Emily Ladau is our guest on this episode of Day In Washington. Listen as she shares some of what she has learn throughout her life, and what policy issue she is most concerned about. Bio Emily Ladau is a passionate disability rights activist, writer, speaker, and digital communications consultant whose career began at the age of 10, when she appeared on several episodes of Sesame Street to educate children about her life with a physical disability. In 2017, she was named as one of Adelphi University’s 10 Under 10 Young Alumni. In 2018, she was awarded the Paul G. Hearne Emerging Leader Award from the American Association of People with Disabilities. Emily is the Editor in Chief of the Rooted in Rights Blog, a platform focused on amplifying authentic writing on disability rights issues. And, she is a co-host of The Accessible Stall Podcast. Emily’s writing has been published on websites including The New York Times, SELF, Salon, Vice, and Huffington Post. Emily has spoken before numerous audiences, ranging from a panel about the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act at the U.S. Department of Education, to a keynote presentation at the 2018 TASH Conference. All of Emily’s activism is driven by her belief that if we want the world to be accessible to people with all types of disabilities, we must make ideas and concepts surrounding disability accessible to the world. Links

Day In Washington: the Disability Policy Podcast

Learning To Accept Yourself, Your Bad Experiences, and Your Skills: Our Conversation with Emily Ladau

Hello and welcome to Day in Washington, your disability policy podcast. I’m your host Day Al-Mohamed working to make sure you stay informed.  I know everyone was watching the news about the Hacienda HealthCare facility in Phoenix, Arizona, where a 29-year-old patient had been raped several times, and the staff had no idea she was pregnant until she went into labor and gave birth to a healthy baby boy on December 29th. Originally the story posted that she was in a coma. That has been corrected by her parents who described her as intellectually disabled because of seizures in early childhood. While she doesn't speak, she has some mobility in her limbs, head and neck. She also responds to sound and can make facial gestures. What bothers me is that this isn’t some piece of meat on a table but that this was a vulnerable woman who was well aware of what was being done to her. Nathan Sutherland was the nurse who was supposed to be looking after her; and instead raped her. He was arrested in January after Phoenix police said his DNA was tied to the baby. Last month, his attorney said there was "minimum evidence" his client committed the crime. Really? The first of what will probably be many hearings, was yesterday. But let’s get real here. People with disabilities are sexually assaulted at nearly three times the rate of people without disabilities. A 2005 survey of people with disabilities indicated that 60 percent of respondents had been subjected to some form of unwanted sexual activity. Unfortunately, almost half never reported the assault. Approximately 80% of women and 30% of men with developmental disabilities have been sexually assaulted. The part that is really awful? Just 3% of them are ever reported. The vast majority of sexual assaults, 80 to 90%, are committed by someone the victim knows. And for many people with disabilities, comes from caregivers. The only reason Nathan Sutherland was caught, was because the woman gave birth. Notice, I didn’t say “got pregnant” because a very small, very jaded part of me wonders if some facilities don’t just “get such things taken care of” out of the light of day. The #MeToo movement has drawn much attention to sexual harassment and sexual abuse, I can only hope that as it garners more attention and visibility it continues to include disability. As of right now, even with the persistence and support of parents, family members and friends, victims with disabilities are not receiving justice. What is also disturbing, and is particularly important as related to disability, is that in many instances, the person who has a disability may rely on the perpetrator for care or support, making it even more difficult to come forward. Today, more and more women, including women with disabilities are coming forward to share their stories. We are not looking at just “ways to protect” but examining perpetrators and the structures and institutions that protect them and allow them to continue their behaviors. If you know of or suspect sexual assault or abuse please contact your local police station or 911. You do not need proof to file a report. If the person being abused is considered a vulnerable adult under your state laws, you may also be able to contact the local Department of Human Services or Department of Social Services. If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual assault or abuse, to speak with someone wo is trained to help, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-HOPE (4673). If you are Deaf, you can access help via video phone 1.855.812.1001 (Monday to Friday 9 a.m.—5 p.m. PST) contact the Deaf Abused Women’s Network (DAWN) for legal, medical, system advocacy, and survivor support services. Video Phone: 202.559.5366. You can also chat online anonymously with a support specialist trained by RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) at online.rainn.org. The support specialists who answer hotline chats are specially trained...

