Persons with Disabilities Right To Parent Act

On this episode Boris is joined by his boss's boss and the executive director of Able South Carolina, Kimberly Tissot to discuss the challenges facing parents with disabilities and what the Persons with Disabilities Right To Parent Act did for South Carolina's families.  

 Disclaimer

Able South Carolina is providing this podcast as a public service, but it is neither a legal interpretation nor a statement of local, state, or federal legislation or policy. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by Able South Carolina. The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an Able South Carolina endorsement of them or any entity they represent. If you have any questions about this disclaimer, please contact our Director of Advocacy and Community Access at advocacy@able-sc.org

Transcript

 

00:00 Boris Klaric: Good morning, my name is Boris Klaric.

 

00:03 Kimberly Tissot: And I'm Kimberly Tissot.

 

00:08 BK & KT: And you're parked in The Access Aisle.

 

[pause]

 

00:12 BK: On the Access Aisle we’ve talked a lot about the rights and protections of people with disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act, but there are still discriminatory state laws that confuse efforts to end different treatment based on a person’s disability status. Here in South Carolina as recently as two years ago, parents with disabilities could have their children removed and parental rights terminated just because they had a disability. The good news is, in South Carolina disability rights activists stood up and worked alongside legislative partners to bring about the Persons with Disabilities Right to Parent Act and with me today is one its architects, Kimberly Tissot.

 

00:47 KT: Thank you. Yeah, yeah. So I think a lot of folks who have disabilities, men, women, everybody, there's always a desire to be a parent. Sometimes that course to become a parent can be difficult. It could be difficult in a variety of ways, it could be because somebody's disability is directly impacting somebody's ability to actually naturally carry a child. It's also moving forward with going to the next steps of adoption. And then also sometimes when parents with disabilities do have their children, there are difficulties with what the outside folks, the community thinks that they're capable of doing and sometimes their rights are violated.

 

01:37 BK: Absolutely. So what brought you into that realm of advocacy that you really wanted to help parents with disabilities?

 

01:45 KT: Well, I have a physical disability and I've had one since I was two. I had cancer and some of the side effects completely kind of wiped out my ability to naturally have a child. But... So I always wanted to be a mom. I knew whatever it was, I was gonna be a mom. So I... We did a number of things once I got married and we did a number of things with going to fertility clinics, tried surrogacy, got a egg donation, a number of things, and all of that failed. And when we went to go adopt, we decided to adopt from our state because we did know that there are a lot of children in our state that need forever homes.

 

02:32 BK: Absolutely.

 

02:32 KT: And we could be one of those forever homes and so we felt like we were ready to be a parent and when we went to our state's child welfare system, the first session of learning about adopting, we were told that people with physical disabilities like myself are not allowed to adopt. Of course, I always laugh and tell people, "Well, they did not know who they were messing with." You never know who's a disability rights advocate out there. And so I did a little bit of investigating within the system and learned that this was not a policy of theirs, that this was just a staff member's perception of who can and can't adopt a child from the state's child welfare system. So we did do some pushing back. Luckily, we do have federal legislation that protects the rights of people with disabilities, so we were able to pursue the adoption process. We were very lucky and we did end up with a very young baby. And he's nine years old today and is adopted. But it should have never... It should have never been a fight, especially when there's so many kids that are waiting to have families. But the perception of what I can and can't do because of my disability got in the way. And I heard stories and especially in my role as the Executive Director here, we heard that children were being removed from very great parents.

 

04:17 BK: And sometimes at birth.

 

04:18 KT: At birth because of what they, what doctors and nurses thought a person is not capable of doing. And so we just kept hearing horror stories and we did some digging into our own state law and learned that we actually had a law in South Carolina that said that people with disabilities could have their child removed and their rights can be terminated simply on the basis of who they are. So obviously that was a huge rights issue, but also violated the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which states that any state agency, federal agencies receiving federal funds must accommodate people with disabilities and provide equal services which includes adoption and foster care. And it also violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. So we decided to move forward with writing a law that would remove any type of discrimination for the rights of parents with disabilities and prospective parents. So anybody who's wishing to become a parent, we wanted to make sure that their rights were protected.

