ReelAbilities Stream, a brand-new service featuring films celebrating the lives and stories of people with disabilities, launched this week during Disability Pride Month.
RELATED NEWS: Your Guide to Disability Pride Month
The brainchild of the ReelAbilities Film Festival, the largest festival in the U.S. dedicated to promoting awareness and appreciation of the lives, stories, and artistic expressions of people with disabilities, the streamer has an emphasis on accessibility.
Film shorts are $1.99 and features are $3.99, both for 48 hours.
There are currently some 50 films — shorts and features — all of which have been shown at the ReelAbilities Film Festival.
All films include captions and audio description, and the site incorporates clear design and navigation. Let’s dig down.
Film captions are visual on-screen titles intended for people who are deaf or have hearing loss. While subtitles display on-screen titling of the dialogue in the film, captions provide on-screen descriptions of all plot pertinent sounds and audio included in the film (both dialog and non-dialog sound), noting when music is played or a background sound is heard.
According to the ReelAbilities website, audio description (also “video description”) refers to an additional narration audio track for people who are blind or have low vision who are consumers of visual media (including television and film, theater, dance, opera, and visual art). It’s an added audio layer on the existing main audio of the film, and consists of a narrator talking through the presentation, describing what is happening on the screen or stage during the natural pauses in the audio, and sometimes during dialogue if deemed necessary.
If a film’s original language is other than English, the audio description will also include the narrator speaking over the character’s original foreign language dialogue with the English translation.
Accessibility Menu widget
On the corner of the screen is an Accessibility Menu widget. Clicking on it, or pressing CTRL+U, will open up the accessibility menu. This menu allows the user to adjust the website to their accessibility needs, including: contrast, highlight links, bigger text, text spacing, pause animation, dyslexia friendly, cursor control, tooltips, line height, and text align.
Image: Freepik
Children were more likely to be diagnosed with developmental disabilities during the Covid-19 pandemic than they were the year before, Dell is Autism Inclusion Company of the Year, money meant for children with disabilities is being pocketed by government agencies, and more news for the week ending July 15, 2023.
Kids’ developmental disability diagnoses became more common during pandemic, but autism rates held steady, CDC report says A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds that rates of intellectual disability and autism diagnoses held relatively steady, but an overall change was driven by increases in diagnoses of other developmental delays. (CNN.com)
Employment among people with disabilities hits post-pandemic high The number of employed individuals with disabilities climbed by approximately 175,000 in June to 7.6 million, higher than at any point since June 2008. (nbcnews.com)
Best Places to Work for Disability Inclusion The 2023 Disability Equality Index Report, the benchmarking tool for disability inclusion in business, is out!
NYC teachers get raises. Physical and occupational therapists still wait Teachers and other members of their union approved a contract this week, while school-based occupational and physical therapists are holding out for their own deal. (chalkbeat.com)
‘Hometown hero:’ YMCA employee selected as 2023 Special Olympics athlete This is nice: The Eastside Family YMCA in Penfield welcomes home Amanda Vito, a childcare teacher there who took part in the golf rounds of this year’s Special Olympics in Berlin. (Rochesterfirst.com)
Foster care agencies take thousands of dollars owed to kids Nationwide, government agencies take money owed to foster children with disabilities or a deceased parent, The Marshall Project and NPR found. Most kids never know it’s gone. (themarshallproject.org)
Mass. has long collected federal benefits meant for children in its care. Some lawmakers want to change that. Thousands of children in Department of Children and Families custody have had most of their federal benefits diverted by the agency into the state’s coffers. (bostonglobe.com)
I benefitted from disability rights – but how can I celebrate? A White House event celebrating the 33rd anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act has the Independent’s Washington bureau chief reflecting on his disability, the need to cover disability rights and more. (independent.co.uk)
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life, was passed on July 26, 1990. Disability Pride Month commemorates its passage and honors the achievements and experiences of those with disabilities seen and unseen, cognitive and physical, who are all too often treated as “other.”
“Disability is a part of the rich tapestry of human diversity, and something that nearly all of us will experience at some point in our lives,” The Arc New York writes.
“It’s also a significant identity that defines how we experience the world. Yet people with disabilities have been marginalized and misunderstood for generations. All disabilities and their intersecting identities should be acknowledged, valued, and respected, and one way to do that is during Disability Pride Month.”
Let’s get to it!
It’s not nearly as popular as, say LGBTQ+ Pride Month in June. You’ll find local events scattered across the country, including parades; disability organizations honor it on websites and on blogs; law firms love to tout it; and there’s some media coverage. But let’s just say mainstream media is doing what it usually does when it comes to covering issues important to the I/DD community, which is to say, not much at all.
I did an online search for mainstream media coverage (2023) of Disability Pride Month, and here’s what I found. Of course, this is not a definitive list, it’s just one person’s hunt for articles. If you know of any others, please let me know here. (In 2022, most articles I found were posted when the month was almost over so, there’s time on their sides.)
This is a short list; please look around for celebrations in your area!