DIW – Sexual Abuse and People with #Disabilities

Hello and welcome to Day in Washington, your disability policy podcast. I’m your host Day Al-Mohamed working to make sure you stay informed.  This is the Disability Report for March 2019. JUSTICE:   March 1st is known within the disability community as the Disability Day of Mourning. It is the day when the disability community comes together to remember the victims of filicide – people with disabilities who were murdered by their family members. Vigils are held on March 1st in cities around the world. Recognized since 2012, the vigils have been supported by the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, ADAPT, Not Dead Yet, the National Council on Independent Living, the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund and other disability rights organizations. In March 2017, the Ruderman Foundation issued a report that provided more concrete numbers to the number of people with disabilities murdered by their caregivers. They documented more than 200 deaths from 2011 to 2015. And of course, that is only those that merited media attention. There currently is no way to capture all of these murders based on disability. And perhaps what is more disturbing is the public perception and media focus on the killer rather than on the victim. It is seen as a “mercy” or as “ending suffering” or an “overwhelmed caregiver” in fact blaming the victim for their own death. One person with disabilities is killed by a parent or caregiver each week and the Disability Day of Mourning is a recognition of those lives taken, and lives forgotten as worth less than those of able bodied. On Media Coverage of Murder of People with Disabilities by their Caregivers - https://issuu.com/rudermanfoundation/docs/murders_by_caregivers_wp_final_fina   DEFINITIONS: Words matter. We know this. We’ve been told this over and over. James Skoufis of the 39th Senate District of the State of New York is taking that to heart. He is the sponsor of Senate Bill S4276. The bill makes technical corrections to references to the Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, changing it to the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities. It is not an office for the condition, but for people. Legislation for changes in statute the Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities - https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2019/s4276   HEALTHCARE:  The Charles and Margery Barancik Foundation and Gulf Coast Community Foundation commissioned the University of South Florida to conduct a scan of mental health services in May 2018. The goal was to identify strengths and gaps in the system and prioritize ways to make the system work for youth and families. The study revealed the annual economic cost of untreated mental illness for children and young adults in Sarasota County is nearly $86.2 million. This is primarily from suicide, criminal justice, education, and worker productivity. Roughly 15 percent of Sarasota County’s residents are under 18 years old, or around 60,488. About one in five experiences a severe mental disorder during their life. Half of all chronic illness begins by the age of 14, and three-quarters by the age of 24. Florida ranks 50th in mental health services, according to the Florida Policy Institute. The state has the third-highest percentage of mentally ill persons who are also uninsured. In 2014, the state provided just $36.05 per person in support of mental health services, less than one-third of the U.S. average of $125.90. The study specifically highlighted a lack of inpatient care, residential treatment programs, independent living options for adults, case management, post-discharge services from crisis stabilization units, and youth psychiatric treatment. The study doesn’t solve the problem but it puts hard numbers and a price to what many disability and mental health advocates have known for years. Sarasota County Mental Health Scan - https://barancikfoundation.org/campaigns/mental-health-scan/

Disability Report – March 31, 2019

Hello and welcome to Day in Washington, your disability policy podcast. I’m your host Day Al-Mohamed working to make sure you stay informed.  Today, I want to take a few minutes to talk about the recent college admissions scandal, reflect a bit on what happened, and what it means for students with disabilities.  It is impossible to look at the news in the last few weeks and not hear about the college admissions cheating scandal. Operation Varsity Blues was an FBI operation that resulted in 50 people being charged with bribery and mail fraud. They were part of a complex cheating scheme to get unqualified children of rich parents into elite colleges. One of the key elements that impacts the disability community is how, affluent parents paid to have their children diagnosed with learning disabilities so they could get special accommodations on the SAT and ACT college entrance exams. Those accommodations can include extra time on tests or allowing them to take their exam in a room alone with just a proctor to minimize distractions. This is not a new discovery. In 2010, a California audit of College Board test takers “showed a disproportionate number of white, affluent students receiving accommodations, igniting suspicions of exaggerated or nonexistent disabilities”. In 2006, ABC reported the practice of “diagnosis shopping?—?a cottage industry of doctors and medical professionals, all willing to give students the documentation they need to get the extra test time they want.” Why the sudden increase and interest in using a learning disability to get a “leg up”? It actually goes back to 2003 where the College Board had been sued. Previously they "flagged" the scores of students who took the SAT with extra time. I remember being pissed that my tests were “flagged”. I didn’t want a college application committee to know about and/or judge me by my disability until I chose to disclose it. The flagging intimated that my scores weren’t as “valid” as a non-disabled student’s score. So I was glad to see the practice done away with. After the "flag" was dropped, colleges would have no way of knowing that the test was taken under nonstandard conditions. Of course this now had the unintended side effect of not just reducing the stigma for disabled students but created an INCENTIVE for folks to game the system. You no longer would carry the “scarlet letter D” for disability on your scores. Let me quote from one of the affidavits that were filed in the case: "What happened is, all the wealthy families that figured out that if I get my kid tested and they get extended time, they can do better on the test. So most of these kids don't even have issues, but they're getting time." Accommodations, instead of being viewed as a “levelling of the playing field”, were viewed as something advantageous and these people were willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars, to ensure their children could get them. And yet, for many families with youth with disabilities, it is a nightmare of providing testing results and proof of disability, and the constantly changing goalposts of what paperwork is needed for desperately needed accommodations. Diagnostic testing is not cheap, running anywhere from about $1,000 to $5,000. And the bureaucracy to getting accommodations approved can take months. Where students without disabilities might be able to take tests multiple times to improve their scores, a student with a disability, because of the paperwork, ongoing testing, proof of disability, checks and rechecks, if they’re lucky, and their timing is right, they just might get their accommodations approved in time to take the test ONCE. And beyond the cost of testing to prove one’s disability and the timing and planning needed to ensure it is in place, there has always been skepticism in academic fields about accommodations. There is a myth that students with disabilities, especially those with learning disabilities are getting something “e...

