DOJ Coordinates With Kansas To Protect The Legacies Of Children

The U.S. Department of Justice is in full force, implementing its agenda, which seems to be systematically dismantling layers upon layers of social fraud schemes against the people.

This historic act is a financial protection in the best interests of the elder.

What may be extrapolated from this operation are charity solicitation fraud schemes through child welfare NGOs, which will always target the elderly.

It is quite interesting that the Kansas Attorney General is an enthusiastic participant in these activities considering the fact that the Kansas Legislature has introduced asset forfeiture legislation of the elderly and disabled (code for children) under the care of the state in guardianship, "to counter the increased costs of care" or so they say.

Kansas has no Auditor General so someone has to make sure the elder population is not getting ripped off by unscrupulous operations within the state government, too.

I believe I would be secure in proffering a passionate panegyric that the next phase of Jeff Session's Office's agenda is going to be protecting the best interests of children, the legacies.

Justice Department Coordinates Nationwide Elder Fraud Sweep of More Than 250 Defendants

Attorney General Jeff Sessions and law enforcement partners announced today the largest coordinated sweep of elder fraud cases in history.   The cases involve more than two hundred and fifty defendants from around the globe who victimized more than a million Americans, most of whom were elderly.  The cases include criminal, civil, and forfeiture actions across more than 50 federal districts.  Of the defendants, 200 were charged criminally.  In each case, offenders engaged in financial schemes that targeted or largely affected seniors.  In total, the charged elder fraud schemes caused losses of more than half a billion dollars.  The Department coordinated its announcement with the FTC and state Attorneys General, who independently filed numerous cases targeting elder frauds within the sweep period.

Attorney General Sessions was joined in the announcement by FBI Acting Deputy Director David Bowdich; Chief Postal Inspector Guy Cottrell; FTC Acting Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen; and Kansas Attorney General and President of the National Association of Attorneys General Derek Schmidt.

“The Justice Department and its partners are taking unprecedented, coordinated action to protect elderly Americans from financial threats, both foreign and domestic,” said Attorney General Sessions.  “Today’s actions send a clear message:  we will hold perpetrators of elder fraud schemes accountable wherever they are.  When criminals steal the hard-earned life savings of older Americans, we will respond with all the tools at the Department’s disposal – criminal prosecutions to punish offenders, civil injunctions to shut the schemes down, and asset forfeiture to take back ill-gotten gains.  Today is only the beginning.  I have directed Department prosecutors to coordinate with both domestic law enforcement partners and foreign counterparts to stop these criminals from exploiting our seniors.”

The actions charged a variety of fraud schemes, ranging from mass mailing, telemarketing and investment frauds to individual incidences of identity theft and theft by guardians.  A number of cases involved transnational criminal organizations that defrauded hundreds of thousands of elderly victims, while others involved a single relative or fiduciary who took advantage of an individual victim.  The schemes charged in these cases caused losses to more than a million victims.

"Winners. That’s what so many of the people who received these solicitations in the mail thought they were. But they’re not. They are victims(link is external) of scams that Postal Inspectors have seen and investigated for decades. In fact, some of the same operators we encountered 20 years ago are back. But so are we. Yesterday, Postal Inspectors around the country executed search warrants on 12 locations that some of these same operators used to run their scams. We’re letting the American public know – and especially our vulnerable older Americans – that Postal Inspectors are working hard to protect them and ensure their confidence in the U.S. Mail,” said Chief Postal Inspector Cottrell.

“Over the last year, the FBI has initiated more than 200 financial crimes cases involving elderly victims who were devastated financially, emotionally, mentally and physically. Picking up the pieces of these fraud schemes can be equally as traumatizing for the caregivers of these elderly victims,” said Acting Deputy Director Bowdich.  “The FBI reminds seniors and their caregivers to be vigilant. If any person believes they are the victim of, or have knowledge of fraud involving an elderly person, regardless of the loss amount, they should report it to the FBI.”


Actions against mass-mailing fraud industry

As part of the initiative, the Department’s Consumer Protection Branch, working with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York and others, brought numerous cases this past week in a coordinated strike against more than 43 mass-mailing fraud operators, including criminal charges against six individuals.  In addition, law enforcement agents executed 14 premises search warrants from Las Vegas to south Florida, served numerous asset seizure warrants, and coordinated with the Vancouver Police in Canada, who executed over 20 warrants, including search warrants on business premises.

“The defendants targeted elderly and vulnerable consumers both in the United States and abroad, using U.S. addresses and the U.S. mails to try to legitimize their fraudulent schemes,” said U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Richard P. Donoghue.  “They sold false promises of life-changing prizes that never came true.  We will pursue the perpetrators of these mail schemes wherever they are located, and hold them accountable.”

These recently filed cases particularly targeted transnational criminal actors who collectively defrauded at least a million victims out of hundreds of millions of dollars.  Indeed, just one of the schemes prosecuted criminally by the Consumer Protection Branch operated from 14 foreign countries to cost American victims more than $30 million.  Click here for map showing a transnational, single fraud scheme.

Mass-mailing fraud inflicts hundreds of millions of dollars in losses to elderly U.S. victims each year.  Department prosecutors and U.S. Postal Inspectors have taken a comprehensive approach to combatting this fraud, disrupting and prosecuting individuals who manage the schemes, artists who draft the fraudulent solicitations, list brokers who supply victim lists, and individuals who collect victim payments. Click here for fact-sheet with cases on mass-mailing fraud.


