[NFBV-Blind-Parents] Comments Welcomed - Potential Path Forward with Your Help

[Kathryn C. Webster | National Student President]

Good morning!

 

I hope each of you are having a good week thus far. I wanted to spark up
some conversation between meetings, so we are consistently generating ideas
rather than just on the calls. Jessica shouldn't have to drive this forward,
so I encourage all of us to take an active role in brainstorming strategies
and potential opportunities as we aim to push this initiative forward.

 

So, let's think through a universal position first. As many of you know,
there is moderate resistance from the Virginia Family Law Coalition.
Ultimately, I think we should focus on blind parents only. Yes, I understand
that excludes other disabilities, thus cutting out potential partnerships
with civil rights groups, but we will have less of an uphill battle. We have
expertise in training for solely blind people and our lack of understanding
for rehab-driven training for other disabilities will harm us more than
help.

 

Based on my conversations with Derek, we are at a standstill with the head
of the Family Law Coalition. While the ABA resolved the need for states not
to fight these initiatives, it does not specify guiding the bills forward.
So, the Family Law Coalition can say nothing or fight back diplomatically;
and they seem to be going with the latter.

 

As for next steps, I think we need to:

1.           Link up with Scott LaBarre to see how he thinks we can approach
Family Law Coalition in Virginia and if we can lean on the Virginia Bar
Association. We can only do that if we have connections to lean on. Maybe he
can guide us in some direction?

2.           Get some strategy underway. This group should put together
potential partnerships, stakeholder groups, any ties to anything that makes
sense in regard to backing our efforts. If we get a list, we can easily
pulse check our membership to bring in those relationships, but we need a
starting point so we are not approaching conversations with no true 'ask'.
Who is willing to help with this?

3.           Analyze other state parental rights bills to see how we want to
frame our own. I personally like Georgia's and Illinois', but they even
vary. We should dive deeper and refine the language to get a draft bill
underway. Once we have that, we are all talking the same language.

 

Thoughts?

 

Thanks in advance for any comments/suggestions,

Kathryn Webster