DIW – College Admissions Scandal, Standardized Testing, and #Disability

INTRODUCTION Hello and welcome to Day in Washington, your disability policy podcast. I’m your host Day Al-Mohamed working to make sure you stay informed. POST Recently I’ve been thinking about bulling. We’re all familiar with what bullying is right? Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior (usually among school aged children and youth) that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time.  It is verbal, it is social, it is physical, it is even digital now with so many young people spending hours on their phones, tablets, and computers. Michelle Carter was a teenager and when her 18-year-old boyfriend texted her and said he wanted to kill himself, she urged him on. Goaded him into it. He killed himself by filling his truck with carbon monoxide in a parking lot in Fairhaven, Massachusetts. The courts just upheld her manslaughter conviction. The judge ordered her to serve 15 months in prison. But the case isn’t over yet. There are many arguing that she is being punished for “speech.” A CDC survey in Massachusetts in 2017 found that of nearly 1 million K-12 students, 15 percent reported being bullied in school or online, while 12 percent said they had contemplated suicide. Students with disabilities are bullied more than their non-disabled peers.  In fact, recent studies show they are likely to have been bullied more than three times as much. If you do the maths that is a terrifying number, that is more than 1/3 of kids with disabilities who have contemplated suicide. Even if it doesn’t lead to suicide, bullying can lead to school avoidance and increased absenteeism, dropping grades, an inability to concentrate, anxiety, depression, a loss of interest in academic achievement, and behavioral outbursts in some youth. In 2014, the Administration sent out a Dear Colleague letter highlighting the impact of bullying on children with disabilities and specifically invoked the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) which requires that each child who has a disability and qualifies for special education and related services must receive a free appropriate public education (FAPE). Basically, that bullying interferes with that access to a free and appropriate public education. The letter also highlighted Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 because the harassment denies a student with a disability an equal opportunity to education. And of course this isn’t just in person. More and more we are seeing young people bullied and harassed via social media, texts, and other electronic communications.  A recent study showed that 30 percent of youth ages 10-20 reported experiencing some form of online harassment or victimization. In 2017,  nine senators asked Secretary Betsy DeVos what resources the U.S. Department of Education was providing schools in order to counter "the recent increase in hateful and discriminatory speech and conduct." They also asked for the number of ongoing investigations by the department into student-on-student harrassment based on things like race, religion, and sexual orientation, as well as whether the federal task force on bullying prevention would continue. And if the Federal government isn’t going to act, some state governments are looking to address the bullying problem themselves. California schools will be required to implement procedures to prevent bullying and cyberbullying by the end of 2019. In addition to the new procedures, Assembly Bill 2291, authored by Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco, requires school employees who regularly interact with students to have access to a bullying and cyberbullying training module developed by state officials. Two additional bills — Assembly Bill 2022 and Senate Bill 972 — approved towards the end of 2018 will improve access to mental health services by adding the National Suicide Prevention li...

Bullying and Disability

Hello and welcome to Day in Washington, your disability policy podcast. I’m your host Day Al-Mohamed working to make sure you stay informed.  This is your Disability Report for the week of February 19, 2019. Housing/International On January 25th, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) released a landmark decision in S.A. v. Metro Vancouver Housing Corporation.  In this case, the housing authority wanted to take into account the S.A.’s Henson Trust. For those of you who may not know, Henson Trusts in Canada are like our ABLE Accounts. Ours are tax-advantaged savings accounts for individuals with disabilities and their families. They’re still pretty new here as the ABLE Act only just passed in 2014. It’s based on the idea that millions of people with disabilities and their families depend on a wide variety of public benefits for income, health care and food and housing assistance. Eligibility for many of these public benefits require meeting a means or resource test that stops people from building any savings for accessible housing, transportation, assistive technology etc. So the Supreme Court of Canada agreed that Henson Trusts should NOT be considered an asset by the housing authority, allowing Canadian citizens to receive a housing subsidy for accessible housing without bankrupting themselves. http://www.ccdonline.ca/en/humanrights/litigation/media-advisory-25Jan2019 Employment In February, the Kessler Foundation and University of New Hampshire released the nTIDE Report focusing on disability employment. In the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Jobs Report, employment for working-age people with disabilities decreased slightly from 29.9 percent in January 2018 to 29.8 percent in January 2019. For working-age people without disabilities, employment increased from 72.7 percent in January 2018 to 73.6 percent in January 2019. But what is perhaps a bit more disturbing is the labor force participation rate for working-age people. The labor force participation rate is the percentage of the population that is working or actively looking for work. Employment rates show people who are working and/or not working. This shows those who are still trying to be employed and those who have given up and no longer in the workforce. For people with disabilities, it was 33 percent in January 2018 and remained at the same level (33 percent) in January 2019. So basically, 67% of people with disabilities are not even participating in the system. Only 33% are in the workforce at all. And that number hasn’t changed. Now lets compare it to working-age people without disabilities, their labor force participation rate increased from 76.1 percent in Jan. 2018 to 76.9 percent in January 2019. https://iod.unh.edu/article/2019/02/ntide-january-2019-jobs-report-job-numbers-hold-steady-americans-disabilities Culture February brings some great news by way of disability culture. New Jersey becomes second state to require schools to teach LGBT and disability-inclusive material. Children in the New Jersey school system will be exposed to "the political, economic, and social contributions of persons with disabilities”. While the focus of the discussion has been primarily on LGBTQ history, having disability included is a big win. California already has such a law in place. Here’s hoping those textbooks get updated with some great suggestions (Beyond Helen Keller and Franklin Delano Roosevelt). I for one, would love to see some people of color with disabilities and their contributions highlighted. https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/01/us/new-jersey-lgbt-disability-curriculum-trnd/index.html Transportation What most wheelchair users with disability know is that only a quarter of NYC subway stations have elevators. They are also aware that many many of the elevators end up out of service with little to no warning and poor information as to when they will be repaired. In January, a young mother, Malaysia Goodson,