The fourth-annual free festival from Disability Unite and the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities features music and art performances, and more. This year it will be held both in-person at the Central Park Naumburg Bandshell and live-streamed.
Disability Unite is an initiative of Project Access for All.
A celebration of people with all levels of ability in honor of the passing of the Americans With Disabilities Act. Community resources across all of WNY will be in participation, food will be provided, and there will also be live music.
Disability Pride Celebration website
NYPL is offering events for all ages, including craft sessions, storytimes, sensory-friendly exhibition hours, comic book discussions, and more. Read all about it here.
The Disability Pride flag was created in 2019 by Ann Magill, a writer with cerebral palsy. The impetus, she told the Accessible Stall podcast, was a combination of the lackluster attention given to ADA celebrations on its 20th anniversary in 2010 and, tragically, the murder of 19 developmentally disabled people in a care facility in Japan in 2016. (The murderer, Satoshi Uematsu, reportedly said severely disabled people were harmful to society.)
The murders were “bad enough,” Magill said, but the tragedy “had dropped off from all major news before the evening cycle. … That’s when I was, gone beyond ‘I want a flag’ [to] ‘We need a flag. We need to be visible.”
The flag first featured brightly colored zigzagging stripes over a black background — representing the barriers people with disabilities must maneuver — but it visually triggered disabilities in some people.
Magill took suggestions and redesigned the flag, straightening out and lightening the color of the stripes, and reordering them to accommodate people with red-green colorblindness.
Each color represents a different disability.
PBS has a collection of documentaries related to Disability Pride Month and the passage of the ADA: Disability Pride Month and the Disability Rights Movement
The New York Times, in honor of the ADA’s 30-year anniversary, published several great pieces in 2020:
And here’s a history of Disability Pride events out of the University of Washington.
Image: Ann Magill via Wikimedia Commons
June 22, 2023, was the 24th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Olmstead v. L.C., in which the Court ruled that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits the unnecessary segregation of people with disabilities.
In honor of the landmark ruling, the Justice Department has released some highlights of its recent Olmstead work in two key areas: securing community-based crisis services to prevent needless hospitalization and criminal justice involvement and securing community-based services that enable children with disabilities to live with their families and go to school with non-disabled peers.
You can read the department’s whole blog post here, but in the meantime, or instead, here are some highlights:
Image: Rawpixel.com via Freepik
Given the state of the world, I’m probably not alone in worrying, on occasion, about keeping loved ones safe should a disaster hit. And most of all, I worry about the safety of my loved one with developmental disabilities, especially as she doesn’t live at home.
Now, a (very) small study out of Tilburg University in the Netherlands, published in Disability & Society, suggests there’s reason for concern. It posits that people with intellectual disabilities living in Ukraine during the first three months of the Russian military invasion suffered even more than other residents.
It showed, for instance, a greater lack of access to basic needs such as food, water and medicine. Also, participants indicated that one of the most important conditions for fleeing abroad for people with intellectual disabilities is that family members flee with them and provide support for them, both during the journey and once they’re abroad. Thus, generally speaking, people with intellectual disabilities are unable to flee without their families.
In 2021, it was estimated that out of the total number of people in need of humanitarian assistance in Ukraine, 13% of them had a disability, Both refugee organizations and other interest groups have expressed fear over their well-being, on the grounds that there is a profound risk that they will not receive the support they desperately need, which, in turn, leaves them and their pre-existing support systems to simply fend for themselves.
Given the state of the world, I’m probably not alone in worrying, on occasion, about keeping loved ones safe should a disaster hit. And most of all, I worry about the safety of my loved one with developmental disabilities, especially as she doesn’t live at home.
Now, a (very) small study out of Tilburg University in the Netherlands, published in Disability & Society, suggests there’s reason for concern. It posits that people with intellectual disabilities living in Ukraine during the first three months of the Russian military invasion suffered even more than other residents.
It showed, for instance, a greater lack of access to basic needs such as food, water and medicine. Also, participants indicated that one of the most important conditions for fleeing abroad for people with intellectual disabilities is that family members flee with them and provide support for them, both during the journey and once they’re abroad. Thus, generally speaking, people with intellectual disabilities are unable to flee without their families.
In 2021, it was estimated that out of the total number of people in need of humanitarian assistance in Ukraine, 13% of them had a disability, Both refugee organizations and other interest groups have expressed fear over their well-being, on the grounds that there is a profound risk that they will not receive the support they desperately need, which, in turn, leaves them and their pre-existing support systems to simply fend for themselves.
The federal government giveth and taketh away, and this past May it declared an end to the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE). This effectively ended a policy that provided states with new authorities to expand access to Medicaid caregiver payments.
The AP takes a look at the change and speaks with family caregivers worried over the future of Medicaid caregiver payments. It notes that a total of 39 states, with the help of the federal government, either started paying family caregivers or expanded the population eligible for payment during the pandemic.
Its reporting is based on a KFF policy watch that explores the potential implications of ending the PHE for Medicaid Home- and Community-Based Services (HCBS), including new or continued workforce challenges and potential reductions in patients’ access to care.
