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Petition Tag - disabilities
1. Make Bullying Against Disabled People Illegal 
It is disgusting to see what some people say about disabled people and I believe it should be illegal.
For example, this is a link to an image someone made.
It is unbelievable what some people say and no one has done anything to stop it. Making bullying towards disabled people illegal will show that it is wrong.
2. Save Upperlimits Climbing Centre
UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE 2/8/12
Upperlimits HAS BEEN SAVED from closure!!!
Through your support and the efforts of the club staff, climbers, their family and friends Leek College agreed to colaberate with Leek High School and gift the equipment to the climbing club. Leek High School has also offered their support to encourage the development of a community based climbing centre.
Thank you for your support.
Leek Climbing Centre as it is now known is carrying on with the regular programme of Kids Club and Squad training as well as providing a training centre for climbers of all ages and abilities.
To contact Mark at the centre contact: 07837881198
UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE 6/3/12
At a recent meeting with Leek College principal, Rob Morrey we were told that UPPERLIMITS CLIMBING WALL WILL CLOSE ON 31ST JULY 2012.
Upperlimits has already closed down as a provider of outdoor pursuits activities for Leek College and, although the Kids Climbing Club is growing in numbers, it doesn't fit the criteria for further education. Therefore the climbing wall can no longer be part of the college.
BUT…
Leek College has pledged to extend the use until 31st July to allow climbers of all ages time to find alternative funding and management to keep the wall. They have also promised to include the users in any developments and support the users find independence.
SO…
With this aim a committee representing users and supporters is being formed to keep the wall open and running as a climbing facility for community use.
We would like to thank you for your heartfelt support and ask you to please offer what you can whether time, advice, or ideas that continue your support. Any help however small or seemingly irrelevant is powerful.
THE PETITION IS STILL ACTIVE.
Not only will it ensure fair treatment by Leek College, it will help to demonstrate the need a community climbing wall to secure funding.
It has already had an impact!
BACKGROUND
The kids club has been going for many years and has produced national climbing champions and influenced the careers of many young people, who have passed through the ranks to become instructors and move on to related employment.
Since relocating to Leek High Specialist Technology School from Longnor in 2011 kids club membership has outgrown one evening and now occupies two evenings of double sessions.
Upperlimits is unique among similar children's climbing clubs for the dedicated and individual attention given by the staff. Each child is befriended and helped by staff and more experienced youth members. Complex skills are taught through fun and peer support as confidence is gained through the risk taking aspects of climbing in a safe environment.
Many of the members are effected by difficulties from conditions such as Autism and Dyspraxia. The club provides an essential outlet for these young people to feel accepted and to achieve without the pressure of competition. For some it is their only social contact outside school.
The families who attend have found a rare welcome and exceptional tolerance for tag-along siblings with similar conditions. Many have not attended other clubs without fear of disrupting the session. Comfortable seating and beverages are thoughtfully provided while they watch.
With public access other climbers are welcomed at any time adding diversity and a greater pool of shared skills. The youth members particularly benefit from seeing adults climbing.
The centre is situated in Leek with no alternative closer than in Stoke-on-Trent 20 miles away which for most members would be too far to travel.
Upperlimits is not just a sports club, it is a life-line to many of its users past and present. It is essential that it remains open.
3. Stop Treating People With Disabilities Like Second Class Citizens
While growing up, Ias a disabled person, experienced quite a few 'differences' in my education because of my apparatus (a wheelchair & walker). I was treated like an outsider by my classmates and a bother by 2 or 3 of the faculty members . College was surprizingly similar...
I would like to propose a change in the way society looks at people with disabilities. We are not to be stared at by little children, forced to use entrances at the sides or back of buildings, or be labeled as mentally deficient or diseased.
I'd like to see an education system in which children are taught about disabilities and accept people with them.
4. Save the disability degree at RMIT!
On Friday 12th August, RMIT decided to discontinue the program, the only disability specific degree course in Victoria.
There are thousands of people living in Victoria who have a disability, with a relatively small pool of workers to support them. The cessation of this course will broaden the gap of an already under-qualified and under-manned work force.