Disability Report – February 19, 2019

Hello and welcome to Day in Washington, your disability policy podcast. I’m your host Day Al-Mohamed working to make sure you stay informed.  This is your Disability Report for the week of January 7, 2019. Healthcare The Missouri Legislative session starts on January 9. Legislation has been pre-filed for the upcoming session that would expand insurance coverage for developmentally disabled individuals. Therapy for most developmental disabilities can cost up to $100 an hour with individuals sometimes needing multiple sessions a week; sometimes for months or even years. Think about speech therapy or occupational therapy or physical therapy…these are just not one-and-done types of activities. And Insurance plans tend to cap coverage at 20 visits. To make up for that, some families are trying to pay out of pocket and that can total up to more than $15,000 a year. In 2010, Missouri lawmakers passed a law that provided insurance coverage for therapy for those on the Autism spectrum. The new bill expands that coverage to include those with any developmental disability so would cover conditions such as cerebral palsy and Down Syndrome. https://www.missourinet.com/2019/01/02/missouri-group-backs-legislation-to-cover-kids-developmental-disabilities/ Education Mental Health and Schools. Over and over we are told that mental health is as critical as physical health. Nowhere is this as critical as in our school systems. Federal funding in Title IV, Part A of the Every School Succeeds Act (ESSA) passed in 2015 includes a flexible block grant program known as Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants (SSAEG). These grants would cover activities in three areas: Programs such as college and career counseling, STEM, arts, civics and International Baccalaureate/Advanced Placement. Mental health, drug and violence prevention, training on trauma-informed practices, and health and physical education. Supporting the effective use of technology that is backed by professional development, blended learning and ed tech devices Roland-Story students in Iowa will now have access to mental health services with Okerberg and Associates, which will provide the services to the district for a 22-week period. The school board also voted to request funds for at-risk and dropout prevention. Roland-Story is requesting $246,000 from the state to support this program. What is sad to me is that Roland-Story has requested these funds for over a decade. https://www.amestrib.com/news/20190101/roland-story-approves-agreement-for-mental-health-services Technology As a part of the CVAA (the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010) starting from January 1, 2019, any video and computer games in the US must ensure they are accessible to people with disabilities in regards to communications. Failure to comply will allow complaints to be made to the FCC and possible fines. The International Game Developers Association has just put out some information about how games are affected based on their development progress. In addition to making sure that games are accessible those with disabilities, the creation of the game must have these conditions in mind early in development and involve disabled people in the design or testing process. Should the game not meet the standards and fail to comply, if a customer complains to the Federal Communications Commission or FCC, then it is possible the developer may be fined. (Of course not all games can be made fully accessible, but the FCC’s job is to mediate and look into efforts to fix the issues). https://www.dualshockers.com/cvaa-2019-games-to-be-made-accessible-for-disabilities/ Housing Since the 1970s, in return for access to federal flood insurance, the Federal government requires that all buildings and homes being constructed (or renovated) near water, be built at least as high as 100-year flood levels. In the last few years we’ve been seeing more hurricanes ...

Disability Report – January 7, 2019

Hello and welcome to Q&A day here at  Day in Washington. Today’s question comes from a panel I was on as a part of  a Disability session for the State Department. I thought it was a fantastic question so am including it in here.  QUESTION: I was wondering if you were comfortable addressing the difference between service animals and support animals and kind of elaborate on the topic of service animals in the workplace. ANSWER: Nowadays there are a lot of questions about service animals, service dogs, psychiatric service animals, emotional support animals - I could go on and on - what is the difference and what does the law say. There is a lot of confusion, in part, because there are multiple laws that cover service animals. Even the terminology differs! Let me start with the Americans with Disabilities Act. That is the law that people are most familiar with. The ADA and its regulations are under the purview of the Department of Justice. Laws are usually pretty vague. Think along the lines such as “thou shalt not discriminate against some with a disability”.  Regulations, written by Federal Agencies flesh that out into the rules of access. So the Department of Justice has detailed out the rules around service animals under the ADA. They just rewrote their regulations on service animals in 2010. In it they defined a service animal as a, “dog that has been individually trained to do work or perform tasks for an individual with a disability.  The task(s) performed by the dog must be directly related to the person's disability.” These dogs are allowed out in public spaces because they assist the person to actually manage their disability and BE out in these “places of public accommodation.” Note they specifically only refer to dogs. The original regulations just said “animal” but it is now dogs only. So….does this count if the dog is for a mental health condition? Yes. If the dog is trained to perform a task that helps mitigate the individual’s disability. So the dog is actually DOING something. A psychiatric service dog, if you will. Also, let me just add, under the ADA you are NOT required to provide any paperwork or “proof” that the animal is a service animal. You can be asked “Is that a service animal?” and “What task does he/she do for you?” and that is it. So……..how is this different from an Emotional Support Animal (ESA)? Well, remember how we were talking about service animals under the Americans with Disabilities Act? And how it is managed by the Department of Justice? Well, the Fair Housing Act deals with discrimination in housing and falls under the purview of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. So this relates to animals and housing NOT out in public (although some folks will try to take ESAs out in public and argue that it is acceptable. Short answer - no it is not). Their definition includes “Emotional Support Animals” that provide support and help to ameliorate the symptoms of disabilities such as depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Note, unlike DOJ’s definition where the dog is trained to do specific tasks (including to assist with psychiatric health conditions), the emotional support animal helps an individual’s mental health by its companionship alone. It isn’t necessarily trained to do anything. Also note, the Fair Housing Act uses the term “animal” so it not restricted to dogs. There have been cats, birds, reptiles, and many other species. For the Fair Housing Act, all an individual needs to do is provide a letter from their physician stating their need for an emotional support animal. So now, let’s go to the most recent of laws that talks about service animals – the Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA).  Rather than choosing to follow the DOJ or HUD, they created their own definition that is a bit of a mix of both of the older regulations. Under the Air Carrier Access Act a service animal is “any animal that is individually trained or able to provide a...