Actions against other elder fraud schemes

Prosecutors across the country from the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section, the Consumer Protection Branch and the U.S. Attorney’s Offices have heeded the call to focus resources on elder fraud cases.  Over 50 U.S. Attorney’s Offices and Department Components filed elder fraud cases in the last year.  A list of Elder Fraud cases is provided on this interactive map. 

Some examples of the elder financial exploitation prosecuted by the Department include:

• “Lottery phone scams,” in which callers convince seniors that a large fee or taxes must be paid before one can receive lottery winnings;
• “Grandparent scams,” which convince seniors that their grandchildren have been arrested and need bail money;
• “Romance scams,” which lull victims to believe that their online paramour needs funds for a U.S. visit or some other purpose;
• “IRS imposter schemes,” which defraud victims by posing as IRS agents and claiming that victims owe back taxes;
• “Guardianship schemes,” which siphon seniors’ financial resources into the bank accounts of deceitful relatives or guardians.

Many of these cases illustrate how an elderly American can lose his or her life savings to a duplicitous relative, guardian, or stranger who gains the victim’s trust.  The devastating effects these cases have on victims and their families, both financially and psychologically, make prosecuting elder fraud a key Department priority.


Public education

The Department has partnered with Senior Corps, a national service program administered by the federal agency the Corporation for National and Community Service, to educate seniors and prevent further victimization. The Senior Corps program engages more than 245,000 older adults in intensive service each year, who in turn, serve more than 840,000 additional seniors, including 332,000 veterans.

Using its vast network operating in more than 30,000 locations, Senior Corps volunteers will communicate about elder fraud to potential victims across the country and will use their skills, knowledge and experience to educate their peers and caregivers about the most prolific types of schemes and how to avoid them. Click here for information on Senior Corps’ efforts to reduce elder fraud.


Coordination with state officials

Kansas Attorney General Schmidt highlighted the cases filed by state Attorneys General targeting elder frauds within in the sweep period, and he emphasized efforts at the state level to combat elder abuse and protect seniors from fraud and exploitation.  He encouraged all of the state Attorneys General to devote enforcement and public education resources to preventing financial exploitation of senior citizens.


Coordination with foreign law enforcement

Exceptional assistance from foreign law enforcement partners amplified the effectiveness of the Department’s initiative.  The sweep announced today benefited greatly from the work of the International Mass-Marketing Fraud Working Group (IMMFWG), a network of civil and criminal law enforcement agencies from Australia, Belgium, Canada, Europol, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.  The IMMFWG is co-chaired by the U.S. Department of Justice and FTC, and law enforcement in the United Kingdom, and serves as a model for international cooperation against specific threats that endanger the financial well-being of each member country’s residents.  Attorney General Sessions expressed gratitude for the outstanding efforts of the working group, including law enforcement action taken as part of the sweep by the Vancouver Police Department in Canada to halt mass mailing schemes that defrauded hundreds of thousands of elderly victims worldwide.

Elder fraud complaints

Elder fraud complaints may be filed with the FTC at www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov or at 877-FTC-HELP.  The Department of Justice provides a variety of resources relating to elder fraud victimization through its Office of Victims of Crime, which can be reached at www.ovc.gov.

Are those "Other Special Grants" a trust fund of forfeited assets of the old and young of "The Poors" (always said with clinched teeth) in the State of Kansas?

Schaun Sullivan, the State Budget Director, used to be the Secretary for the Department for Aging and Disability Services, just saying.

I wonder if any of these "Other Special Grants" funds are going through political campaigns?

But hey, what do I know?

KANSAS MEDICAL ASSISTANCE PROGRAM Fee-for-Service Provider Manual by Beverly Tran on Scribd

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Financial Exploitation And Abuse Of Elderly Is The Same In Child Welfare

Court Appointed Guardian Private Corporations

The Office of Justice Programs’ National Institute of Justice today published an article online that discusses new ways to identify financial exploitation and abuse of the elderly.

Great.

The Office of Justice Programs' National Institute of Justice decided to put skin in the game and come up with a new reason to utilize its human databases to scrap up all that 'financial exploitation' going on with elderly adults.

See, I am critical because the same goes on in child welfare, but, I digress.

The state courts assign representatives to older persons, in many instances, a private corporation.

The private corporation takes all their assests, just like they do in foster care.

The state will take all assets to "repay" for care, just like they do in foster care.

There is no civil rights assistance by the States attorney general because the States attorney general contemporaneously advocates and advises the state, which has made judicial determination for the appointment of a privately contracted representative, just like they do in foster care.

This means that the elderly individual, family members, or anyone of affinity, is forced to come out of pocket to hire an attorney for a civil action, which many, if not all, cannot afford.

Same thing happens in foster care.

The States become the beneficiaries.

So, instead of legal assistance program, or a direct phone or email to report fraud, these tech guys got a bunch of money to figure out how they can get into the financial fraud game using the human databases.

One of the variables is to detect real estate ownership of these elderly persons.

Besides, what do you think is going to happen once financial exploitation is identified among elderly adults?

The same thing that they do when fraud is identified in foster care.

Computers Learn To Detect Financial Abuse of the Elderly

Computer learning may provide a new avenue for creating tools to identify financial exploitation among elderly adults.