5. Funding for children with disabilities in School
My son is 9 and from the start of school there was no place
for him to "fit in" He has Aspergers, ADHD, Reactive
Attachment disorder, speech and language issues and
profound sensory processing issues. He however does not
have an intellectual disability so he is not eligible for Special
school.
He is a gorgeous boy, with so much potential to learn in
the right environment. The QLD school system has let him
down so badly he is now attending a private school, paid for
by his family and by donations, who needs the funding he
receives from main stream school (even though he only
attends there 4 hours a week, with me present) to be used
for a Teachers aide for him at his new school, where he
feels safe and is completing school work and attending
occupational therapy and speech therapy as well. My son
is extremely high needs and needs one on one, which this
school is unable to provide, BUT can provide the security
and safe environment for him to learn grow and prosper.
6. Developmental Disabilty Association - Accept Funding Change
Individuals with Developmental Disabilities are having Adult Day Program hours and services cut and sometimes eliminated when they are funded through the Medical Assistance program in Maryland. Individuals, caregiver's and care providers and teams that support them have requested that their Adult Day Program funding be switched to DDA funding.
Individuals who have their services cut are experiencing differences in services from those funded through the developmental disabilities administration. Elimination of tracking, reviewing and reporting of social/learning goals, community activities and a drastic cut in the amount of hours that they will be served are some of the services being affected.
This is placing an insurmountable burden on caregiver’s and family members and the individuals with developmental disabilities that are in need of these services.
7. Disabling discrimination ends with ability education programs
A lack of disability education and awareness still plagues the United States of America. The disability community has come to realize that social isolation and many acts of discrimination, including those that I portrayed in my play, "Obama declares we are crippled no more," stem from ignorance. We cannot help those who will always act in an inconsiderate matter, but we can educate people who act differently because of ignorance.
I have outlined a plan to mandate an “Ability” course across the U.S.A that will decrease the countless social perceptions held especially by students regarding people with disabilities. The goal is to help enlighten people to treat those who have disabilities with sensitivity. When this new mindset is created, our country will become a front-runner in the disability rights movement.
The U.K has mandated a class that teaches all children about the abilities of people with disabilities. As a result, the complaints of disability harassment have decreased. It is time for the U.S. to put the days of such mistreatment of people with disabilities by their very own peers behind them. It is time for our country to lead once more in the disability education and awareness of its citizens.
8. Save Honeylands respite unit from closure
Honeylands Children's Centre Exeter is a centre of excellence for special needs children with various levels of disabilities. It provides respite care to the families of such children. The respite wing is under threat of closure.
This petition is in support of retaining this vital resource to the parents of these children and must not be closed as it will have a huge knock on effect to the children of other not only Honeylands but Meadow Park and other care establishments across the city.
Join marie claire's campaign to save Kingsdene School, NSW - Australia's only boarding school for disabled children.
Enough is enough. Stop hitting our kids. Now.
No less than 20 states allow corporal punishment - using physical force that causes pain or discomfort - against a child with disabilities for purposes of discipline.
The ACLU/HRW report makes clear that students with disabilities are subject to corporal punishment at significantly higher rates than their peers who don't have disabilities. Florida ranks ninth in the nation on this list. Further, all too often, kids with disabilities are being punished for having a disability - for behavior that is a direct manifestation of their diagnosed and documented condition. The report documents instances in which this happens to children with autism and Tourette Syndrome. The report sums it up this way: "Students are being beaten for behavior they simply cannot control, or cannot reasonably be expected to control, a grossly disproportionate and fundamentally demeaning response to the child's condition."
Let's stop the punishment now and make it clear that any use of physical force for purposes of discipline against a child with disabilities (seclusion and restraint is another topic for another day) will be promptly and forcefully dealt with by our schools and elected officials.
To view the ACLU report go to:
http://fndfl.org/Blog/file.axd?file=Corporal+Punishment+of+Students+with+Disabilities+(2).pdf
To join our cause on Facebook go to:
http://apps.facebook.com/causes/341382/64787013?m=e56504ed
11. NOEWAIT: National Organization to End the Waitlists
The National Organization to End the Waitlist (NOEWAIT) has a petition directed to the President and Members of Congress:
"Health Care Reform Must Eliminate Waitlists and Allow for the Continuation/Portability of Services Across State Lines"
NOEWAIT is a grass-roots, national, social justice movement organized to ensure full opportunity, choices, freedom, and self-determination for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in every community by eliminating wait lists for services in every state. This will be accomplished through public education, mobilizing people into action, and changing public policy.
BECAUSE
Across the nation, people with intellectual and developmental disabilities wait years for services and supports and can not move freely from state to state or community to community.
BECAUSE
There must be adequate funding for lifetime services and supports needed by our most vulnerable family
members, without gaps or delays.
BECAUSE
Funding must be available in all states, portable across and within states and promote self-determination
for the individual with the disability, their families and legal guardians.
WE PLEDGE
To unite the efforts of families, providers, government agencies, advocacy groups and citizens to change laws and policies across the country and eliminate waiting lists for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
12. Improving Education for Special Needs and the Disabled in Public High Schools
About 1 in 150 children has been diagnosed with autism, based on a 2002 study done by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. This can be rephrased as being a rate of 6.6 per 1,000 children. This outdated census is based on results conducted in only 14 out of the 50 states in the United States of America. Nor does this study include the most populous states such as California, Texas or Florida. Clearly the study is limited and the numbers reflect only the tip of a monumental and critical iceberg. There is little interest or regard for a problem that needs to be solved.
One problem is that children are being diagnosed too late, a good amount of time after they have already started school. Autism is hard to detect in its early stages, and its symptoms are not obvious until its victims have reached school-age. That is when there is a distinguishable difference between the child and its companions as well as the rate of learning and progress. Many studies prove that autism can be diagnosed by age 1. That is true. However, that is if parents take their children to doctors and specialists for evaluation. If there are no symptoms and no ways to look for early signs, about three-fourths of children will begin to appear to have the condition at age 9 years. This is according to a report in the June issue of archives of General Psychiatry. This means that before the child reaches the age of nine, he/she will be shuffled through his/her early years of school and then fall far behind other students upon diagnosis.
Another problem is that after these children have been diagnosed, they are placed in cramped environments labeled “Special Education”. Overcrowded classrooms and scarce teachers for the growing population of autistic students is one obvious aspect. These classes consist of teachers who work with a wide variety of disabled students from learning disabilities to speech or language impairments, mental retardation, emotional disturbance, multiple disabilities, hearing impairments, orthopedic impairments, visual impairments, autism, combined deafness and blindness, and traumatic brain injury. These classes are not much better in providing aid, the only difference is that the students with disabilities are removed from “normal” society and grouped together where teachers will attempt to educate the wide variety of disabilities similarly. According to executive director Kim Sweet of Advocates for Children of New York, only “a small number of special education teachers work with students with severe cases of mental retardation or autism, primarily teaching them life skills and basic literacy.”
A fourth problem is pointed out in an article by Thurlow, Sinclair and Johnson. Published in the Publication of National Center on Secondary Education and Transition, it states that “the dropout rate for students with disabilities is approximately twice that of general education students (Blackorby & Wagner, 1996)… and have been identified as being among the lowest performing students on current high-stakes tests… These scores have consequences for schools and often for students. Increasingly, high-stakes tests have significant consequences for students—they determine whether they are promoted from one grade to the next, or graduate from high school with a standard diploma (Thurlow & Johnson, 2000). Students who experience failure or who see little chance of passing these tests may decide not to stay in school—because either they will not be promoted or they will not graduate with a standard diploma… Accountability without the necessary opportunities and support for youth with disabilities to achieve high standards may increase the rate at which they drop out of school and fail to successfully complete school.”