DIW – Q&A: Service Animals, Support Animals, and the Laws

On this episode, we speak with Lainey Feingold about structured negotiation. Lainey Feingold is a disability rights lawyer focusing on digital access, an international speaker, and the author of Structured Negotiation, A Winning Alternative to Lawsuits. Structured Negotiation is a collaborative problem-solving strategy with a twenty year track record of resolving complex disability civil rights claims without lawsuits.  Lainey's Structured Negotiation negotiating partners include Bank of America, The City of San Francisco, Walmart, CVS and dozens of other public and private organizations.  Lainey's book is packed with win-win stories of accessibility advocacy, all without lawsuits.  In 2017 Lainey was named one of the 13 Legal Rebels by the ABA Journal, the national magazine of the American Bar Association.  That year she was also named the individual recipient of the John W. Cooley Lawyer as Problem Solver award, given annually by the Dispute Resolution Section of the ABA. Lainey has twice been recognized with a California Lawyer Attorney of the Year (CLAY) award (2000 and 2014) for her digital accessibility and Structured Negotiation legal work.    Questions Asked And Answered: What is structured negotiation? What makes structured negotiation different from filing lawsuits? How long can it take? What made Lainey want to do this work? What advice does she have for advocates? Links link to her web site To connect with her on Twitter, click here. To connect with her on Linked In, click here. Other Items Mentioned Accessible pedestrean Signals straw ban View the transcript of this episode.

Structured Negotiation with Lainey Feingold

Today’s show is about Competitive Integrated Employment. What is it? What does the term mean? Where did it come from? And how does it all intersect with the new Workplace Choice and Flexibility for Individuals with Disabilities Act (HR 5658)? INTRODUCTION Hello and welcome to Day in Washington, your disability policy podcast. I’m your host Day Al-Mohamed working to make sure you stay informed.  Recently, there has been a lot of discussion around the Workplace Choice and Flexibility for Individuals with Disabilities Act and competitive integrated employment. Including a massive protest on the Hill by disability group ADAPT.  What is competitive integrated employment? And why all the fuss? BACKGROUND This issue actually has a fairly long history and involves more than one law so bear with me as I try to give a bit of context. This is about disability employment and it goes all the way back to the early 1930s. During those years, as a way to encourage employment for as many people as possible, the National Industrial Recover Act (NIRA) created a system of certificates that allowed for productivity-based wages for people with disabilities. Basically, if a person with a disability couldn’t make widgets as fast as the non-disabled guy, the company was allowed to pay him less. Sounds like that makes sense, right? Especially, in a country trying to recover from the Great Depression. It gets as many people jobs as possible. This was made permanent in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. It is Section 14(c) and formally allows employers to pay wages below the federal minimum to employees who have disabilities. That same year, the Wagner O’Day Act was passed requiring that all federal agencies purchase certain supplies and services from nonprofit agencies who employed people who are blind. Basically, the government HAD to buy the mops and brooms, made by blind people, in these non-profits. The program was expanded in 1971 to include people who have other significant disabilities and renamed the Javits-Wagner O’Day Act (JWOD). It was renamed again in 2006 as AbilityOne. So, let me give you a little idea about how big this industry is. Currently, there are more than 600 of these non-profits who produce products and services under the AbilityOne Program and the Federal government MUST buy these products from them. More than mops and brooms, it is now pencils and paper, military uniforms, and beyond physical products, there are contracts for services like cleaning and cafeteria and commissary work.  In FY2015 alone, the Federal Government purchased more $3.2 billion of products and services. The laws about disability employment start to intersect with the general perception that many of the AbilityOne non-profits use Section 14(c) in segregated work centers aka sheltered workshops. To qualify to an AbilityOne non-profit, at least 75% of the work must be done by people who are blind or have other significant disabilities. By using Section 14(c), the labor cost for these companies is significantly lower than comparable private companies who pay “regular rates” for labor. I keep talking about AbilityOne and their non-profits and it seems kind of large and amorphous. To bring this down to reality and to an entity you might be familiar with – Goodwill Industries. Goodwill, you know, where you donate all your old clothes and children’s outgrown toys…they are an AbilityOne non-profit. So now, let me get to the nitty-gritty details of the issue...and a third piece of legislation. The Workforce Innovation and Opportunities Act (WIOA), was signed into law in 2014. I won’t drown you in all the details but let me highlight a couple of “biggies.” WIOA updates the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The part we are specifically interested in is where it oversees the vocational rehabilitation system which helps people with disabilities get the support and training they might need to get a job.