 

05:33 KT: And our first bill actually died in the Senate just because of some politics. They were trying to tack on bills that did not really relate to the legislation that we wrote. But that, the first bill was very complex because it did include reproductive health. So any type of protection for individuals needing assisted reproductive treatment. So like your IVF and surrogacy and all of that. So that first bill failed and we decided to do a more simple bill that would just protect the rights of anybody who might go into the court system either through Department of Social Services or divorce situations, a family court, that would make sure that no one is losing their child because they have a disability. And it also, we wanted to make sure also that the Department of Social Services, was adequately providing services to parents with disabilities so that they can keep their child. So if there's an example that Department of Social Services was to become involved in a family's life, and the mother or father had a disability, The Department of Social Services has to show reasonable effort that they provided reasonable services with accommodations to be able to reunite that family.

 

07:01 BK: And that's based on this specific individual's needs and the kind of supports that they would need for their specific family and child and what they would want.

 

07:12 KT: Absolutely, absolutely. And it has to be individualized, which is also in the wall that it's not just a one-size-fits-all, cookie cutter approach to being able to teach parents with disabilities how to parent. And we have to remind folks, and it's really a sad situation, in what, we're in 2019 approaching 2020. We have to remind folks that people with disabilities are no different, they may just do things a little bit differently, but it does not take away their right to be a great parent, and sometimes their supports look a little bit differently but everybody, people with and without disabilities, they all parent differently.

 

07:54 BK: No two families look the same.

 

07:55 KT: Not at all, not at all. And so we do have to keep reminding folks that. So just because a mother with a physical disability, cannot physically carry a child around the grocery store does not mean that they can't wear a harness or they... A carrier, not a harness, [chuckle] or it does not mean that they cannot push their child in a stroller. And that's how I was able to carry my little one around when he was a baby, as I pushed him in a stroller using my crutches.

 

08:28 BK: What we've seen a lot of times when we're looking at other court cases, there is a pending court case out in Kentucky, where a child was removed at birth from a parent based on not only the presence of a developmental disability, but they factor in that parent's IQ score. How often does IQ come into play?

 

08:51 KT: It comes in to play all of the time. IQ scores really mean nothing. It allows you to get services, it allows you to be eligible for services, but it should never be used against you in anything that you do. And research also shows that if a parent has "a low IQ score" that the evaluation process should be different to evaluate their ability to parent. So it should be more in-home assessments. Watching the parent actually parent the young child or the teenager. And so we are seeing a lot of discrimination on the basis of somebody's intellectual disability and we've got to continue proving, you cannot just hire a psychologist to do a standard parenting evaluation because they are... A lot of times they are biased, they do think that the parents because of their IQ score, they cannot see past their ability to learn new things, to be able to parent, to nurture that child. And so we're having to do a lot of education with the way that our Department of Social Services is hiring these evaluators. Unfortunately there are only two qualified evaluators in the country and they are not in the state and so it does require a little bit of additional funding, but being able to pay an outside evaluator to come in to clearly assess a Parents' ability is priceless.

 

10:39 BK: It's a justified expense to help keep communities intact.

 

10:43 KT: Right, and it's something that the Department of Social Services should be doing because they do need to also prove that they have provided so much services to make sure that this parent is reunited with their child, and so getting an outside person to come in who is qualified is critical, but IQ scores does not tell you, does not set the tone to how you will be able to be a parent.

 

11:09 BK: And even looking at the diagnosis of disability itself, do you think that two people with the same type of disability are living in the same way.

 

11:19 KT: There is never that situation, so there's a lot of stigma out there that people with autism are all the same. No, absolutely not, people with my disability, which is I have one leg, we all do something differently. I walk on crutches, probably a lot differently than anybody else with one leg and I do not use a prosthetic. And so, everybody does something differently, so it should never be a cookie cutter approach, there should never be a folder for, oh, parents with intellectual disability, let me pull this brochure out to learn about what they can and can't do. It's very individualized.

 

11:53 BK: So we've talked a little bit about the things that the law does and the kind of drafts that you had to go through and changes. What are some things that the law does not help with?