In today’s state, helping students develop emotionally, feel comfortable in social situations, and be aware of socially acceptable behavior is not enough “general education” to equip them for the real world. The effects of general certifications versus advanced certifications to teach in private schools for autism are vastly different. The difference is that private schools receive enough funding (from parents) to effectively train students while public schools only have enough to get by. One example of an effective private school is the McCarton School. By the end of 2007, five of the 23 children in the school will be mainstreamed back into their districts into regular classes. Private schools use many tools that public schools can’t afford to use which include: intensive speech therapy, occupational therapy, sensory integration, etc. to “teach the children to function in their community and in their homes—in the places they actually live”, according to Feldman who is an instructor at the McCarton School holding a PhD. in psychology. The key is that their teachers have specialized training- something that many schools lack.
Does it make any sense at all that in a society where the rate of autism is steadily rising year after year, our school budgets continue to be cut more and more year after year? That is like withdrawing from a deposit in the bank while obliviously expecting to never run out even without making more deposits and at the same being shocked that the interest rate of return in our savings is decreasing. The more you put in, the greater the interest rate of return that our society will have. Children are the future. To take money from the future, is to set the nation up for doom. What kind of nation will it be in 20 years from today or even 30 years, when high school drop-outs are our voters and politicians while special needs adults join the growing number of homeless people? It will be a nation void of stable citizens producing stable incomes to support the social security system. Eventually, the system will crumble from the burden.
If governments need further proof that this crisis is real, let them look no further. Let them observe the increasing rate at which private schools are opening to make up for the obvious lack and inefficiency in public schools. Dr. Cecilia McCarton, Professor of Pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine founded the McCarton Center for Developmental Pediatrics in 1998. She founded the McCarton School based on the increasing number of parents searching hopelessly for a cure, for treatment, for improvement, a sign or anything to relieve. “The numbers of autistic children we began to see in our Center suddenly became an avalanche. We would be giving therapy to these children and there would be no schools for them, no places for them to go to after age five. Autism overtook us,” she writes.
Let governments observe the flooding of public schools with autism and the inability of small private schools to keep up with demand. Additional solutions for inadequate education involve the increase of funding so that the range of influence and therapy can expand and provide more benefit from the use of IEP’s rather than requiring the use of such plans and not providing tools to carry them out. Public schools can be slowly turned into similar replicas of private school systems.
A small but growing number of districts are modeled after private schools with their personalized environments and highly qualified teachers. Health coverage is often brought up as an alternative to private schools, except health coverage does everything but that…cover. The responsibility is left to the schools.
Today, under P.L.102-119, all schools must offer special educational services and, unfortunately, the government ensures that only the bare minimum is done.Public education is not broken, we just spend too little on our schools and waste too much on less important issues.
13. Make RADAR keys only available to disabled people
Disabled people NEED disabled toilets. We do not ask to be disabled.
We are forever seeing NON disabled people use our facility. We feel this is unfair, as NON disabled people have a choice when wanting to use a public toilet.
Disabled people do NOT have a choice in this matter.
14. Support the Tuition Support Bill
On November 28, 2007 Mr. Leo Glavine (Nova Scotia Liberal Education Critic) introduced a amendment to the education act to incorporate the provision for tuition support until the public system can provide a equal level of support.
It also calls upon the government to lift the arbitrary time limit of three years so that the children who need it can continue to attend a specially designated private school until such time at they are ready to go back to public school.
This is a very important piece of legislation for children with learning disabilities in Nova Scotia. We are asking everyone to support this Bill by signing this petition and adding their comments.
15. Give accessibility to the Physically Disabled People of Pakistan
Barrier to accessibility is a Social/Legal Discrimination of the Physically Disabled People.
As most of the outlets have a flight of steep high stairs for accessibility and almost all the physically disabled people couldn’t reach these outlets in a wheel chair, walker, or crutches, this is a Social/Legal Discrimination of the Physically Disabled People.
16. Winter fuel payments for people with disabilities under 60
For a long time various disability campaign groups have been calling on the Government to award people with severe disabilities under the age of 60 Winter Fuel Payments.
Unfortunately this is still not happening today. People who have severe disabilities still suffer from the cold just as much as elderly people and we need to come together as one voice against this unfair policy.