“Competitive Integrated Employment” and the Workplace Choice and Flexibility for Individuals with Disabilities Act (HR 5658)

Today's DIW interview is with Vilissa Thompson, LMSW, and creator of Ramp Your Voice! and #DisabilityTooWhite. She is an amazing writer and activist. Join us as we talk about living a "crippled and intersectional life," what disability means in different communities, her policy passion - black disabled women's health, and how she gets into "good trouble." To learn more about Vilissa, check out her website at: Ramp Your Voice or connect with her on Twitter @VilissaThompson. Bonus! Vilissa just started a Patreon! If you want to support disability activism at the intersection of race and disability and health, here is your opportunity - Ramp Your Voice Patreon Transcript DAY: Hello, and welcome to Day in Washington. I'm your host Day Al-Mohamed, and I'm really, really excited to expand the show to including interviews with some amazing people with disabilities. Today's guest is Vilissa Thompson, a licensed master social worker from Winnsboro, South Carolina. Hi! How are you? VILISSA: I'm great, Day. I'm so happy to be on. DAY: Awesome. So just as a quick, short introduction. Vilissa's the founder and CEO of Ramp Your Voice as well as a disability rights consultant, writer, and activist. She's been featured in Essence magazine, Forbes, has appeared in The New York Times and BuzzFeed and The Atlantic, among others. And in addition to her advocacy work, I wanna give a little shout out to the fact that she cohosts a podcast as well, which is Wheelin’ and Dealin’. And it looks at politics from an intersectional lens. Whoo! When do you sleep? VILISSA: I make time to sleep. Self-care is a priority because of all the hectic-ness. So I make time. I do. It's hard, but I do. DAY: I first learned of you through Ramp Your Voice. And those of you who don't, go check out the website right now at RampYourVoice.com. The curriculum that you built. And I was kind of hoping you might tell us a little bit more about that because I'm not sure enough people know about it. VILISSA: Oh, yes. You're talking about the syllabus? DAY: Sorry, yeah. The syllabus as well as a little bit about your website in general. Just the syllabus in particular is one of those things that I think doesn't get enough visibility. VILISSA: Well, with Ramp Your Voice, I created it, soon to be five years on July 19. So I'll be celebrating the 5th anniversary this month. And it was my way of creating a space that was a reflection of the world that I want to see, which were more diverse disabled voices. So it was my way of providing the things I was interested in as a black disabled woman, a social worker, and just someone who's living this very crippled and intersectional life. And with the black disabled woman syllabus, I really created it out of frustration of, particularly white disabled folks asking me why do you focus on black disabled women? Or why the harp on the need to discuss intersected identities by disabled people of color? And I got tired of people asking for this 101 information. So in 2016, and right before #DisabilityTooWhite hashtag went viral, I created the syllabus as a way of being a reference point so that if people had questions, I could be like, "Here. Here's a starting point for you to educate yourself and not ask me to do the labor so that you would understand why black disabled women [unclear] and the black disabled experience as a whole matters and why you need to be more conscious of the way that way that you talk about disability, the way that you bring about disability topics in conferences and panels, etc." So it was my way of not having to be pressured to do the labor that people fail to go to Google for. So I figured just put something together that mattered and that has been widely shared within the past two years, particularly within academia circles, having people really put their bodies of work and it would be a reference point in adding to what existed. DAY: I know the word intersection and intersectional ...

Supporting Black Women With #Disabilities With Vilissa Thompson

INTRODUCTION Hello and welcome to Day in Washington, your disability policy podcast. I’m your host Day Al-Mohamed working to make sure you stay informed. BACKGROUND For those of you who may not know, the Farm Bill is one of the largest and most complex statues we have. It is reauthorized every 5 years. This year, the Farm Bill and all of its programs expire on September 30. It covers food safety and production; it covers crop subsidies, agricultural research, rural development, farm credit, conservation, and nutrition assistance – what we used to call Food Stamps and is now called SNAP the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – which is the focus of this podcast. HISTORY & DETAILS The first ever food stamp program in America began in 1939. The idea was to bridge the gap between the farm surpluses and the hungry, unemployed Americans who were suffering as a result of the Depression. Sounds like a great idea, right? I’m going to pause a moment to personalize the history a bit. The very first person to use these original food stamps, and is a good example of the reasoning behind the program, was Mabel McFiggin. Mabel was an unemployed factory worker from Rochester, New York. She used her stamps to buy surplus butter, eggs and prunes. Over the years, the program has grown and shrunk several times. When there were more people out of work and/or the economy was struggling, more people, including many who were still working (just not making enough), would qualify for Food Stamps. When times are good, fewer people applied to the program. It has changed in format and nomenclature. In 2008 it was renamed the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and all mention of coupons and stamps was removed as it had now transitioned to Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards that operate rather like debit cards. Its idea was to increase the food assistance available to impoverished Americans in the wake of the great recession of 2007. So let me take a minute to throw some numbers at you: More than 44 million Americans cannot afford basic food necessities. To put that in terms that are a bit more tangible, that rounds out to about one in eight. Think about that, 1 in 8 people rely on the SNAP program to eat. About 16 percent of households in rural areas participate in SNAP. But the numbers are more than 20% in Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oregon and Tennessee – so in those states, it isn’t 1 in 8 but one in five The vast majority of SNAP recipients are either children, seniors, or people with disabilities. While children make up about 50% of recipients overall, six million people with disabilities, many of whom are Medicaid recipients, rely on SNAP. And, just to highlight some of the economic impact of the program – SNAP boosts investment in the food industry. It generated more than half a million jobs in 2017 alone. There’s a great example of this from the Union of Concerned Scientists: “Suppose the economy in Anytown, USA takes a turn for the worse. A factory relocates, or maybe a natural disaster shuts down the town’s major industry for an extended period of time. Many households find that they have less money to spend, and business at local establishments slows. Because of hardships resulting from the economic downturn—perhaps job loss, or reduced hours—some families apply for SNAP benefits. "As those families use SNAP dollars to help put food on their tables, the grocery stores they shop at begin to recover. With more revenue, these stores can hire back staff; resume full operation and pay for operational costs like lighting and refrigeration; and, of course, purchase more food from farmers and distributors to meet growing demand. And as SNAP spending is propagated through the supply chain, each sector that gets a share of that additional money is able to spend more money in turn. CHANGES TO THE SNAP PROGRAM Recently, there have been yet another set of changes being made to S...