Extending on work by Drs. Shelly Jackson and Thomas Hafemister on the characteristics of elder financial exploitation,[1] NIJ funded researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston to see if computers can “learn” how to: (1) distinguish between financial exploitation and other forms of elder abuse; and (2) differentiate between “pure” financial exploitation — when the victim of financial exploitation experiences no other forms of elder abuse and “hybrid” financial exploitation — when financial exploitation is accompanied by physical abuse or neglect.

This study demonstrated an innovative way to leverage administrative data to understand patterns of financial exploitation.

The researchers found that computer models were effective in identifying financial exploitation and its subtypes. This study may provide practitioners with ways to use existing data to identify financial exploitation among elderly adults.

Carmel Dyer, Jason Burnett, and their team used a Texas adult protective service administrative statewide dataset with 8,800 confirmed cases of elder abuse. The data were randomly split 80/20. The larger dataset was used to “train” the computer to detect patterns for financial exploitation and differentiate between pure financial exploitation and hybrid financial exploitation. The smaller dataset was used to test the computer models on accuracy in classifying the financial exploitation cases.

The computer algorithms were reliably able to predict clients who experienced financial exploitation compared with those who experienced other forms of elder abuse. Understandably, the main factors that distinguished the financial exploitation from other types of abuse were misuses of financial assets.

In distinguishing between pure financial exploitation and hybrid financial exploitation, the computer algorithms were able to make modest improvements in prediction accuracy compared to chance. The biggest factor that set the two apart was that hybrid financial exploitation cases were more likely to have an apparent injury (e.g., skin tears, bruises). Hybrid financial exploitation cases were also more likely to include clients who had overburdened caregivers, were facing a foreclosure, and were physically dependent than pure financial exploitation cases.

This study demonstrated an innovative way to leverage administrative data to understand patterns of financial exploitation.

The computer was able to learn how to distinguish financial exploitation from other types of elder abuse and further learn patterns of pure financial exploitation versus hybrid financial exploitation. The study only used the first confirmed abuse case, and there may be additional information to be learned from those who have repeat adult protective service reports. The researchers hope these data algorithms can be transformed into web-based applications so that practitioners can monitor financial exploitation in real time and quickly intervene.

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Statement of the Honorable John Conyers, Jr. for the Hearing on “Examining Legislation to Promote the Effective Enforcement of the ADA’s Public Accommodations Provisions” Before the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice

Dean of the U.S. House
of Representatives
John Conyers, Jr.

The 3 bills that are the subject of today’s hearing would institute a “notice and cure” requirement under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.  Specifically, these measures would prohibit a lawsuit from being commenced unless the plaintiff first gave the business owner “specific” notice of an alleged violation and an opportunity to fix or make “substantial” progress toward remedying such violation. 

Let me begin by stating again what I stated previously when similar proposals were considered by our Committee. I am adamantly opposed to any effort to weaken the ability of individuals to enforce their rights under Title III’s  public accommodations provisions.

And, here are just some of the reasons for my opposition to these initiatives.

First, the “notice and cure” requirement will generate numerous litigation traps for the unwary and, ultimately, dissuade many individuals from pursuing their legitimate claims.

For example, 2 of these bills would require a complainant provide “specific” notice of the alleged violation before he or she may file suit, but fail to define what constitutes specific notice.
           

Nor do they define what is “substantial” progress towards compliance.
           
As a result, courts will have to struggle to determine what these inherently vague terms mean, thereby creating an open invitation for well-financed business interests to engage in endless litigation that would drain the typically limited resources of a plaintiff.

In addition, these measures would undermine a key enforcement mechanism of the Americans with Disabilities Act and other civil rights laws.

The credible threat of a lawsuit is a powerful inducement to businesses to proactively take care to comply with the Act’s requirements.

Yet, a pre-suit notification requirement would create a disincentive to engage in voluntary compliance as many businesses would simply wait until receiving a demand letter before complying with the law.
           
This requirement also would discourage attorneys from representing individuals with claims under Title III because attorney fees may only be recovered if litigation ensues.

Thus, an individual with a Title III claim would not be entitled to recover such fees if the extent of the attorney’s representation was limited to drafting the demand letter.

Pre-suit notification would make it even more difficult for disabled persons with valid Title III claims to obtain legal representation to enforce compliance with the Act.

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Can a Government Be Sued for Child Abuse?

There are so many facets to this argument, I just do not know where to begin.

Let us begin with the recently introduced Senate Bill "The Family and Kinship Act of 2016"which focuses on decriminalizing poverty and improving neighborhood economic conditions which would prepare a student for school.

This Senate Bill speaks volumes to the currently standing problems of a dysfunctional national child welfare system simply because there was need for the Bill to be introduced straight out of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee.

Then one has only to look at the "other" goal of the Federal Reserve and that is to "mazximize employment" which it has failed to do so by coddling its primary objective of protecting financial institutions too big to fail.

In doing so, the end result has been a desperate battle of sruvival in traditionally, economically neglected pockets of society.

Detroit is an available heuristic for the go-to concentration of poverty visual and a reflection of state social policies for the rest of the nation in dealing with child welfare.

This would mean that neglect would be the fault of the local government, not the fault of the individual guardian.  I have previously had the pleasure of doing a parody piece on this angle.

The implications of this ruling would mean a totally new approach on how we allocate our Medicaid dollars and other resources in ameliorating and improving conditions which have led to the filing of this federal suit.

