The customer is the first priority for VocRehab Vermont staff and community partners.
All VocRehab Vermont customers have the opportunity to pursue a career track that leads to increased earnings.
All VocRehab Vermont staff are valued and empowered.
VocRehab Vermont has the resources to meet the needs of all Vermonters with disabilities and employers who seek our services.

Since the start of the recession, at least 25 states and the District of Columbia have curtailed programs that include meal deliveries, housekeeping aid and assistance for family caregivers, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a research organization. That threatens to reverse a long-term trend of enabling people to stay in their homes longer….

Nursing homes here [in Oregon] cost the state an average of $5,900 a month; home and community-based services cost $1,500 a month.

Other states have made similar cuts:

• Florida placed 69,000 people on waiting lists for home or community services last year, and more than 5,700 of them ended up in Medicaid nursing homes.

• Alabama cut housekeeping services — useful for people who can no longer do some cleaning tasks — for more than 1,000 elderly residents.

• Arizona sliced independent living supports and respite programs for family caregivers.

• Kansas, with a $131 million shortfall, will cut independent-living services for 2,800 people with disabilities in the next year.

• In Illinois, providers of Meals on Wheels have stopped adding clients because the state was not reimbursing them….

Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/21/us/21aging.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

What happened, why did it happen, and what can we learn from the patterns of public, media, and judicial response to the ADA that emerged in the 1990s? In this book, a distinguished group of disability activists, disability rights lawyers, social scientists and humanities scholars grapple with these questions. Taken together, these essays construct and illustrate a new and powerful theoretical model of sociolegal change and retrenchment that can inform both the conceptual and theoretical work of scholars and the day-to-day practice of social justice activists.

Contributors include Lennard J. Davis, Matthew Diller, Harlan Hahn, Linda Hamilton Krieger, Vicki A. Laden, Stephen L. Percy, Marta Russell, and Gregory Schwartz.

Backlash Against the ADA will interest disability rights activists, lawyers, law students and legal scholars interested in social justice and social change movements, and students and scholars in disability studies, political science, media studies, American studies, social movement theory, and legal history.

Linda Hamilton Krieger is Professor of Law, University of California School of Law, Berkeley.

In 2006, Goddard filed a lawsuit against Harkins Theatres on behalf of Arizonans with sensory disabilities. Larry Wanger, a Phoenix resident who is blind, and Rachel Lindstrom whose son, Frederick Lindstrom, is deaf, joined the lawsuit against Harkins. The Lindstrom’s were represented by the Arizona Center for Disability law.

U.S. District Court Judge Roslyn Silver in Phoenix dismissed the lawsuit in 2008, concluding that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Arizonans with Disabilities Act (AzDA) do not require movie theaters to provide captions and descriptions.

The state appealed that decision to the Ninth Circuit, which ruled that closed captions and descriptions are auxiliary aids and services included under Title III of the ADA.

Assistance for the disabled

Captioning provides the text of the soundtrack of a movie for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. The text is transmitted to a reflector or receiver at the customer’s seat. Audio descriptions provide information about key visual aspects of a movie through descriptions of scenery, facial expressions, costumes, action, and scene changes during pauses in dialogue.

Major movie studios distribute many wide-release movies with captions and/or descriptions, but accessibility is limited to theaters that have installed the equipment. Several current movies now showing are available with captions or descriptions.

Major support for appeal

The AG’s office received support from many disability and civil rights organizations in appealing the dismissal of this case. The following groups filed briefs in support of the state’s appeal:
• U.S. Department of Justice
• Screen Actors Guild
• The National Association of the Deaf
• Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing
• Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Inc.
• Deaf Seniors Association
• National Cued Speech Association
• American Society for Deaf Children
• National Council of Hispano Deaf and Hard of Hearing
• American Academy of Audiology
• Conference of Educational Administrators of Schools and Programs for the Deaf
• American Association of the Deaf-Blind
• American Council of the Blind
• American Foundation for the Blind
• American Association of People with Disabilities
• Disability Rights Advocates
• Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund
• National Disability Rights Network
• Washington State Communication Access Project
• Hearing Loss Association of America
• Arizona Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing
• State and numerous local chapters of Hearing Loss Association in Arizona and Washington
• Association of Late-Deafened Adults
• Rio and Helen Popper, a blind child and her mother, California residents.