The Farm Bill, SNAP, and Work Requirements

Click below to listen to the audio podcast: 30 Days after the Women's March http://dayinwashington.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/30-Days-After-the-Womens-March_final.mp3 The Women&apos;s March on Washington (WMW) was a once in a generation kind of event. Nothing has invigorated such action since the right for women to vote. On January 21st we witness an event that crossed populations and groups of women like never before. It was about women with disabilities, women of color, trans women, women incarcerated by the justice system, immigrants, sex workers, pro-choice, pro-life.the list goes on. For many of us, this is not about parties or platforms abut a fundamental belief in the equality of all women. All women. And the recognition of the individual rights integral to that value. The city was planning for 500,000 marchers. The final tally was estimated at closer to 1 million. Beyond Washington DC, people marched in almost 550 cities and towns in the U.S., and 100 more locations overseas. It was arguably THE largest single-day protest in American history.  But to create lasting change and to make an impact we also have to work at what comes after. It has been just one month since the Women&apos;s March on Washington and a lot has happened since then - policies have been made, guidance&apos;s rescinded, executive orders signed (and overturned by the courts). To read the news and media reports of politics can be emotionally exhausting, disheartening, and paralyzing. How can we keep the fire, the passion, and the solidarity alive? There were a lot of articles about what to do next. Now, 30 days later, perhaps it is important to remind ourselves that we have the power and we make choices that can and do have an impact. Just a simple reminder of all the things we can do: Don&apos;t limit your advocacy. There are many ways to take action and each person should carefully consider their time, commitment, and dedication. In the time that has passed perhaps you have already chosen your advocacy priorities. Examine how you feel. Is this working? Choose actions that play to your strengths; that let you engage, learn, grow, and resist. And you don&apos;t have to do it alone. Find others who share your passion. Lean on each other. It is a long road ahead. This is a marathon, not a sprint. We must not allow time to dissuade us from our advocacy and normalize this new state of being, this new America. Stay active. Stay engaged. Perhaps as critical as #1, this is to ensure your advocacy and efforts are inclusive of all women. The WMW has sought to ensure that the voices of all women are heard (with some successes and some failures). It is very easy to fall into the trap of working on issues that are pertinent to us and to ignore, forget, or overlook other groups.  Policies and politics can, and have been crafted to impact some groups more than others: undocumented women, women in the criminal justice system, poor women, women with disabilities, women of color, sex workers. We must always strive to reflect, center, and amplify the voices of those who are most directly threatened. It is also easy to become disheartened by actions, advocacy, and organizations that aren&apos;t getting it all right. Stay strong and always, always, speak out and demand accountability. Our actions must embrace issues that impact all women or we will find ourselves carved up into small special interests.  Look around. Is your advocacy inclusive and diverse? Does it represent America, or only your small vision of it? Stay informed. The assumption is that of course we&apos;re informed! The reason this is listed as a separate item is because of the increased pressure on the press and on mainstream media for what could be deemed splashy headlines and clickbait articles. This is exacerbated by the vast increase of social media focused opinion pieces that have minimal facts but significant inflammatory language.

