Adoption Group: Parents With Disabilities

Adoption Group Information

Parents With Disabilities

For parents who have adopted or hopeful parents with physical, mental, or other disabilities.

Please read our guidelines before posting.

11 Members

Join Group

Group Message Board

Post a New Topic to this Message Board

Looking to Interview People for an Article

I’m proposing an article to AF, and I need to inteview people who have adopted, people with diseases or disabilities that led them to choosing adoption. If you qualify, please…
- Posted by mamaof2browngirls to Parents With Disabilities on Nov 26, 2012 at 6:39am | 0 Comments | Post a reply
Parents with Disabilities face widespread discrimination

The National Council on Disability (NCD) is an independent federal agency that reports to the President, Congress, and other government agencies on issues facing Americans with disabilities. �The NCD recently released a report entitled “Rocking the Cradle: Ensuring the Rights of Parents with Disabilities and Their Children.” �This groundbreaking policy study includes real life stories of parents with disabilities and provides a comprehensive overview of factors that support and obstruct Americans with all kinds of disabilities from exercising their fundamental right to begin and maintain families. Some findings include: �- With child removal rates of up to 80% for some disabilities, parents with disabilities are the only community in America that must struggle to retain custody of their children. �- Prospective adoptive parents with disabilities face significant barriers to adopting children, both domestically and internationally. �- Parents and prospective parents with disabilities face a significant lack of peer support. �- The child welfare system is ill-equipped to support parents with disabilities and their families, resulting in disproportionately high rates of involvement with child welfare services and devastatingly high rates of parents with disabilities losing their parental rights. �- Parents with disabilities who are engaged in custody or visitation disputes in the family law system regularly encounter discriminatory practices. My wife and I are both partially blind. We adopted our first son internationally in 2009 and had our second son by birth in December 2011. We have not experienced the discrimination outlined in the report. However, we have encountered poor attitudes from a few medical professionals and a lack of support from our non-disabled family, who told us that we shouldn’t have children. I find it interesting that in 2012 we have survey results that say more than 30% of parents would be upset if their child dated someone with a disability and more than 40% of people say they would be concerned if someone they love married a person with a disability. Related Links: Rocking the Cradle: Ensuring the Rights of Parents with Disabilities and Their Children http://www.ncd.gov/publications/2012/Sep272012/ Family Faces of Disability http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.466830003356613.115543.131414496898167&type=1
- Posted by wichuck76 to Parents With Disabilities on Oct 16, 2012 at 4:09pm | 3 Comments | Post a reply