Technically, I believe the group bringing this lawsuit is circumventing the problem of stripping a state of immunities by presesnting the questions to the local school district.

As I always say, before you were a man, you were a child.  All policies begin with the concept of the child.

Quintessentially, if poverty, inclusive of its endogenous conditions, thereof, is considered child abuse which is an automatic trigger for Child Protective Services, then would not this be a case of child abuse and neglect against the City and the State for failing to protect children?

Are Traumatized Students Disabled? A Debate Straight Outta Compton

Kimberly Cervantes, one of the student plaintiffs, says she witnessed the deaths of two fellow students while in middle school

Kimberly Cervantes, one of the student plaintiffs, says she witnessed the deaths of two fellow students while in middle school.

An unprecedented, class action lawsuit brought against one Southern California school district and its top officials could have a big impact on schools across the country.

On Thursday in Los Angeles, a U.S. District Court judge will preside over the first hearing in the suit against the Compton Unified School District. To understand the complaint, you need to understand Compton.

The city, located just south of LA, has long had a violent reputation. Last year, its murder rate was more than five times the national average. Now, a handful of students say they've been traumatized by life in Compton and that the schools there have failed to give them the help they deserve.

The complaint is a terrifying read — of kids coping with physical and sexual abuse, addicted parents, homelessness and a constant fear of violence.

One of the plaintiffs, listed as 15-year-old Phillip W., says he witnessed his first murder when he was 8.

"Somebody got shot in the back of the head with a shotgun," the boy explains in a video on a website dedicated to the case. "And they threw him over the rail, and he was just sitting there bleeding, blood all down the sewer line. It was a horrifying sight."

The complaint says Phillip has witnessed more than 20 shootings and, in 2014, was hit in the knee by a bullet.

What's this have to do with Compton's schools?

Susan Ko of the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress says exposure to violence can have a profound effect on the brain's ability to learn.

"That impacts concentration, the ability to just listen to what the teacher is saying, to understand what you're reading, to remember something that you learned or what the teacher just said," Ko says.

Not only that, many traumatized students live in a state of constant alarm. Innocent interactions like a bump in the hallway or a request from a teacher can stir anger and bad behavior.

The lawsuit alleges that, in Compton, the schools' reaction to traumatized students was too often punishment — not help.

"They were repeatedly either sent to another school, expelled or suspended — and this went back to kindergarten," says Marleen Wong, who teaches at the USC School of Social Work and has spent decades studying kids and trauma. "I think we're really doing a terrible disservice to these children."

The suit argues that trauma is a disability and that schools are required — by federal law — to make accommodations for traumatized students, not expel them. The plaintiffs want Compton Unified to provide teacher training, mental health support for students and to use conflict-mediation before resorting to suspension.

"That's a very strong mandate, and it needs to be funded," says the district's attorney, David Huff. He argues the suit uses too broad a definition of disability and sends the wrong message to kids living in other struggling neighborhoods.

"A sweeping declaration would effectively tell these children that they have now been labeled as having a physical or mental handicap under federal law."

Compton Unified has asked the judge to dismiss the case.

This idea — of treating trauma in children as a disability — is new, though the problem is not, says Ko. "Twenty-five percent of kids will have experienced a traumatic event before the age of 16."

Not all of those children will struggle in school. But many will — and not just in Compton, where students returned to class this week bringing with them the stories of summer, good and bad.

School Trauma as Disability Federal Complaint

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DOJ needs to create a special Child Medicaid Fraud Task Force

Dr. Phil: “Foster Care is a Social Circumstance, Not a Mental Illness”

The House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources heard testimony yesterday on the disproportionate use of psychotropic medications on foster youths, and the president’s $750 million proposal to address the issue.

The hearing yesterday was spurred along by the presence of a celebrity witness, talk show host “Dr. Phil” McGraw.

“These drugs can change and even save lives,” McGraw told the committee. But with foster youths, they are “too often misused as chemical straitjackets,” prescribed to mitigate “undesirable behavior” and make foster youths “less inconvenient.”

The use of psychotropics on foster youths has received attention from several corners in both houses of Congress and the White House in recent months. President Barack Obama proposed in his fiscal 2015 budget a $750 million, 10-year plan to help states develop different ways to address mental health challenges among foster youths.

67 youth gathered in Washington for Foster Youth Shadow Day.
 Dr. Phil, in town to address them, told a Congressional Committee
 that psychotropic drugs were too often
 used as “chemical straitjackets” on foster youth

Last week, Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee said the committee plans to “play offense” on what Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) called “mind-bending drugs.”

Ways and Means leadership from both parties asserted an interest in addressing the issue. “This is a bipartisan issue,” said Subcommittee Chairman David Reichert, “We are together on this.”

A 2011 law shepherded through Ways and Means required states to share their prescription and monitoring protocols with the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), a division of the Department of Health and Human Services.

“Everyone agrees that these drugs are flowing too much,” McGraw said. “The real question is, why? Why is this happening?”

Medicaid fraud.

What was not addressed in this hearing was:

1.  The only way for a parent to access comprehensive mental health for a child is to "voluntarily" place the child in foster care.  This is the only way Medicaid pays for treatment.  "It must be noted that "voluntary" is registered as and reported a "neglect" data.