“We are gratified that the Ninth Circuit rejected Harkins’ argument that the ADA and the AzDA require only that individuals with disabilities gain entrance to the theater, but not access to the soundtrack or key visual features of the films shown,” Goddard said. “This decision makes it clear that the ADA is about more than physical access to a public accommodation — it is also about ensuring access to the services that the public accommodation provides.”

Read more:  http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2010/05/movie_theater_disability.html#ixzz0nCjLfdWH

State lawmakers are concerned that mental hospitals are not always secure enough.

“It doesn’t reach the level of security that you would find in a maximum security prison,” says Richard Kellogg, with the Department of Social and Health Services.

Seattle attorney David Carlson, with Disability Rights Washington, is suing in federal court to stop the new law.

“Prisons are not set up to provide the type of treatment hospitals provide. Not only that, their main purpose is to punish individuals,” says Carlson.

He claims it’s unconstitutional to send people to prison if they’re found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Kagan, who currently serves as the country’s solicitor general, will replace Justice John Paul Stevens if she is confirmed by the Senate. A former Harvard Law School dean, Kagan has never been a judge. She would be the court’s youngest member at age 50 and the fourth woman to serve on the court.

Disability advocates were hesitant to say much about Kagan. Without a judicial record, they said little is known on her positions regarding disability rights law. “I think her hearings are going to be important,” Louis Bossing, senior staff attorney at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, said of Kagan’s upcoming Senate confirmation process. “We’re going to spend time working with the judiciary committee so the senators can ask questions we’ll need to know whether to support or oppose her nomination.”

The initial reaction is starkly differently from the response advocates gave to President Barack Obama’s first Supreme Court nominee last year. Within a day of announcing now Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s selection, disability advocates were were suggesting “she may be the champion we have been looking for.”
Ultimately, more than two dozen national disability organizations banded together to support Sotomayor’s confirmation.

Despite the quiet reception advocates are giving Kagan, Bossing does say there are reasons to be hopeful. Under Kagan’s leadership at Harvard, the law school established clinics to help students with disabilities and to support implementation of the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. What’s more, Bossing says, he is optimistic that Obama’s own understanding of disability rights law means that he would select a similarly well-versed nominee.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy today unveiled the official theme for October’s National Disability Employment Awareness Month: “Talent Has No Boundaries: Workforce Diversity INCLUDES Workers With Disabilities.” The theme serves to inform the public that workers with disabilities represent a diverse and vibrant talent pool for hire.

Early announcement of the theme helps communities nationwide plan a series of events, some of which will continue throughout the year beginning in October, such as proclamations, public awareness programs and job fairs that showcase the skills and talents of workers with disabilities.
This theme epitomizes Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis’ commitment to “good jobs for everyone.”

“The solutions and innovations applicable to the successful employment of workers with disabilities impact the entire workforce, including aging workers, injured workers, at-risk youth, women, people of color, and unemployed and underemployed workers,” said Kathleen Martinez, assistant secretary of labor for disability employment policy.

As background, Public Law 176, enacted by the Congress in 1945, designated the first week in October each year as “National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week.” President Harry S. Truman designated the President’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities to carry out the Act. In 1962, the word “physically” was removed from the week’s name to acknowledge the employment needs of all Americans with disabilities. Congress expanded the week to a month in 1988 and changed its name to “National Disability Awareness Month,” which eventually evolved to its current name. The Labor Department’s Office of Disability Employment Policy took over responsibility for National Disability Employment Awareness Month in 2001.

Members of the public with questions related to the theme should contact Carol Dunlap at 202-693-7902. Members of the press should contact the individuals named above.

In the early 1960s the University of California, Berkeley was not exactly the progressive institution that we think of today. Though the spirit that would come to define one of America’s most free-thinking and inclusive universities was present, at this time, this spirit did not include people with disabilities. 1962, Ed Roberts successfully sued the University of California for refusing him admittance to college. Once at Berkeley, he became a well-known leader of the disability rights movement and created a significant path for change for the university and the country.

After finally being allowed to attend classes and live on campus (a major victory for civil rights for people with disabilities), Roberts and other students with disabilities started the Physically Disabled Students Program (PDSP), which set up on-campus housing for students with disabilities. Known as one of the ringleaders of the “Rolling Quads,” Roberts was inspired by the counterculture atmosphere of the campus and began to develop ideas for how to use this culture to organize students with significant disabilities. His actions to mobilize and meld the disability and university communities marked the beginning of the Independent Living Movement as well as a long list of advocacy and barrier-breaking activities for people with disabilities.

