[PHOTO/CAPTION: Mike Jones]

[PHOTO/CAPTION: Mike Jones]

Braille Monitor

July

2004

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Blind Parents, Child

Protection Agencies,

and the Courts

by J. Michael Jones

Mike

Jones

From the Editor: Mike

Jones is president of the NFB of Alabama. He is working on his doctorate at

Auburn. In recent times he has been busy protecting the rights of blind parents

who were in danger of losing their children to over-zealous and uninformed social

workers. This is what he says:

The following article from

the April 12, 2004, Columbus Ledger-Enquirer in Columbus, Georgia, tells

the story of a blind couple who had their newborn daughter taken away from them.

The paper gives the details of this human drama, but it also describes a pattern

that is all too familiar to blind people everywhere.

The National Federation of the Blind preaches and demonstrates

the message that blind people can compete in every area of life with the same

competence (including supervising, educating, and nurturing children) as our

sighted neighbors. Unfortunately the general presumption has been that blind

people cannot adequately handle everyday parental activities. This presumption

often begins with and is perpetuated by employees of the state child protection

agency. Alabama alone has seen six cases of blind parents losing custody of

their children over the past four years. In every case the NFB responded and

successfully resolved each of these cases for the blind parent.

In every case President Maurer demonstrated his leadership

and belief in the fundamental abilities of blind parents by responding to each

request for assistance. That type of national leadership helps to ease the work

of a state president and increase the chances for success. But the national

organization cannot respond to every case, which is why the NFB of Alabama backed

the introduction of legislation this year in the state legislature that would

prevent our state child protection agency from using a parent's disability as

part of the criteria for determining child abuse or neglect. This legislation

has passed at the committee level and is awaiting its fate in floor debate.

Regardless of how this piece of legislation fares, Federationists everywhere

may want to examine legislative protection for blind parents in their own states

and strengthen it if necessary.

The following story from the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer

points to some prevalent attitudes among social service employees. The age-old

presumption of incompetence on the part of the blind parent seems always at

the heart of these conflicts. The judicial system in Alabama is weighted in

favor of the state agency. When a child is removed from the home, a court hearing

must take place within seventy-two hours of the removal. The court proceedings

are hidden from the public, witnesses are not called, and the state agency is

permitted to present hearsay evidence. Later in the process the parents get

a fair hearing, but not until their child has been separated from them for sixty

or ninety days or even longer. Here is the story of the most recent battle in

Alabama. We can only hope that the current bill will pass and that blind parents

will then be treated with justice and good sense and will not be subjected to

the overt superstition this family faced.

Advocate

Says Disabled Parents Stripped of Rights

by Jack

Stripling

When Pyanne Jordan's first

daughter was born Tuesday, she could barely see the infant. Now she can't see

her baby at all.

Jordan and her husband are both blind, a fact they say

prompted the Department of Human Resources' Thursday decision to place their

newborn in state custody.

"It's unfair. It shouldn't have happened,"

said Jordan, a twenty-year-old Talladega resident. "And I feel that it

happened because we're visually impaired."

The scenario the Jordans describe has a familiar ring

to Michael Jones, president of the National Federation of the Blind of Alabama.

In the course of four years, Jones said, he's seen six cases where he felt parents

were accused of abuse or neglect solely because they were blind.

"What the hell did they do? The only thing they

did was what they were, which was blind," said Jones, a blind parent and

Auburn resident.

Jones's frustration led him to send a complaint upstream

to the state legislature. He found a sympathetic ear in Rep. Joseph Mitchell,

D-Mobile, who is now sponsoring a bill to address what Jones views as outright

discrimination.

Mitchell's bill would amend a section of Alabama code,

adding a clause that forbids courts from ruling that a disability "in and

of itself" constitutes abuse or neglect.

Mitchell will be the first to say disabled parents are

just as capable of parental failures as anyone else. But in cases where a blind

parent abuses a child, Mitchell says blindness isn't what's at issue.

"The disability there happens not to be one of

sight or hearing, but one of compassion and education," Mitchell said.

DHR officials say social workers examine behavior--not

disability--when determining whether a child should be removed from the home.

There are no policies that equate disability and neglect or abuse, said Shirley

Scanlan, program manager for the Office of Child Protective Services.

"We don't have policies like that," Scanlan

said. "They're written in terms of the impact on the child."

But do the policies and practices always coincide? Or

have social workers recommended children be removed solely because a parent

is disabled?

"I can't say that for fifty-seven counties,"

Scanlan said. "But I can say that our policies are around what is occurring

in reference to the child."

John Hardy of DHR's Office of Constituent Affairs provided

input from DHR as the Mitchell bill was crafted. The bill's language mirrors

policies already in place at DHR, Hardy said.

"Since I've been working with the legislature,

I've found that a lot of people like our policy, but they would rather have

it in law," Hardy said.

Jones speaks favorably of his dialogue with Hardy but

says major systemic problems keep DHR in the business of discrimination. When

blind families have called on him for help in these cases, Jones said DHR officials

root their arguments in "ignorance and fear" of the blind community.

Social workers are simply not trained to understand

that parents like Jones have to use different methods of supervision, Jones

said.

DHR officials stand by social worker training but admit

dealing with disabled parents isn't a specific part of the curriculum.

"We don't have any written part of the curriculum

for child welfare workers," said John Bradford, DHR spokesman. "There

might be some discussion, but there's no written part."

DHR officials cannot discuss abuse and neglect cases,

but the Jordans concede that some of the changes DHR has recommended are reasonable.

Both parents are unemployed and drawing disability, and Tyrone Jordan said he

shares DHR's concerns about a ten-inch-wide hole in the floor of the family's

home. He fell through it recently himself but has since covered it with wood.

Jordan has been ordered to find a new home before his

daughter will be returned, and he says he will comply.

Jordan is less than enthused, however, about the suggestion

that he needs a seeing adult to supervise his family around the clock--a condition

he'll have to go along with to get his child back.

"As of this weekend, after that we have no more

privacy," he said. "They're going to be around all the time."

The family also was ordered to get rid of their cat,

which Jordan says they will do.

"They say the cat takes the baby's breath away,"

said Jordan, fifty-one. "Of course, we are responsible enough not to have

the animal around the child."

Unlike his wife, Jordan has been a parent before. He

has a twenty-seven-year-old daughter, and Jordan said his parenting skills shouldn't

be a subject of debate.

In reality, Jordan says, parenting isn't even part of

the DHR equation. In Jordan's view this is a fundamental debate about whether

blind parents can adequately supervise children. "They are not going to

admit that of course," Jordan said, "because they know that would

be a discrimination charge."

==================================================================

Pooled

Income Gifts

In this plan money donated

to the National Federation of the Blind by a number of individuals is invested

by the NFB. Each donor and the NFB sign an agreement that income from the funds

will be paid to the donor quarterly or annually. Each donor receives a tax deduction

for the gift; the NFB receives a useful donation; and the donor receives income

of a specified amount for the rest of his or her life. For more information

about the NFB pooled income fund, contact the National Federation of the Blind,

Special Gifts, 1800 Johnson Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21230-4998, phone (410)

659-9314, fax (410) 685-5653.

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