2. A child diagnosed with a mental health disorder in foster care garners higher cost reimbursements from Medicaid.  Foster children will "automatically" be diagnosed in order to increase revenues.

3. Kickbacks, Physician referrals, phantom billing and double billing are common factors as the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare and the States have no enforcement mechanism to address this type of fraudulent activity.

The Department of Justice needs to create a Child Medicaid Fraud Task Force.

Testimony of Stephen Lord, GAO to Ways and Means Committee on Psychotropic Overmedication of Foster Care Yo...

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How long it takes a child SSI claim to be processed

The attached final report presents the results of our audit. Our objective was to determine the average overall processing times for childhood Supplemental Security Income disability claims decided in Calendar Year 2010 by the disability determination services, hearing offices, Appeals Council, and Federal Courts. 

Overall Processing Times for 2010 Childhood Supplemental Security Income Claims (A-04-12-11230)

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Unlike Canada, United States Has No Laws Advocating For Children and Families With Disabilities

VELVET MARTIN (Unsung Heroine, Advocate for Children with Disabilities)

When Velvet’s daughter Samantha was born with severe disabilities, she was taken away by the provincial government and put into foster care. But it was that moment that Velvet began her fight for the rights of disabled children and their parents.

In 2007, the provincial government passed “Samantha’s Law,” which gave parents of a disabled child the right to raise that child themselves and have access to the government services they need. This law has gained the attention of other provinces and countries, who wish to model their own laws after it.

Sadly, Samantha died in 2006 at the age of 13 after suffering cardiac arrest. But Velvet’s fight will continue.

Now it is time the United States has similar laws.

Rocking the Cradle: Ensuring the Rights of Parents with Disabilities and Their Children by Beverly Tran

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Presidential Proclamation -- International Day of Persons with Disabilities, 2012

To every person who has had their child taken from them just because you were disabled, to every parent or caregiver who has had a child taken just because the child was disabled, and to every person who believes disabilities are grounds to terminate parental rights, welcome to child welfare reform.

Presidential Proclamation -- International Day of Persons with Disabilities, 2012

INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES, 2012

- - - - - - -

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A PROCLAMATION

Americans have always understood that each of us is entitled to a set of fundamental freedoms and protections under the law, and that when everyone gets a fair shot at opportunity, all of us do better. For more than two decades, our country has upheld those basic promises for persons with disabilities through the Americans with Disabilities Act -- a sweeping civil rights bill that moved our Nation forward in the journey to equality for all. And from making health care more affordable to ensuring new technologies are accessible, we have continued to build on that progress, guided by the belief that equal access and equal opportunity are common principles that unite us as one Nation.

On the 20th International Day of Persons with Disabilities, we reaffirm that the struggle to ensure the rights of every person does not end at our borders, but extends to every country and every community. It continues for the woman who is at greater risk of abuse because of a disability and for the child who is denied the chance to get an education because of the way he was born. It goes on for the 1 billion people with disabilities worldwide who all too often cannot attend school, find work, access medical care, or receive fair treatment. These injustices are an affront to our shared humanity -- which is why the United States has joined 153 other countries around the world in signing the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which calls on all nations to establish protections and liberties like those afforded under the Americans with Disabilities Act. While Americans with disabilities already enjoy these rights at home, they frequently face barriers when they travel, conduct business, study, or reside overseas. Ratifying the Convention in the Senate would reaffirm America's position as the global leader on disability rights and better position us to encourage progress toward inclusion, equal opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency for persons with disabilities worldwide.

We have come far in the long march to achieve equal opportunity for all. But even as we partner with countries across the globe in affirming universal human rights, we know our work will not be finished until the inherent dignity and worth of all persons with disabilities is guaranteed. Today, let us renew our commitment to meeting that challenge here in the United States, and let us redouble our efforts to build new paths to participation, empowerment, and progress around the world.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim December 3, 2012, as International Day of Persons with Disabilities. I call on all Americans to observe this day with appropriate ceremonies, activities, and programs.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
third day of December, in the year of our Lord two thousand twelve, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-seventh.

BARACK OBAMA

Rocking the Cradle: Ensuring the Rights of Parents with Disabilities and Their Children
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Organizations Battle On Disability Rights For Parents

Here is an organization against disability rights.

Here is an organization in support of disability rights.

Here is a Michigan Bill against disability rights.  This is why.

You make the call.  Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121.

Report: Disabled parents battling bias

 

Children are often taken away from disabled parents, many are denied the right to adopt

Millions of Americans with disabilities have gained innumerable rights and opportunities since Congress passed landmark legislation on their behalf in 1990. And yet advocates say barriers and bias still abound when it comes to one basic human right: To be a parent.

A Kansas City, Mo., couple had their daughter taken into custody by the state two days after her birth because both parents were blind. A Chicago mother, because she is quadriplegic, endured an 18-month legal battle to keep custody of her young son. A California woman paid an advance fee to an adoption agency, then was told she might be unfit to adopt because she has cerebral palsy.

Such cases are found nationwide, according to a new report by the National Council on Disability, an independent federal agency. The 445-page document is viewed by the disability-rights community as by far the most comprehensive ever on the topic -- simultaneously an encyclopedic accounting of the status quo and an emotional plea for change.

"Parents with disabilities continue to be the only distinct community that has to fight to retain -- and sometimes gain -- custody of their own children," said autism-rights activist Ari Ne'eman, a member of the council. "The need to correct this unfair bias could not be more urgent or clear."

