<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto">Hi Chris, such a well written article<br><br><div dir="ltr">Best Regards,<div>Sheri Albers</div><div>513-886-8697</div><div>Sheri.albers87@gmail.com</div></div><div dir="ltr"><br><blockquote type="cite">On Oct 24, 2022, at 10:38 AM, Christopher Sabine via Cinci-NFB <cinci-nfb@nfbnet.org> wrote:<br><br></blockquote></div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr">
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<p class="MsoNormal">Thanks, Deborah.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Chris<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b>From:</b> Cinci-NFB <cinci-nfb-bounces@nfbnet.org> <b>On Behalf Of
</b>kendrick.deborah--- via Cinci-NFB<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Monday, October 24, 2022 1:28 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> 'NFB of Ohio Cincinnati Chapter List' <cinci-nfb@nfbnet.org><br>
<b>Cc:</b> kendrick.deborah@gmail.com<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [Cinci-NFB] Opinion: Raising children with disabilities is a community responsibility - from The Enquirer<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Hey Chris, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Congratulations! Nicely done!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And thanks for sharing.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Deborah<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b>From:</b> Cinci-NFB <<a href="mailto:cinci-nfb-bounces@nfbnet.org">cinci-nfb-bounces@nfbnet.org</a>>
<b>On Behalf Of </b>csabine2010--- via Cinci-NFB<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Monday, October 24, 2022 1:00 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> <a href="mailto:ohio-talk@nfbnet.org">ohio-talk@nfbnet.org</a><br>
<b>Cc:</b> <a href="mailto:csabine2010@gmail.com">csabine2010@gmail.com</a>; <a href="mailto:cinci-nfb@nfbnet.org">
cinci-nfb@nfbnet.org</a><br>
<b>Subject:</b> [Cinci-NFB] Opinion: Raising children with disabilities is a community responsibility - from The Enquirer<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p>Hello. Just wanted to share an opinion piece I wrote that was published this weekend in the Cincinnati Enquirer. It focuses more on children with Autism and other disabilities as opposed to Blindness, but they do mention the Federation.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p>Very Best,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p>Chris<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p>Opinion: Raising children with disabilities is a community responsibility <o:p>
</o:p></p>
<p>Children with and without disabilities have the best outcomes when they have close connections to their communities.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Check out this story on cincinnati.com: <a href="https://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion/contributors/2022/10/21/opinion-raising-children-with-disabilities-is-a-community-responsibility/69571939007/">
https://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion/contributors/2022/10/21/opinion-raising-children-with-disabilities-is-a-community-responsibility/69571939007/</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><img border="0" width="660" height="326" style="width: 6.875in; height: 3.3958in; filter: invert(0%);" id="Picture_x0020_1" alt="image001.jpg" src="cid:image001.jpg@01D8E7AD.B6B23380"><o:p></o:p></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif;color:#303030">The evening of Feb. 17 was dark, cold and rainy in the western suburbs of Cincinnati. At an isolated intersection, motorists spotted a 5-year-old boy wandering alone in the rain. According
to media reports, the boy, who was nonverbal, was soaking wet and attempting to flag down cars in a desperate plea for help.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif;color:#303030">The boy's mother, Heather Nicole Adkins, later located 75 miles away, was arrested and charged with felony child endangerment and kidnapping. After pleading guilty to a lesser charge,
Adkins was sentenced to six months in an alternative treatment facility and three years probation.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif;color:#303030">Media reports revealed that the boy is autistic and lived with his mother and two other boys, neither of whom have disabilities. According to accounts from a childhood friend, Adkins
was high when she dropped the two other boys off at her friend’s home in Tennessee that afternoon, asking her friend to care for them. The boy with autism was not with them. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif;color:#303030">Adkins story is not unique. Raising and caring for a child with special needs and disabilities can be overwhelming for even the most resilient and resourceful families.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:10.5pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:10.5pt;margin-left:0in;background:white">
<span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif;color:#303030">Many children and adults with disabilities require myriad services for their basic physical and emotional needs and to function at school and in the community. These include physical
and occupational therapy, behavior management and curriculum modifications. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif;color:#303030">Professionals from a wide variety of disciplines generally provide these services through an often-disjointed patchwork of private and public agencies. Coordination among these providers
is often limited to nonexistent. Many critical services are not covered by private insurance, requiring families to incur thousands in out-of-pocket expenses. In some extreme cases, insurance carriers have encouraged families to relinquish custody of their
children to child welfare agencies to allow their children to meet their most basic needs.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif;color:#303030">According to a 2020 investigative report, 58% of children placed in the custody of child welfare agencies in Georgia had severe mental health or behavioral disorders, 40% have developmental
disabilities, and a third have both. The report cited a lack of coordination among the various state and private agencies in charge of caring for children with complex needs and a lack of consequences for state agencies failing to provide legally mandated