Building off of the success of setting up on-campus housing for students with disabilities, the next step for the “Rolling Quads” and their allies was moving into the community. The PDSP was formed by a group of students with disabilities who joined forces to make the full academic and social life of the campus more accessible to themselves and others, and Roberts and his colleagues wanted to make the same changes in the larger community. The attitude of “if it doesn’t exist yet, let’s create it” had worked for the Blind and Deaf communities, the Parent movement and many others who came before. This was the inspiration to create the first Center for Independent Living (CIL).

The Berkely CIL was designed to make the larger community more accessible to people with disabilities. This movement, like many before it, was largely student/young-adult led. CILs co-founders included Ed Roberts, Hale Zukas and Jan McEwan Brown. In 1972, CIL was incorporated under the philosophy that people with disabilities needed peer support from other individuals with disabilities; opportunities to gain independent living skills so they could live, work and thrive in the community; advocacy to inform and exercise their rights; and information about and referral to services and support systems.

At the foundation of the Independent Living movement was the idea that people with disabilities – not doctors or caretakers – know best how to meet their needs. This premise was revolutionary at a time when many people with disabilities were still living in residential centers and institutions or kept at home secluded by families. This idea was also the catalyst for requiring that boards of CILs must be comprised of 51 percent people with disabilities to ensure that at any point in time, they would be the majority voice in decision-making. The Berkeley CIL went on to host the first National Conference on Independent Living in 1975 and became the model for hundreds of similar programs throughout the United States and internationally.

Today there are CILs (also called Independent Living Centers, or ILCs) in all 50 U.S. states and territories and in countries around the world. Each one is a little different, but at the heart of the mission of all of them is ensuring that people with disabilities have the information and opportunities they need to be independent and fully-participate in their communities. The types of services each CIL offers varies, but can include assistance with finding employment, housing and educational opportunities and developing independent living skills.

The impact of CILs, and the “nothing about us, without us” philosophy that was such a large part of the early days of the Independent Living Movement, continues to live on. It serves as the mantra of many groups within the disability community that often feel left out, either by society or sometimes by other people with disabilities. It lives on when the next generation of disability leaders demand to have a seat, a voice and a vote at the table; when the self-advocate community chooses to rebel against group home curfews and the use of “R word” in mainstream culture; and when the diversity community makes the argument that people with disabilities in positions of power need to be diverse as well. It works to ensure that whatever umbrella we organize under or piece of legislation we fight for is big enough for all of us to fit under. Just as Justin Dart and Congressman Major Owens said when factions of the community argued to have learning disabilities removed from the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) – “all means all.”

However, there is an issue that doesn’t get the attention it deserves in a majority of discussions about the disability rights movement. It often gets lost in the shuffle in the discussion of independent living and self-advocacy – and it was a core value that Roberts and many of his peers held dear. It is the idea of interdependence – the philosophy that nobody can make it entirely on their own, regardless of whether or not they have a disability. It acknowledges the need for us as a community of people with different types of abilities to support each other, depend on each other when needed and protest when other people or groups are being oppressed or subjected to discrimination and injustice.

“They [people without disabilities] said I’d be stuck being a vegetable. So I decided to be an artichoke…a little prickly on the outside but with a big heart. You know, the vegetables of the world are uniting, and we’re not going away!” – Ed Roberts

Those restraints, attached to the bus, are specially made to secure passengers in their wheelchairs. They weren’t being used when a tractor-trailer slid across a snowy highway and slammed into the bus in January, killing Acton and two other residents of a special-needs center in western Ohio.

While federal law requires buses to be equipped with straps that lock down wheelchairs, as well as seat belts and shoulder harnesses to secure passengers themselves, laws in Ohio and most states don’t require that people in wheelchairs on small buses and vans actually wear the seat belts — even though they’re vulnerable to injuries from being tossed around in an accident.

”It just doesn’t make any sense,” said Acton’s stepfather, Steve Hoessli. ”If they’re required to have restraints, why aren’t they required to use them?”