The U.S. legal system is not adequately protecting the rights of parents with disabilities, the report says, citing child welfare laws in most states allowing courts to determine that a parent is unfit on the basis of a disability. Terminating parental rights on such grounds "clearly violates" the intent of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, the report contends.

Child-welfare experts, responding to the report, said they shared its goals of expanding supports for disabled parents and striving to keep their families together. But they said removals of children from their parents -- notably in cases of significant intellectual disabilities -- are sometimes necessary, even if wrenching.

"At the end of the day, the child's interest in having permanence and stability has to be the priority over the interests of their parents," said Judith Schagrin, a veteran child-welfare administrator in Maryland.

In the bulk of difficult cases, ensuring vital support for disabled parents may be all that's needed to eliminate risks or lessen problems, many advocates say.

The new report, titled "Rocking the Cradle: Ensuring the Rights of Parents with Disabilities and Their Children," estimates that 6.1 million U.S. children have disabled parents. It says these parents are more at risk than other parents of losing custody of their children, including removal rates as high as 80 percent for parents with psychiatric or intellectual disabilities.

Parents with all types of disabilities -- physical or mental -- are more likely to lose custody of their children after divorce, have more difficulty accessing assisted-reproductive treatments to bear children, and face significant barriers to adopting children, the report says.

One of the cases it details involved Erika Johnson and Blake Sinnett of Kansas City, whose 2-day-old daughter, Mikaela, was taken into custody by Missouri authorities because both parents were blind. The action occurred after a hospital nurse reported that Johnson seemed to be having trouble with her first attempts at breast-feeding -- which Johnson said happens with many first-time mothers.

During a 57-day legal battle, before the couple regained custody, they were allowed to visit Mikaela only two to three times a week, for an hour at a time, with a foster parent monitoring.

Since then, the family has been left in peace, said Johnson, who tries to offer support to other disabled parents facing similar challenges.

"Some parents just give up or don't have the resources," she said in a telephone interview.

A Windsor, Colo., woman with disabilities says the prejudice she encountered prompted her to go to law school, to better defend her own rights and those of other disabled parents.

Carrie Ann Lucas uses a power wheelchair and is reliant on a ventilator due to a form of muscular dystrophy. She is a single mother of four adopted children, ages 22, 17, 13 and 11, all of whom also have disabilities, including two who use wheelchairs and three with intellectual disabilities.

Lucas says she's been the subject of several investigations by child welfare officials that she attributed to bias linked to her disabilities.

"Each one of these referrals that gets accepted for investigation causes a great deal of stress, not only for me, but for my children," Lucas wrote in an email.

She said the investigations dated back to her first efforts to adopt Heather, her biological niece, in 1999, after the girl was placed in foster care. At one point in a long procedural struggle, a social worker told a judge that "there was no way that handicapped woman could care for that handicapped child."

"We are nearly 13 years later, and Heather is still doing very well," Lucas wrote.

As a lawyer, Lucas has represented many other parents with disabilities.

"I have had parents with paralysis be threatened with removal of their children, deaf parents punished for using sign language with their hearing children, and blind parents told that a social worker can't possibly fathom how they could parent a newborn," Lucas said. "When families do need intervention, it is often because the services they need are not available outside a punitive social services case."

The lead author of the new report, disability-rights lawyer Robyn Powell, says her goal was to challenge presumptions that disabled people can't be effective parents.

"Of course there are going to be some parents with disabilities who would be lousy parents -- that's the same with parents without disabilities," she said. "If there is neglect, is it due to the disability? And can it be rectified by providing the necessary support?"

Ella Callow, a lawyer with the National Center for Parents with Disabilities and their Families, said the report raises fundamental questions about America's social priorities -- given that state and federal laws value both the well-being of children and the rights of disabled people. The ultimate goal, she said, would be to promote both values by expanding support for disabled parents.

"If we really believe that families are the key unit on which society is built, then we have to enable these families to be healthy and functioning, even at public expense," Callow said. "We know foster care isn't a good place for children to be -- they do better with their own parents, at their own home."

Callow, who is based in Berkeley, Calif., said child welfare agencies need to provide more funding and specialized training with the aim of improving services for disabled parents.

"Child welfare is so incredibly underfunded, and the workers are so incredibly overwhelmed, their attitude is, 'Really, you want my attention on this?'" Callow said. "There's a tendency to think these families aren't the same as our families. But these children, when they lose their families, have the same type of grief."

Schagrin, the Maryland child-welfare official, said she found parts of the report troubling because they seemed to suggest children were sometimes removed from their families only on account of parental disabilities.

"That's not why they are taken away," she said. "They are taken away because the disability has continued to the point where there's an episode of maltreatment or neglect."

She said one recourse is to find members of the extended family -- or other types of support -- to help a parent with psychiatric or intellectual disabilities care for a child. But she said this approach could be taken too far, for example if a mother with intellectual disabilities was placed in a group home with other disabled parents.

"What kind of way is that for a child to live -- being raised by a shift of caregivers in a mom-and-child group home?" she asked. "Is that really better than an open-adoption agreement?"

Andrea Bartolo, a senior consultant at the Child Welfare League of America, said there is no question that some disabled parents encounter discrimination in the child welfare system, "sometimes inadvertently, sometimes very overtly."