Findings in the KFF policy watch include:
More than one in five Americans (21.3%) were caregivers in 2020, having provided care to an adult or child with special needs at some time over a 12-month period. In total, an estimated 53 million adults in the U.S. were caregivers, up from the estimated 43.5 million caregivers in 2015.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
A new clothing brand employs people with disabilities, the need to increase disability diversity among doctors, a Missouri mom’s company helps build inclusive playgrounds nationwide, and more news for the week ending July 8, 2023.
Creator of 21 Pineapples breaking stigmas surrounding people with disabilities CEO Nate Simmon and his mother, Holly Simon created a clothing brand to employ people with disabilities when they age out of the special ed system. (cbsnews.com)
Alabama: Disability advocates praise Alabama ban on discrimination in organ transplant donations The bill, known as the “Exton’s Law,” prohibits the denial of organ transplants to individuals based solely on their physical disabilities. (alabamareflector.com)
Missouri: Your Best Life: Building playgrounds for every child A mom in Missouri decided to build all-inclusive playgrounds. (wilx.com)
A Teenager With Disabilities Implores Educators: ‘Be My Champion’ Helena Donato-Sapp is a 14-year-old activist with a searing message for educators: Do more to be a champion for students with disabilities. (edweek.org)
Physicians with disabilities bring diversity, valuable perspective Efforts to increase diversity among the physician workforce include removing the obstacles people with disabilities face when pursuing a career in medicine. (ama-assn.org)
Adaptive clothing from Unhidden is drawing worthy attention—on the runway Unhidden is the first sustainable adaptive clothing line to address many of the specific anatomical and mobility issues faced by an estimated 1 billion people worldwide. (fastcompany.com)
A lack of support services negatively affects the health of low-income mothers raising children with disabilities, the waitlist grows for NYC preschool special ed seats, the U.S. census finds disability rates are higher in rural areas, and more news for the week ending July 1, 2023.
Raising a disabled child erodes health in low-income mothers A new study punctures a hole in research finding a relationship between poor maternal health and a child’s disability. This relationship, the new study reports, occurs only in low-income families and is due to a lack of socioeconomic resources. (BLOOM blog)
Supreme Court won’t weigh in on whether charter schools are legally private or public The case could have decided whether a charter school must take into account civil rights protections when setting policies and practices. (Chalkbeat.org)
Opportunity Grows in Brooklyn: How One High School Rebounded From COVID By Re-engaging Students & Restoring Teacher Morale At least one of two teachers now leading each class at Laboratory Charter High School is special education certified, as the school adopts an all-inclusion-model. (The74million.org)
NYC has not yet lived up to promises for special education pre-K seats “There are still more than 300 children waiting for seats in preschool special education classes,” said Randi Levine, policy director at Advocates for Children. (ny1.com)
New Jersey Court Imposes Limits on Definition of Disability On June 7, in Guzman v. M. Teixeira International, Inc., the New Jersey Appellate Division showed a willingness to limit the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (LAD) definition of “disabled,” ruling against an employee alleging a perceived disability claim involving COVID-19. (shrm.org)
Disability Rates Higher in Rural Areas Than Urban Areas Where people live may impact their ability to access health care services and for those with disabilities or who require specialized care that entails more frequent attention and medical visits, location can play an even more significant role. (census.gov)
Biden Administration Plans Crackdown On Disability Rights Violations On the 24th anniversary of Olmstead v. L.C., officials are beefing up enforcement of the decision affirming the rights of people with disabilities to be supported in the community whenever possible. (Disabilityscoop.com)
Ed Department Expected To Update Disability Regulations Soon The agency said it will issue a proposal in August to amend the regulations implementing Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The law prohibits disability discrimination at schools and in other programs that receive federal funding. (Disabilityscoop.com)
Study Suggests Doctors Often Discriminate Against Kids With Disabilities New research details how children with disabilities are ignored and devalued by doctors and other healthcare providers, potentially leading to substandard care. (Disabilityscoop.com)
Accessible Nature: A Trail Guide for Disabled Hikers The New York Times highlights a selection of paths, overlooks and other sites in several U.S. parks that outdoor enthusiasts with disabilities can enjoy this summer. (nytimes.com)
Why the 1932 Movie ‘Freaks’ Is a Touchstone for Disability Representation Though it has detractors, scholars and advocates have largely embraced this film for the way it shows people just living their lives while disabled. (nytimes.com)
Local tennis players with intellectual disabilities will share the spotlight with the pros Two members of local Atlanta nonprofit the Special Populations Tennis Program, which teaches tennis to children and adults with intellectual disabilities, will make special appearances at the Atlanta Open, set for July. (news.yahoo.com)
When Death Is the Best Choice, Is It a Choice at All? Though Canadian disability activists have long been critical of how Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) was implemented and have warned that there weren’t enough safeguards to protect vulnerable people from accessing it prematurely, the expansion of MAID set off a nuclear bomb in the disability justice community. (thenation.com)
The U.S. Department of Education has released its congressionally mandated annual Report on the Condition of Education. I just wanted to share some special education highlights: