Policy and Legislative Projects Involving the Legal Program for Parents with Disabilities

Below are legislation, proposed legislation and policy actions that the TLG legal program has been involved with and which might be of interest to parents, advocates and systems professionals.

California State Legislation
This legislation went into effect in 2000. The Legal Program co-sponsored this legislation with Protection and Advocacy, Inc., (Los Angeles). The legislation is landmark in that it expands references to "conditions that interfere with normal activity" to include those that interfere with the ability to parent, identifies such conditions as meeting the definition of "significant disability" rendering services medically necessary, and expands the rights of Medi-Cal beneficiaries to include receiving adaptive parenting equipment within the definition of durable medical equipment. California Welfare and Institutions Code §14132.

Idaho State Legislation
This legislation went into effect in 2004. At the request of Kelly Buckland, Executive Director of the Idaho State Independent Living Council (SILC), the Legal Program provided extensive technical assistance and training to the committee developing the legislation. The Legal Program also provided ongoing review of the multiple drafts of the proposed legislative language. The legislation is landmark in many aspects, most notably in its reach; the legislation affects the adoption, family and dependency cases, making changes to both the applicable substantive and procedural law. It includes language guaranteeing Idaho parents the right to be made aware of and present evidence regarding parenting with adaptive equipment, a section protecting children of parents with disabilities from identification as a child in need of care, removal or loss of the parent-child relationship based on the disability of their parent, and a guaranteed right to present evidence regarding same before the courts. Subsequent to passage of the legislation, the Legal Program provided training to the state child protective services system regarding same. Idaho Title 16, Juvenile Proceedings; Idaho Title 32, Domestic Relations.

Kansas State Legislation This legislation went into effect in July 2006. The Legal Program provided legislative review and drafting at the request of Shannon Jones, Executive Director of the Kansas State Independent Living Council (SILC). The legislation includes a non-discrimination clause, a section protecting children of parents with disabilities from identification as a child in need or care, removal or loss of the parent-child relationship based on the disability of their parent, and a mandate that the state consider the usefulness and availability of adaptive equipment and adapted services in cases involving parents with disabilities. The Legal Program also provided training to the state's child protective system to assist with implementation of the legislation. Kansas Code for Care of Children §1.

California State Legislation Re Genetic Testing in Family Court Cases
The Legal Program supports prospective proposed legislation to protect litigants from family court ordered genetic testing to determine disability. This prospective proposed legislation was reviewed by the Legal Program at the request of Pamela Cohen, Staff Attorney with Protection and Advocacy, Inc.'s Oakland California offices. We believe this legislation is especially important as genetic testing grows increasingly sophisticated and the rate of divorce and resultant family law litigation continues to increase.

Examination of Legislative and Judicial Treatment of Wheelchair Transport for Children in the United States
This article was published in the British National Centre for Disabled Parents' journal, Disability, Pregnancy and Parenthood International. It examines how wheelchair transport of children has been treated in the legislative and judicial arenas, what that means for parents who are wheelchair users and what we believe it says about the safety of this mode of transport. The article was requisitioned after parents in Britain who transported their children by wheelchair were faced with some criminal sanctioning.