Under current practices, Bartolo said, an expert assessment of a child's home life and the possible provision of services to the disabled parents might occur only after the child has been removed and "the damage has been done." Going forward, she hopes child-welfare agencies will try harder to provide support before a problem worsens, potentially reducing the need for foster-care placements.

The report praises a few states -- including Idaho, Kansas and California -- for modifying child-custody laws to the benefit of disabled parents. It urges Congress to amend the Americans with Disabilities Act to add protections for parents, and it calls on state lawmakers to eliminate disability as a distinct ground for terminating parental rights.

Christine Waters, an attorney with Legal Services of Central New York, based in Syracuse, worked with colleagues in 2008-09 in a bid to change the state law specifying that parental rights can be terminated if a parent has psychiatric problems or is intellectually impaired. Some legislators expressed support, Waters said, but the effort ultimately failed.

"Everything would look like it was going fine ... and then there would be some well-publicized, awful incident where someone who had a mental illness -- without support -- did something shocking and horrible, and a child was seriously harmed or died and we'd be back to square one," Waters said.

Waters said some child-welfare officials resisted any change, wary of being held responsible if something went wrong.

The assumption that people with disabilities can't parent "is bad for society and heartbreaking for families," Waters said. "The easy thing is to terminate the parental rights. We need to do the right thing, not the easy thing."

Disabled parents whose parenting ability comes into question often are placed at a disadvantage by parenting assessments that are inappropriate or unfair, the report says. It calls for better research to improve assessment standards and gain more knowledge about how various disabilities affect the ability to be an effective parent.

One topic worth further study, it said, is "parentification" -- the phenomenon in which children of disabled parents take on various caregiving responsibilities, even at a young age.

In Arlington Heights, Ill., Jenn Thomas, a 36-year-old mom who has cerebral palsy, says her 8-year-old twins occasionally complain about having to do a few extra chores around the house to help her.

Her daughter, Abigail, nods and smiles upon hearing this, but says for the most part, their lives are "kind of normal." For her, having a mom with a disability is just how it is, she says, shrugging.

Sometimes, they ride on the chair with her -- especially son Noah because he, like his father, D.J., is a "little person," the term used by the family and others for someone genetically predisposed to having unusually short stature. When activities are farther away, the couple has created a support network to help when D.J. is working. He drives, but Jenn does not.

"I want them to enjoy activities and not be limited because I am limited," she says. So she coordinates with neighbors to help get the kids to swimming, cello lessons or basketball practice. Or she arranges for "paratransit," a bus service for riders with disabilities and their families.

Friends also helped redesign their kitchen to make it more accessible.

The new report stresses that improved networks of support for disabled parents -- encompassing transportation, housing, health care, and outside intervention when appropriate -- should be welcomed, and not viewed as evidence that the parents on their own are incapable.

When children do face removal from their disabled parents, those parents may encounter barriers to meaningful participation in their legal cases, the report says. For example, financially struggling parents may have to rely on a court-appointed attorney with no special knowledge about the effects of disability.

Kaney O'Neill of Des Plaines, Ill., a quadriplegic Navy veteran, endured an 18-month legal battle to keep custody of her young son. Her ex-boyfriend filed for custody in 2009, when the boy was 10 weeks old, alleging that O'Neill was "not a fit and proper person" to care for the child because of her disability.

Refuting the allegation, with legal help from Ella Callow, Kaney demonstrated how she had prepared for motherhood by working with an occupational therapy program, adapting her house, securing specialized baby-care equipment, and using personal assistants to help her as needed.

"I lived in fear every single day that my son would be taken away from me," said O'Neill, 36. "In a lot of ways it made me a better mother because I felt that I had a lot to prove."

She says her son, who taught himself to climb up his mother's wheel chair into her lap, is now going to preschool twice a week and is thriving.

"If you are a parent with a disability, you don't have a role model -- you have to figure out how you're going to be a mother and overcome challenges," she said.

For disabled women who either cannot bear children or choose not to, the possible option of adoption often can be complicated. Some foreign countries, notably China, rule out disabled people as potential adoptive parents.

Elizabeth Pazdral of Davis, Calif., who wears a brace and uses crutches to walk because of cerebral palsy, said she encountered discrimination several years ago when she and her husband sought to adopt a child. She said one local adoption agency billed her an advance fee of $3,400, then advised that there were "serious reservations" about her ability to be a parent.

"I think it was dishonest to take my money and then tell me they were worried," said the 4-foot-tall Pazdral, 42, who is executive director of the California State Independent Living Council.

Initially distraught, Pazdral obtained legal help, paid for an occupational therapist to come to her house to assess her capabilities, and researched how other parents with disabilities had succeeded in raising children. The efforts paid off: The adoption agency dropped its objections, and in May 2008, Pazdral and her husband, a Stanford University physicist, adopted a baby girl named Madeleine.

"It was a huge life change -- but that's true for any new parent," Pazdral said, recounting sleep-deprived nights, higher levels of chronic pain, and the challenge of maintaining one's energy level.

"But I start with the joy I get from being her mother -- the rightness I feel," Pazdral said. "It's the best thing I have ever done with my life."

Rocking the Cradle: Ensuring the Rights of Parents with Disabilities and Their Children by Beverly Tran on Scribd

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Mitt Romney Seduced By Child Abuse Propaganda

Mitt, my love, do you have any idea what would happen, fiscally that is?

