On my way to the #ScrapTheGreenPaper (on #disabilityreform) protest outside Leinster House (which houses the Irish parliament). These proposals if implemented would make life a lot more difficult for many with #disabilities and disabling illnesses. 😡
My CUNY J-school project investigates the common challenges that people with #disabilities in NYC faced prior to #covid when finding a job and keeping it, and explores how the pandemic may have changed things.
Father Rejects Plea for Locking His Adopted Son in a "Box" for Behavioral Issues
In January 2022, police in Jupiter Florida were called to the home of Tracy and Timothy Ferriter, about a missing runaway child. Detectives discovered an 8 x 8 room, described as a box, equipped with a padlock and doorknob, both of which locked from the outside. Inside they found a camera, a mattress and a bucket with a light switch on the outside wall of the room.
The two parents had confined there adopted eight-year-old son inside this box for hours at a time, over the period of five years.. The child, who is now 13 years old (14 according to some reports), was adopted from Vietnam and had been diagnosed with "Reactive Attachment Disorder" (RAD). After returning from school, the boy was kept in the structure built in the garage, where they brought meals of leftovers to him and provided only a bucket for him to use the bathroom.
Today, the father Timothy Ferriter rejected a plea deal offered by prosecutors offering him two years in jail and five years of felony probation. His role of the dice may see him facing up to 35 years behind bars. His wife Tracy, is being tried separately with jury selection in that case set to begin on Friday. Defense attorneys argued that the longest period of confinement was 10 hours which to me, doesn't lessen the severity of the parents actions. Other reports cited the period of isolation in the box to be as long as 18 hours.
Treatment of people with invisible disabilities and mental health challenges have been victimized in this way throughout history. Isolation and abuse of this nature is certainly no way to treat behavioral issues, and anyone who knows anything about mental health knows, this type of treatment, will only make things worse. Below I've linked my piece on "Ridge Home for Mental Defectives" which provides a glimpse at an extreme example of this atrocious form of what some seem to think is appropriate "mental health treatment".
"1. Most #disabilities and #chronicconditions are invisible. Often, you cannot “see” kidney disease, cognitive disabilities, neurological conditions, cancer, prosthetic limbs, etc. All of these and more qualify as disabilities, and these individuals are allowed access to a disabled placard to make their lives and the world that much easier to navigate."
"4. If someone would like to help those with #disabilities, there are better ways to do this than by leaving notes on someone’s car or making disdainful comments... You can spread the word that many disabilities are invisible and learn more about why disability and illness are often considered “invisible.”..."
"Those with #disabilities face hurdles every day the able-bodied cannot fathom. If you are concerned that the #disabled are getting a “privilege” that is somehow “undeserved,” you are entitled to your opinion but please don’t act on it."