30 Days After the Women’s March on Washington

Click below to listen to the audio podcast: The Holman Rule and What Does it Mean for America? http://dayinwashington.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/The-Holman-Rule_edit_final.mp3 Hello and welcome to Day in Washington, your disability policy podcast. I&apos;m your host Day Al-Mohamed working to make sure you stay informed. In early January, the House of Representatives passed a package of changes to their standing rules. These changes would supposedly enhance the House&apos;s ability to exercise its €˜power of the purse&apos;. (Congressman Morgan Griffith (R-VA)). Adoption of procedural rules is pretty normal for any new congress.  However, House Resolution 5, which in addition to attempting to move the Office of Congressional Ethics under more direct Congressional control (and which received significant amounts of public outcry), there was also another provision that&apos;s received some media coverage in Washington, but didn&apos;t quite capture the same level of attention. The Holman Rule. The final version of House Resolution 5 includes the reinstatement of a very old Rule from 1876, called the Holman Rule. Let me start with some background. Congress tends to work along two tracks: authorizing and appropriating. Authorizing legislation is what we usually think of when we say legislation or bills. Congress members vote on language that authorizes specific events, agencies, projects etc. The second track, which most people might not realize is quite so separate is appropriations legislation which is where congress members vote on what to fund and how much to fund it. The Holman Rule is specific to the appropriations track. It allows lawmakers to bring an amendment to an appropriations bill directly to the House floor that retrenches (meaning reduces) expenditures by: the reduction of amounts of money in the bill; the reduction of the number and salary of the officers of the United States; or the reduction of the compensation of any person paid out of the Treasury of the United States. At its core, it would seem the rule is to address saving money and (from a historical perspective) was used to help get rid of corrupt customs officials. Let me give an example of this. In the 1932 Treasury and Post Office Departments appropriations, there was a provision that said: The offices of comptrollers of customs, surveyors of customs, and appraisers of merchandise (except the appraiser of merchandise at the port of New York), 29 in all, with annual salaries aggregating $153,800, are hereby abolished. The duties imposed by law and regulation upon comptrollers, surveyors, and appraisers of customs, their assistants and deputies (except the appraiser, his assistants and deputies at the port of New York) are hereby transferred to, imposed upon, and continued in positions, now established in the Customs Service by or pursuant to law, as the Secretary of the Treasury by appropriate regulation shall specify. . . . So now that you have an idea of how it works, let&apos;s look at how things can get complicated. The goal of the rule is to take care of bloated expenditures and to ensure that the executive branch can address poor actors when it comes to agencies. This is about accountability and it allows any rank and file member to focus on specific programs and offices they deem to be wasteful. An example cited by the Washington Examiner (and if anyone has an example given by a legislator who voted for the amendment I&apos;d prefer that), is the story of Elizabeth Rivera of Puerto Rico. She worked at the Department of Veterans Affairs. After pleading guilty to involvement in an armed robbery she was able to get her job back with the agency and win back pay for the period when she had been off the job.  I have to admit, I think that would be great use of the Holman Rule. But does it also risk skewing the executive branch of government and its agencies more and more towards the political?

What is the Holman Rule and What Does it Mean for America?

Click below to listen to the audio podcast: Labor Overtime Rule and the New Administration. http://dayinwashington.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Labor-Overtime-Rule-and-the-New-Administration_edit.mp3 The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA or Act) guarantees a minimum wage for 40 hours in a workweek and one and one-half times the employee's regular rate of pay for any hours worked over that 40. But there are exceptions. In the past you had to make less than $23,660 to get that mandatory overtime pay.  The Department of Labor published a rule on May 23, 2016 that increases that amount to $47,476. For people with disabilities who rely on personal assistance services, most of which are funded by Medicaid, this had immense consequences. The key component is money. Many people who provide those services would now fall within the purview of the rule and so would have to be paid time-and-a-half for their hours over 40.  The American Network of Community Options and Resources (ANCOR), an association of over 1000 agencies that often provide this kind of in-home service gave an estimate that this would add over $1 billion in costs for agencies serving those with disabilities in the first year alone. State Medicaid rates do not take into account overtime. In addition, in recent years, time and again, efforts have been made limit Medicaid. Block grants, per capita caps etc. Efforts to push the cost onto States and unfortunately States aren&apos;t or cannot pick up the difference. That means either workers are not paid adequately (which this rule&apos;s enforcement will address) or there is a decrease in quality (and amount) of services available to people with disabilities. For many, this makes the difference of whether they can live independently at all. Obviously, there was significant pushback from the disability community as well as agencies providing services, including Congressional hearings and legal action. The Overtime Final Rule became effective on December 1, 2016. However, the Department of Labor is implementing a limited non-enforcement policy for providers of Medicaid-funded services for individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities in residential homes and facilities with 15 or fewer beds. This non-enforcement period will last until March 17, 2019. The idea is to give agencies (like DOL and HHS) and federal and state agencies and policymakers to better coordinate and understand the potential unintended consequences and ensure that the lives of people with disabilities and their ability to live independently are not harmed. Of course, it isn&apos;t over. This is merely a delay of implementation.  Also, on the legal front, on November 22, a federal district court judge issued a preliminary injunction (State of Nevada v. United States Department of Labor (E.D. Tex., No. 4:16-CV-00731)). On December 8, the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit granted the Department of Labor's request for an expedited hearing of its overtime rule appeal. Of course in judicial time expedited means that the case won&apos;t even be heard for several months, and it&apos;ll take even more time beyond that for the case itself.  What that means is that the Trump Administration and Congress could choose to repeal the rule, or at the very least, direct the Department of Labor to drop its legal appeal.   Resources USDOL Overtime Rule: https://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/final2016/index.htm Time Limited Non-Enforcement Policy for a Subset of Medicaid-Funded Providers : https://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/final2016/nonenforcement-faq.htm Federal Register Announcement for Non-Enforcement: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2016/05/23/2016-11753/defining-and-delimiting-the-exemptions-for-executive-administrative-professional-outside-sales-and Disability Rights and Labor: https://arineeman.com/2016/05/25/labor-and-disability-rights-a-chicken-and-egg-problem/  

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Day In Washington: the Disability Policy Podcast

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