Just about the only mothers collecting assistance are caring for a disabled child which means you are tapping into Social Supplemental Income (SSI).  There is a cap on life time benefits on a state level.  It is 5 years but Michigan is in the process of making it 2 years.

If you cut these mothers off the SSI program, you will have a major surge of children being placed in child welfare.  And right now, not mentioning the level of fraud, waste and abuse in child welfare, you have a system in which the likelihood of your child will end up raped, drugged and tortured is significant.

My precious, do you even know how much the 2013 budget is for the Administration for Children and Families?  It is at $34.1 billion and that does not include Medicaid Targeted Case Management funding.

Now, let's do some basic math.  Cut off SSI which stands at about $700 a month and put a child in a child welfare system, which can be reasonably estimated at 4 times that amount, $2800.  Also keep in mind that the influx of children entering the system will cause for increase of staffing, services, programs and antitrust contracts riddled with fraud, waste and abuse.

With all said, this takes the budget to put mothers back to work to about $156 billion.  Mind you, if you incorporate future costs such as the poor track record of children exiting the system who will more than likely end up back in the same system, you are looking serious problem.

Do you know anything about childhood disabilities?

U.S. HHS Budget for Administration for Children and Families FY 2012

Mitt Romney: Mothers Should Be Required To Work Outside Home Or Lose Benefits

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WASHINGTON -- Poor women who stay at home to raise their children should be given federal assistance for child care so that they can enter the job market and "have the dignity of work," Mitt Romney said in January, undercutting the sense of extreme umbrage he showed when Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen quipped last week that Ann Romney had not "worked a day in her life."

The remark, made to a Manchester, N.H., audience, was unearthed by MSNBC's "Up w/Chris Hayes," and aired during the 8 a.m. hour of his show Sunday.

Ann Romney and her husband's campaign fired back hard at Rosen following her remark. "I made a choice to stay home and raise five boys. Believe me, it was hard work," Romney said on Twitter.

On Sunday, Romney spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg told The Huffington Post in an email, "Moving welfare recipients into work was one of the basic principles of the bipartisan welfare reform legislation that President Clinton signed into law. The sad fact is that under President Obama the poverty rate among women rose to 14.5 percent in 2011, the highest rate in 17 years. The Obama administration's economic policies have been devastating to women and families."

Mitt Romney, however, judging by his January remark, views stay-at-home moms who are supported by federal assistance much differently than those backed by hundreds of millions in private equity income. Poor women, he said, shouldn't be given a choice, but instead should be required to work outside the home to receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families benefits. "[E]ven if you have a child 2 years of age, you need to go to work," Romney said of moms on TANF.

Recalling his effort as governor to increase the amount of time women on welfare in Massachusetts were required to work, Romney noted that some had considered his proposal "heartless," but he argued that the women would be better off having "the dignity of work" -- a suggestion Ann Romney would likely take issue with.

"I wanted to increase the work requirement," said Romney. "I said, for instance, that even if you have a child 2 years of age, you need to go to work. And people said, 'Well that's heartless.' And I said, 'No, no, I'm willing to spend more giving day care to allow those parents to go back to work. It'll cost the state more providing that daycare, but I want the individuals to have the dignity of work.'"

Regardless of its level of dignity, for Ann Romney, her work raising her children would not have fulfilled her work requirement had she been on TANF benefits. As HuffPost reported Thursday:

As far as Uncle Sam is concerned, if you're poor, deciding to stay at home and rear your children is not an option. Thanks to welfare reform, recipients of federal benefits must prove to a caseworker that they have performed, over the course of a week, a certain number of hours of "work activity." That number changes from state to state, and each state has discretion as to how narrowly work is defined, but federal law lists 12 broad categories that are covered.
Raising children is not among them.

According to a 2006 Congressional Research Service report, the dozen activities that fulfill the work requirement are:

(1) unsubsidized employment
(2) subsidized private sector employment
(3) subsidized public sector employment
(4) work experience
(5) on-the-job training
(6) job search and job readiness assistance
(7) community services programs
(8) vocational educational training
(9) job skills training directly related to employment
(10) education directly related to employment (for those without a high school degree or equivalent)
(11) satisfactory attendance at a secondary school
(12) provision of child care to a participant of a community service program

The only child-care related activity on the list is the last one, which would allow someone to care for someone else's child if that person were off volunteering. But it does not apply to married couples in some states. Connecticut, for instance, specifically prevents counting as "work" an instance in which one parent watches a child while the other parent volunteers.

The federal government does at least implicitly acknowledge the value of child care, though not for married couples. According to a 2012 Urban Institute study, a single mother is required to work 30 hours a week, but the requirement drops to 20 hours if she has a child under 6. A married woman, such as Romney, would not be entitled to such a reduction in the requirement. If a married couple receives federally funded child care, the work requirement increases by 20 hours, from 35 hours to 55 hours between the two of them, another implicit acknowledgment of the value of stay-at-home work.
Romney's January view echoes a remark he made in 1994 during his failed Senate campaign. "This is a different world than it was in the 1960s when I was growing up, when you used to have Mom at home and Dad at work," Romney said, as shown in a video posted by BuzzFeed's Andrew Kaczynski. "Now Mom and Dad both have to work whether they want to or not, and usually one of them has two jobs."

This article has been updated to reflect comment from the Romney campaign.

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