A review by The Associated Press of seat belt laws in all states found just five — Arkansas, Georgia, Minnesota, Washington and Wisconsin — that require both wheelchairs and their users to be secured on paratransit buses that help people in wheelchairs to travel to work, doctor’s offices and shopping centers.

Just a handful of other states require seat belt use for wheelchairs, with some exceptions.

Oregon requires buckling up on commercial buses with less than 16 seats but says nothing about floor restraints. New Jersey limits its requirements to passenger cars and vans. North Carolina’s law doesn’t mention wheelchairs, but a state police spokesman said the rules cover nearly all vehicles.

It’s not known how many people riding in wheelchairs are injured in vehicle accidents because little data are available.

University of Michigan researchers have found 52 auto crashes involving wheelchairs during the past three years. While not a comprehensive list, the accident data show that simply strapping a wheelchair to the floor of a bus or van wasn’t enough protection.

In most of the crashes the wheelchairs were secured. However, seat belts weren’t always used or fastened the right way, and in some instances, people slid from under lap belts and were injured.

”By and large, many of these injuries are preventable if the restraints had been used, or used properly,” said Gina Bertocci, a professor who works in wheelchair transportation safety at the University of Louisville.

A survey of wheelchair users who ride on public and private transportation found in 2007 that one in seven never used restraints, mainly because drivers didn’t take time or know how to secure their wheelchairs and lap belts, according to Easter Seals Project Action, a program that helps the disabled with transportation.

”I’ve seen drivers who drop off the kids and they’re in a hurry so they don’t take time for each chair,” said Margaret Griscti, of North Brunswick, N.J., whose son, Stephen, broke his leg when his wheelchair tipped over in a vehicle.

That accident nearly 10 years ago and other crashes led to New Jersey’s 2008 law, which includes fines for violators.

Acton’s relatives hope Ohio lawmakers now will take another look at their state’s seat belt laws.

Crash investigators were surprised, too, that seat belts aren’t required for people in wheelchairs. ”I guess I thought there would be something,” said State Highway Patrol Lt. Craig Cvetan.

There’s no guarantee restraints would have saved Acton, a 28-year-old born with spina bifida, because he died of multiple injuries. The only thing keeing him in his seat was a strap designed to help him sit up, not protect him in an accident.

His stepfather pointed out that Acton was in the back of the bus and that most of the damage was up front. A man in a wheelchair across from Acton survived even though he, too, did not have lap and shoulder belts.

The bus driver also died, and six passengers were injured. Three of the survivors had on lap belts, according to accident reports.

Two employees on the bus told investigators that they usually attached the lap and shoulder belts for passengers in wheelchairs, but not always, and that they didn’t know who secured Acton before the accident.

Administrators at the Creative Learning Workshop in Springfield, Ohio, which operated the bus, referred all questions to the company’s attorney, Steve Freeze, who did not return messages seeking comment.

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the decision on whether to use the safety restraints on buses and paratransit vans is left up to the wheelchair users and bus operators. The law says passengers riding on buses in wheelchairs can be told to buckle up only if everyone else aboard must wear a seat belt.

The law sets out to treat people with disabilities the same as anyone else, said Lex Frieden, a former head of the National Council on Disability who helped draft the ADA in the mid-1980s.

”If we’re not going to require the general public to wear seat belts on buses, we shouldn’t require people with disabilities,” he said. ”Clearly, one could argue we need to look after the well-being of the people using these vehicles, but that leads us to a patronizing approach.”

Some operators of small buses do require all passengers to be belted, setting standards that vary by city, according to interviews with transit managers. And some transit operators, especially those that are government-funded, say it’s too risky not to make everyone buckle up.

”It’s a liability issue,” said Robert Hiett, who oversees a rural paratransit service in Griffin, Ga., that requires seat belts for all. ”If we didn’t properly secure them and there’s an accident, we’d get in all kinds of problems. Defending one lawsuit could put us out of business.”

Larry Schneider, a research professor at the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute, said he hopes legislation being considered in Massachusetts will become a model for other states. The proposal would require wheelchairs and users to be secured on all paratransit buses and vans and require training for caregivers.

Paula Cieplik and her 35-year-old son, Kenny, of Middleborough, Mass., pushed for the proposal after he was injured in a crash a year ago when the seat belts holding him in his wheelchair broke, throwing him out of his seat.

”The people who are most vulnerable aren’t protected,” she said. ”It’s mind-boggling.”