for people with disabilities all over the world, New Mobility is proud to name Judith Heumann as our 2010 Person of the Year. Read More.
Advocates Set to Sue D.C. on Behalf of People Confined to Nursing Homes
Source: Washington Post
Eleven years after the Supreme Court ruled that state and local governments must provide services to the disabled in the least restrictive settings possible, more than 500 disabled D.C. residents are confined to nursing homes against their wishes because the city has not provided services that would allow them to live independently, according to a lawsuit that disability rights advocates plan to file Thursday in federal court.
The lawsuit alleges that the District has failed to provide in-home help with bathing, dressing, transferring people in and out of wheelchairs, and other activities - although such services cost much less than the $60,000 annual price tag of nursing home care, and most of the services are funded under Medicaid. One program to help seniors and [people with disabilities] stay in the community has 4,000 slots. As of last week, 1,000 slots were open. Failing to provide such services is a violation of the American with Disabilities Act, the lawsuit argues.
"The whole point of the ADA is to end unnecessary segregation. And that's what nursing homes are," said Marjorie Rifkin, a lawyer with University Legal Services. That group, Arent Fox and AARP Foundation Litigation filed the class-action lawsuit on behalf of residents of D.C. nursing homes. "The District is long overdue in taking steps to transition people into the community."
Mayoral spokeswoman Mafara Hobson said she could not comment on the pending litigation.
The District has struggled to live up to the ADA's mandate to stop warehousing [people with disabilities] in institutions since the law was enacted in 1990. In 1991, the city closed the Forest Haven asylum in Laurel, moving its 1,000 residents into group homes. The homes have not always been adequately monitored, sometimes with fatal consequences for residents.
In 2007, the District received a federal grant of more than $26 million to help transition 1,100 senior citizens and [people with disabilities] from nursing homes and other institutions into the community. Although the District has helped move 73 people out of institutional settings, it has yet to transition anyone out of a nursing facility. Read More
Florida Modifies Standards for Students with Disabilities
Source: The Times-Union, by Jon M. Fletcher
Kernan Middle School eighth-grader Maxwell Fane, 14, gets assistance from communication social skills site coach Angela Baker during a general education science class Wednesday. Fane is taking some special education classes, but is enrolled in general education courses with his peers.
Throughout the state, thousands of children with disabilities are studying modified curriculum in one or more of their classes, often because it is thought the general education material is too difficult for them to master.
But state officials believe that's untrue and that most children with disabilities - except in rare cases - are capable of completing the same course work as their peers. "In fact, the majority of the kids with disabilities are able to earn a standard high school diploma, and that should be our goal for them," said Karen Denbroeder, an administrator in the state's Bureau of Exceptional Education and Student Services. "When we put kids in separate classrooms with modified curriculum, we're taking away that access to a standard diploma."
Now in some districts, students can either take standard general education courses, special standards or something in the middle called standard curriculum with modifications. Standard general education is open to all students. Special standards, which cover the same type of material but are taught on a less complex level depending on the ability of the student, are open to students with significant cognitive disabilities, such as autism. Both of those options remain in place.
It's the modified courses, in which children aren't required to master as much of the material as other children, that the state is doing away with. By next year, the state will no longer approve courses that are modified special standards for elementary schools. It will do the same in middle school by 2012-13 and in high school by 2013-14.
Denbroeder said the majority of students with disabilities should be in general education classrooms, even if that's with accommodations or teachers providing extra assistance. Read More.
Through the Looking Glass Launches a New Study: ADA Complementary Paratransit Access for Parents with Disabilities and Their Children
We all know barriers to accessible transportation can seriously hinder the ability to live independently and for parents with disabilities, it seriously restricts access to travel with and for their children. Through the Looking Glass (TLG), an organization in Berkeley CA, received a National Institute for Disability Rehabilitation and Research (NIDRR) award as the National Center for Parents with Disabilities and their Families.
In order to better serve these parents, TLG, which is firmly based in the Independent Living Movement and philosophy, is launching a NIDRR funded study in January 2011. The study aims to describe the status of access to paratransit services for parents with disabilities when traveling with their children. Information is being collected about paratransit providers’ policies and practices for parents with disabilities when traveling with their children from Centers for Independent Living Programs (CILs) and the ADA Complementary Paratransit Agencies which serve the respective Centers.
To get the most meaningful results, completed questionnaires are needed from as many CILs as possible. The survey will be administered to ensure the highest level of quality and confidentiality. If your program is selected, NCIL strongly encourages you to participate in the survey. Your experiences and responses will help increase our knowledge on this important topic and hopefully contribute to improving paratransit services for parents with disabilities and their children as they carry out everyday activities in their communities.
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January 5, 2011