A 2000–2009 study at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare found that parents whose school records indicated a disability were more than twice as likely to be involved with Child Protective Services (CPS) than the general population and more than three times more likely to lose their parental rights – because of discrimination, not because of abuse or neglect.  Hospital and social service providers think that just because individuals have disabilities they aren’t capable of raising children.  This has occurred, and continues to occur, in the Freedom Resource Center service area.

In Minnesota, Nikki, now 32, and Darrell, now 46, are fighting for a new law that allows the state’s Medicaid program to cover adaptive parenting equipment and allowing personal care assistants to assist with minor parenting tasks.  To read about Nikki, Darrell, and discrimination against parents with disabilities, http://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/a9585869/disabled-parents-pregnancy-childbirth/

(image description: two adults and one child are in the picture. The child is about 4 years old and she is sitting in her mom’s lap with a smile on her face. Her mom is sitting a in electric wheelchair. A male, the child’s dad, is sitting in an electric wheelchair and is parked right next to the child and her mom. The dad is smiling and looking at the child and mom. In the background is the front of a house.)