17. SOCIAL SECURIETY / DISABILITY REFORM
JULY 14, 2005: THIS PETITION IS A DIRECT REQUEST TO GOVERNMENT FOR PROCESS REVIEW CONCERNING NEEDED REFORMS IN THE AREAS OF SOCIAL SECURIETY AND MARITAL DIVISION OF ASSETS.
PRESENT SIGNATURE COUNT AT OLD SITE WAS 219 BUT THAT SITE IS CURRENTLY BEING SOLD. THIS HAS MADE URGENT RELOCATION A MUST.
SAMPLE COMMENTS APPEAR HERE:
Name Comments
219 Curt I get disability and it took over a year to get then medicaid wouldnt cover the hospital bills more than 90 days back leaving me screwed drowning in medical bills.
218 Adrienne Smith It is hard enough to get disability and has taken me two yrs to get before a judge. Now you want to change everything that people on disabiity need. We are still people. Most of us have worked very hard in our lives, and no one asked to get sick or disabled in anyway. Some day I would hope to re-marry, however, it seems that you are forcing people to live together instead of the instiution of marriage which is sacred. We can not lose money because we want to marry and live some kind of life. Please do no go through with any kind of "taking away from the disabled people of the United States". Our goverment seems more concerned with giving money to people in other countries than taking care of the born and raised US citizians.
Adrienne Smith
217 Wendy Gantos I am a disabled attorney and cannot practice due to my disability. I had to wait 2 years for my employer to give me long term disability. During that time, I tried to get food stamps, and the process was so ridiculously long and hard, I never got them! Now if an attorney can't figure out the system, how can the rest of the country figure it out. I live now on disability and my bills are way more than my income every month. I can't even afford to pay my student loans. Great country, huh?
216 Ron Bones My wife is on ssi&ssd,I'm a disabled Vet with only 30% and we barely get through the month. food stamps only go so far when what you get isn't even half of what a single friend gets because she lives in a different part of the State. Tehy need to get the system worked out so that everything is equal. But I doubt we'llsee it soon. You know the old saying: SURE YOU CAN TRUST OUR GOVERMENT...JUST ASK ANY NATIVE AMERICAN!
215 Liz DeWitt Please, do not abolish social security. We need it.
214 Katherine M. Aaron Please support the disabled in this country. They already have to jump through hoops just to be approved and it certainly causes financial hardship on a family that are unecessary.
213 Joyce A Spencer People who marry they have disabilities. They end up losing some money. How in this country can they live could.When they pay more out of there checks every month.People should not have money taken away from them.Just because they marry.
212 rita stafford-bones Execellent point
211 Sophie D.
210 Teddy G. Bryant How far will this govt. go to be out of control and to take away benefits taxpayers have paid the govt., and to which they have the right?
209 Kathy Rogers I'm the mother of a disabled young adult. Our people in the US should taken care of before others. Forcing people to live alone or divorce a spouse to receive benefits is inhumane.
208 John Davis Remember Tim Cratchett? (Dickens-A Christmas Carol) You don't really want to see a nation of them do you? Give us the tools to maintain our dignity and ability to still be productive citizens!
207 Jacqueline McVicar What happened to taking care of our own? Shouldn't citizens of the United States receive aide before any other country?
206 Mike Pearson We can afford WAR , but we can't afford those with diabilities. and we say we are a Christian Nation???
205 Joanne D. Ferguson This is so important!
204 Dixie Boyd I am on disability. I cannot get glasses. I cannot get dental. I don't have transportation. If I marry I will loose my own benefits... WHAT KIND OF COUNTRY IS THIS?
203 Mary Runyon The disabled in this country deserve so much better and humane treatment.
202 Adriana Lortia
201 LINDA THE GOV SUX !!! GOOD LUCK KENDALL
200 Paul Manning
199 Priscilla Peters It seems to me That the Government makes it almost impossible for people to be Married...Please Help Us
198 Debi Koscielski My goverment supports & pushes its religious beliefs on me by promoting marrage & its religious right, yet punishes me by taking my disability when I comply. YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS!
CHANGE THE LAW BEFORE i DIVORCE MY HUSBAND & YOU FORCE ME TO SIN EVEN MORE BY LIVING WITH HIM!
