1) What’s Happening in the Nation’s Capital?

2011 State of the Union: Winning the Future

2) National News

FCC Enters into Consent Decree with Comcast to Ensure the Pass Through of Closed Captioning

Study: Abuse Rates Higher Among Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing Children

3) State News

Justice Department Suit Against Arkansas Stirs Debate Over Housing People in Big Institutions Versus Small Group Homes

Tulsa School Districts to Sue State Attorney General over Disability Scholarship Law

4) Announcements and Additional Resources

New Online Course: How to Keep Your Service Animals and Pets Safe in Natural and Manmade Disasters

Survey on the Future of the Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology (COAT)

Bazelon Center Statement on the Arizona Shooting

1) What’s Happening in the Nation’s Capital?  

2011 State of the Union: Winning the Future

Last night, President Obama delivered the 2011 State of the Union before Congress. His speech was entitled “Winning the Future” and it addressed his vision for the future: America as a leader in innovation, education, and infrastructure. He also spoke in praise of government reduction and transparency.

Obama defended these as priorities, as well as the healthcare reform law. The President said he would not repeal it but would work to “fix what needs fixing”. Obama said he would like to find a solution to strengthen Social Security “without putting at risk current retirees, the most vulnerable, or people with disabilities; without slashing benefits for future generations”.

President Obama proposed a five-year freeze on nondefense spending that would reduce the deficit by more than $400 billion over the next decade and will significantly decrease discretionary spending. The NCIL Staff will be closely monitoring this when the Annual Budget is released in Mid-February.

To watch or learn more about the State of the Union please visit http://www.whitehouse.gov/state-of-the-union-2011.

2) National News

FCC Enters into Consent Decree with Comcast to Ensure the Pass Through of Closed Captioning

 On January 18, 2011, the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau entered into a Consent Decree (voluntary agreement) with Comcast to resolve investigations that the Bureau had conducted in response to complaints brought against Comcast.   Those complaints had alleged that Comcast’s set top boxes (used for watching television) did not pass through closed captioning.  Specifically, the complaints said that Comcast violated section 79.1(c) of the Commission’s closed captioning regulations, which requires the pass-through of captions on television shows to viewers.

The Consent Decree ends the investigations and spells out the following things that Comcast has agreed to do for the next two years to ensure that its set top boxes pass through closed captions:

• Within 120 days, Comcast will start reviewing its procedures for testing the set top boxes used by its customers to make sure that the boxes pass through closed captions.
  
  
• Within 60 days after this review, Comcast will revise its testing procedures and test its set top boxes, including set top boxes already in customers’ homes, to make sure the equipment passes through captions.
  
  
• If Comcast finds that its set top boxes are not passing through closed captions, it must notify the Enforcement Bureau within 30 days (this does not apply to isolated situations where one customer’s set top box is having problems passing through the captions).
  
  
• Comcast will regularly monitor its testing procedures and modify them as needed for the next 2 years.
  
  
• Comcast must send reports to the Enforcement Bureau in January 2012 and in January 2013 to show that they are complying with the Consent Decree. 
  
  
• Comcast will also make a voluntary $500,000 contribution to the United States Treasury.

Study: Abuse Rates Higher Among Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing Children

Source: Northern Virginia Resource Center for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Persons

A new study at Rochester Institute of Technology indicates that the incidence of maltreatment, including neglect and physical and sexual abuse, is more than 25 percent higher among deaf and hard-of-hearing children than among hearing youths. The research also shows a direct correlation between childhood maltreatment and higher rates of negative cognition, depression and post-traumatic stress in adulthood.

The study, which was presented at the 2010 annual meeting of the Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, is one of the first to compare childhood maltreatment between deaf and hearing children.

“By providing clear data on the high rate of childhood maltreatment in the deaf community, we hope to shine a light on the issue and provide mental-health professionals with the necessary data to better treat both children and adults suffering from mental and behavioral disorders,” notes Lindsay Schenkel, assistant professor of psychology at RIT and director of the research team.

The group, which also included undergraduate psychology student Danielle Burnash and Gail Rothman-Marshall, associate professor of liberal studies at RIT’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf, conducted a survey of 425 college students, 317 hearing and 108 deaf, asking them to describe any maltreatment they had experienced prior to the age of 16.

Seventy-seven percent of deaf and hard-of-hearing respondents indicated experiencing some form of child maltreatment, compared with 49 percent among hearing respondents. In addition, respondents with more severe hearing loss indicated an increased rate and severity of maltreatment. Read More.

3) State News

Justice Department Suit Against Arkansas Stirs Debate Over Housing People in Big Institutions Versus Small Group Homes

Source: Wall Street Journal, by Anna Wilde Mathews

The Justice Department in a lawsuit against Arkansas is reigniting an emotional fight over the role of residential institutions for people with disabilities. The suit focuses on one of Arkansas's facilities for people with severe disabilities, the Conway Human Development Center. The state-run institution houses around 510 people off all ages, including children, who typically have intellectual disabilities as well as conditions such as cerebral palsy and physical [disabilities].

A federal suit criticizes the Conway Human Development Center, but the home has defenders in some residents' relatives, including Rita Hoover, left, walking with her son, Timothy, at Conway.

The suit claims residents aren't being given enough of a chance to move to less-restrictive community settings—such as group homes or family dwellings with professional assistance—and alleges dangerous practices. Conway residents are generally placed in the center by their families, with the exception of a few who are wards of the state, such as children in foster care.

The Justice Department has found itself squaring off not only against the state government, but also against well-organized and vocal groups representing families of residents of state-run institutions. They have prodded state officials to defend the facilities and intervened in the case with a brief defending Conway. Read More.

Tulsa School Districts to Sue State Attorney General over Disability Scholarship Law

Four Tulsa-area school boards voted Monday to sue state Attorney General Scott Pruitt over the issue of using public funds to send disabled students to private schools.

Monday was the deadline Pruitt gave Union, Jenks, Broken Arrow and Liberty school districts to respond to his Jan. 18 letter threatening legal action against them and their board members if they continued to not comply with a new law called the Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarship for Students with Disabilities Act.

In the meantime, the four districts have agreed to comply with HB 3393 by processing scholarship applications until a decision is reached in the litigation.

Union Superintendent Cathy Burden said HB 3393 was written to initiate vouchers in Oklahoma.
“Vouchers that siphon off financial resources, parent support and specific student talents threaten the American ideal of public education and is therefore one of the major civil rights issues of our time,” Burden said. Read more.

4) Announcements and Additional Resources

New Online Course: How to Keep Your Service Animals and Pets Safe in Natural and Manmade Disasters

As Hurricane Katrina and other events have shown, disasters do not distinguish between animals and humans.  The good news: It is possible to prepare for your animals as well as for yourself. This online course provides information on how to keep service animals and pets safe in both natural and manmade disasters. The course is offered on KS-TRAIN, a free online learning resource for public health professionals. The course was created by the Research and Training Center on Independent Living at the University of Kansas.

The hour-long course is appropriate for a wide audience, from professionals to pet owners, including:

• Emergency responders
• People with disabilities who use service animals or have pets
• Professionals who provide services to people with disabilities, such as staff from centers for independent living and personal care attendants
• Staff and volunteers of animal shelters
• People who have pets or know others who have pets

To take the course, go to Kansas Train at https://ks.train.org/, and search for: Animal Emergency Preparedness, course number 1025307. (If you are a first-time user, you will need to create a login name and password.) Continuing education units are not offered, but people who take the course will have access to the objectives and an official certificate noting the course time of 60 minutes. They can then self-submit to their professional entity for CEUs.

The course is free and open to anyone in the United States. For more information, contact: Valerie (Val) Renault at vrenault@ku.edu.

Survey on the Future of the Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology (COAT)

The Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology (COAT), of which NCIL is a proud member, achieved success with enactment of the 21st Century Communications & Video Accessibility Act (PL 111-260).  COAT will continue, but it’s worth taking a look at what the direction should be.

As a colleague in the disability technology community, please answer just ten quick questions about the future of COAT. Take the survey.

Please direct questions about the survey to Jenifer Simpson at JSimpson@aapd.com. Please feel free to pass the survey URL along to others interested in this topic and the COAT coalition.

Thanks for helping COAT look to the future. And thank you for all you do to ensure accessible technology for people with disabilities. More about COAT at http://www.coataccess.org.

Bazelon Center Statement on the Arizona Shooting

Source:  Bazelon Center, by Robert Bernstein, PhD, Executive Director

Our hearts go out to Representative Giffords, her staff, and the residents of Tucson who were victims of the tragic shooting this past Saturday.

And while the details of the shooting and the history of the suspect are still to be determined, early information suggests that investigators may discover evidence of untreated mental illness.

It would be a mistake to conclude that incidents such as this are characteristic of people who have mental illness.  In fact, these events are very rare.  Studies show that having a mental illness, in itself, does not increase one's propensity to commit serious violence; other factors come into play, including co-occurring substance abuse, trauma and, perhaps in this instance, today's vitriolic political climate.

Over the past decades, a handful of similar tragedies-at Virginia Tech, in the New York City subway and elsewhere-raised immediate concerns about mental healthcare in this country.  These concerns soon translated into efforts for quick-fixes, typically, efforts to enact laws making it easier to commit people to psychiatric hospitals or to court-order outpatient treatment.  The fact that Arizona has had such laws in place for many years points to the hollowness of these solutions.  The plain truth is that America's mental healthcare system is horribly broken and horribly underfunded.  And across the nation, budget cuts continue to eviscerate community mental health programs that reach out to vulnerable individuals and put them on a path to recovery.

Our hope is that this time we will come together in the wake of tragedy in a different way. Rather than stigmatizing people who have mental illnesses with false stereotypes or pursuing laws that try to use courts to compensate for gaps in basic services, the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law urges a meaningful effort to address the core issues here.  The nation's system of community mental healthcare, now struggling to provide even late-stage crisis services, should be equipped to ensure that early, effective assistance is available to people who need it.

Media reports have highlighted Representative Giffords' haunting, cautionary words about today's heated political rhetoric.  Another concern of Representative Giffords' merits equal attention:  as a state legislator and, more recently, on the Hill, Representative Giffords has a long, distinguished record of advocating for accessible mental health services and fighting the discrimination that burdens people who have mental illnesses.

We at the Bazelon Center are grateful to Representative Giffords for her leadership in advocacy for mental health issues. We hope and pray that this tragic act brings at least some kind of silver lining; necessary mental health system reforms that she would be proud of.