services as reasons for placement in the custody of the state’s child welfare agency.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif;color:#303030">Worse is the stigma that family members of many children with disabilities often face, particularly mothers. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif;color:#303030">In the 1940s, child development experts like Bruno Bettelheim and Leo Kanner, who first identified autism in a cluster of pediatric patients while a psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins University
in 1943, attributed the condition to the mother's lack of parental warmth and attachment, likening the behaviors of the autistic children he observed to inmates of concentration camps during World War II. Bettelheim, a University of Chicago professor and child
development expert, coined the term "Refrigerator Mother" to describe these so-called detached, uncaring mothers.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif;color:#303030">To this day, elements of the "Refrigerator Mother Theory" persist among mental health professionals and in popular culture, adding to the stigma and isolation faced by mothers of children
with significant disabilities, particularly autism.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif;color:#303030">It is no wonder that some mothers are compelled to abandon or give up custody of their children, especially those already at risk. Those who do so often face the harshest consequences.
In Ohio, for example, child abandonment is considered ground for termination of parental rights. Unless the child is an infant, a parent like Adkins who abandons a child can face criminal charges. In fact, Adkins represents the basic stereotype of the drug-addicted,
irresponsible mother who would have no reservations about abandoning their child by the side of an isolated stretch of road.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif;color:#303030">As a culture, we place an outsized emphasis on the role of the child's immediate, nuclear family to raise, nurture and educate their children. Many children with and without disabilities
are born to families facing social, environmental, emotional and economic challenges. Add the stress of caring for a child with multiple and complex needs, and the situation becomes untenable for some families.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif;color:#303030">The system for caring for children with special needs and disabilities is typically reactive, rather than proactive
</span><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#303030">−</span><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif;color:#303030"> with responsibility for coordinating services left to overwhelmed case managers in underfunded
agencies. While highly specialized services for children with significant disabilities exist, these services are only available to a handful of children already identified as the most complex in the child welfare system. These children have, metaphorically
speaking, been left by the side of the road in the pouring rain.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif;color:#303030">Raising children with special needs and disabilities is a community responsibility.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:10.5pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:10.5pt;margin-left:0in;background:white">
<span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif;color:#303030">Children with and without disabilities have the best outcomes when they have close connections to their communities. Children without disabilities are typically involved in a variety
of activities, such as sports, church, vacations with friends and family, and community service organizations such as Boy and Girl Scouts. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:10.5pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:10.5pt;margin-left:0in;background:white">
<span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif;color:#303030">Many children with significant disabilities, however, do not have the opportunity to take part in such activities. Their lives, and those of their families, revolve around specialized
therapies, doctors, and interventions from specialized agencies.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:10.5pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:10.5pt;margin-left:0in;background:white">
<span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif;color:#303030">If someone in the life of Adkins had been able to intervene, might her autistic son not have been abandoned? If the full range of supports had been available to her family, would her
autistic son have been left to wander the streets alone in the rain?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif;color:#303030">The isolated street on which Adkins' son was left to fend for himself on a dark and rainy Thursday night is emblematic of the plight of many children with significant disabilities.
In his case, however, someone did intervene.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:10.5pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:10.5pt;margin-left:0in;background:white">
<span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif;color:#303030">A man, identified as Ron Reese in a local news report, took the boy into his vehicle, shared a meal with him, called 911, and comforted the boy until police arrived on the scene. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif;color:#303030">"He placed me and a little guy in each other's paths
</span><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#303030">−</span><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif;color:#303030"> to let him know and show him that it's a brighter day," Reese said.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<i><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif;color:#303030">Christopher Sabine lives in North College Hill and operates ONH Consulting, LLC, a business that provides family services to children and adults with Optic Nerve Hypoplasia, one
of the leading causes of childhood blindness in the U.S. He is also active with the Cincinnati Chapter of the National Federation of the Blind of Ohio and chairs the statewide committee on diversity, equity and inclusion.</span></i><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia Pro",serif;color:#303030"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p><o:p> </o:p></p>
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