 

12:06 KT: So at the moment, it does not help with the assisted reproductive health piece. So if a woman is needing services, reproductive health services like egg donation or surrogacy, that they have rights within those clinics. So that is one thing that we are missing and that would probably be a second piece to this legislation eventually.

 

12:31 BK: Okay, so if I am a parent, a current parent or prospective parent with a disability and I want to kind of explore my options, how would I get started?

 

12:42 KT: Yeah, absolutely, I mean contact your local Center for Independent Living, contact us. We can... We can talk through all those options and look at everything that is possible. If you have a goal to become a parent, we will help you achieve it, one way or the other, and it could be fostering to adopt, it could be looking internationally, it could be a number of things, but it could also be carrying your own child. A lot of folks with disabilities also do not know that they could have a child biologically. And so, we are here to be that support as well.

 

13:16 BK: And conversely, if I'm a parent of a child and I have a disability and I feel like my rights haven't been respected and I haven't received the supports that I'm entitled to, what steps would I take to make sure that those rights are respected?

 

13:32 KT: Absolutely, and I would tell folks to contact us, contact our organization, and we can look at seeing if their rights are being violated, seeing if services are being provided effectively. And if not, we can always file a complaint with the Department of Justice, if somebody's rights are truly being violated.

 

13:54 BK: Absolutely. So we see... I think, it's pretty clear all the good that can be done for communities at large with legislation like this. How common is this type of law nationwide?

 

14:06 KT: It is not. So we were the 13th state to get legislation that specifically protects the rights of parents with disabilities. And so, there has been more since, I think, we had three bills in the nation that passed last year, so folks are catching on really quickly. So it is a little bit of a movement right now to look at the rights of parents with disabilities.

 

14:32 BK: And what kind of advice would you give to parents in states that don't have this legislation?

 

14:38 KT: I would make sure that they make this known, make the issue known to the protection and advocacy systems, to Centers for Independent Living, and be that change agent, making sure that the state is reacting and getting legislators involved. Because I know that when we wrote the bill, a lot of legislators were appalled that South Carolina had legislation that said a child could be removed on the basis of disability. So making sure you share that story, pointing out that the law is bad and it is discriminating. And I think a lot of folks will listen to you on that. If there's never abuse or neglect, there should be no reason why the Department of Social Services is even involved. And that's still happening today though. Even though we do have legislation, we still have to keep making sure that folks are following it.

 

15:39 BK: Absolutely. The next step after passing legislation is always making sure that enforcement is consistent, and I'm sure anybody that's been following the ADA is well aware of that.

 

15:49 KT: It's a ongoing process. So I do know that our state does have a... Our state's child welfare system does have policies and procedures in place when working with parents with disabilities, but it's an ongoing training need for them as well. So making sure that we are changing perspectives within the Department of Social Services too, because a lot of folks, just like how I was discriminated within the agency, it's perception.

 

16:14 BK: Yeah.

 

16:15 KT: It's somebody's idea of what they think that you can and can't do.

 

16:20 BK: Okay. And what are some things that the average South Carolinian can do to help change that perception that professionals have towards people with disabilities?

 

16:30 KT: I mean, really educating. Just keep educating and have families. Let's show everybody that we can be parents and we can be successful parents. And I love hearing stories where daycare centers are changing their roles because they're realizing, "You know, we do have parents with disabilities. So I think we need a ramp out front of our building." And so, learning how to comply with the ADA, because they're seeing more parents with disabilities. And also, the neat thing about our legislation is that it is cross-disability. It's not just one disability. There is some legislation throughout the country that is happening where it's only protecting the rights of blind parents, and we want to make sure that it is cross-disability, because research shows that people with any type of disability can be a great parent. And we've got to make sure that we're protecting their rights.

 

17:27 BK: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time. I think this has been very enriching.

 

17:33 BK: Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you Boris.

 

17:35 BK: Not a problem. And for those of you listening at home, thank you so much. You can subscribe to our podcast. It's available on anywhere that podcasts are including, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. So go find us, subscribe and stay up to date on Advocacy for People With Disabilities and Able South Carolina.