197 Barry Berger
196 Diane Grugan-Duvall I am the mother of a child with a disability.
195 Laurie Furlong I am the parent of a young adult with disabilities and I volunteer working with disabled. I support reform of the marriage penalty to SSI recipients.
WOULD GREATLY APRECIATE FURTHER SUPPORT FOR THIS CAUSE ON BEHALF OF AMERICA'S DISABLED.
18. A fair go for Disability Support Pensioners
The Liberal Party of Australia will have absolute legislative control of Parliament as from June 2005. One of the Government's first acts will be to slash the entitlements of people with disabilities.
The major change will be classifying anyone able to work 15 hours per week as no longer eligible for disability support, and instead, being classified as unemployed. This will subject an estimated 60,000 Australians already living in poverty to even worse poverty.
19. Support the Bubel/Aiken Foundation
The Bubel/Aiken Foundation provides opportunities for individuals with autism and other physical and mental disabilities to participate in programs that are typically only available to those without disabilities. Through grants, youth programs, such as after-school and camping services, will be able to adequately train staff to work with individuals with special needs.
The Foundation also strives create awareness about the diversity of individuals with disabilities and the possibilities inclusion can bring. Through collaborations with the disability, education, entertainment, and media communities the Foundation will recognize those whose commitment to breaking the stereotypes attendant to the developmentally disabled has broken barriers and extended the boundaries of the human experience for all.
Donations for Bubel/Aiken Foundation can be sent to:
Bubel/Aiken Foundation
PO Box 90307
Raleigh, NC 27675
20. Say "No" to Group homes kept 500 ft from any single home
SB 178, sponsored by Senator Cowin sponsers an amendment to Chapter 419, F.S., to prohibit a group home of 6 or fewer residents from being within 500 feet of another single family home (i.e. a non-group home). This bill alienates individuals with disabilities from participating and living in the community of their choice as well as ignoring the progress that has been made to include persons with disabilities in their community. The public policy implications of this legislation are distincly contrary from the current goals and objectives of this organization, as well as our state and federal governments' on housing options for persons with developmental disabilities.
The Florida Developmental Disabilities Council officially opposes the language and intent of SB 178. Council staff has met with Senator Cowin and will continue to discuss the issue with her andn other members of the Legislature.
Currently, the bill has been referred to the Senate Committee on Comprehensive Planning, Children and Families; Appropriations Subcommittee on Health and Human Services; and Appropriations.
It is important for the disability community to share their opinions and concerns with Senator Cowin. In addition, please make your legislators aware of this issue and your reasons for oppostion.
21. Raise Direct Support Staff (MR/DD) Rates
Direct Support Staff who work with people with developmental disabilities do not recieve adequate compensation for the work they do. They are often asked to work long hours doing very demanding work that affects people's lives. They cannot make a living wage working at just one job. Most are single mothers trying to raise their family and they must take two or more jobs to make ends meet.
Most importantly, the work they do is very important for the people they work with and for society. By paying direct support staff minimum wage or slightly above they and their work is devalued. Caring for other human beings the hardest and most important work in our society. They should be paid accordingly and should recieve a living wage.
22. Save S.A.D.I. (Stroke And Disability Information (Hunter) Inc.)
Stroke And Disability Information (Hunter) Inc., known as S.A.D.I., originally commenced in 1988 as an advocacy and information service to strokees and their families and was then called Stroke Recovery Hunter Outreach Centre. Acceptance of a government grant required that we drop the Stroke Recovery from our name and include all disabilities. The funding allows us to employ one full-time Coordinator and one part-time Clerical Assistant. The Management Committee is a body of volunteers and we have 2 - 3 volunteers who work in the office as well as a small number of volunteers who work in the community organising localised Stroke Recovery Clubs. Our aim is to provide help and support to ALL people with disabilities, their carers and families, especially strokees. We currently have a clientele of 2000 individuals. Funding is in the order of $55,000/year. Our funding body, Department of Ageing, Disability & Home Care in conjunction with Home and Community Care, is now planning to withdraw funding.