Videos
What People Are Saying About...
"...you and your team have created a very realistic picture of people with disabilities and sympathetically documented how hard it is for them to be parents due to the characteristics of their disability but due more to the difficulties, burdens, and skepticism placed on their shoulders by systems that are too often clueless about how to help.
I
think your video is a useful public awareness tool that could create
understanding for parents and higher expectations for agencies. I would
like to share this video with policy makers in our state
administration...."
Howard Mandeville
Wisconsin Council on Developmental Disabilities
"After watching the video, "A Fair Chance," I find myself having mixed opinions. I think that children should come first. I think that the needs of children should be the first consideration as to whether parents with developmental disabilities should be able to raise their children.... I also think that there are parents with developmental disabilities that could be very capable raising their children given the appropriate supports...
I absolutely agree that there needs to be more supports in place to prepare parents for the job of parenting and also proper supports along the way as the challenges arise.
Another issue that has stuck in my mind
since viewing the video is that it could be very easy to draw unfair conclusions
about parents with developmental disabilities. I hope that if I am ever in
a situation that requires an assessment that I would see the situation with an
open mind. There are many parents today that do not have a disability and
that make the same mistakes and misjudgments that a parent with a developmental
disability may make but their children are not placed in out of home care.
I hope that I do not judge the parents unfairly and jump to conclusions. I
hope I see the family first, and not the disability."
Cathy Pacheco
Metropolitan State College of Denver
Social Work Major
"...this tape is very respectful of persons with developmental disabilities and clearly points out some of the apparent prejudices that exists towards persons with developmental disabilities being parents...they definitely have strikes against them.
I would hope that along with this tape there would
be a discussion dealing with the viewers' personal attitudes toward
parents with developmental disabilities. Further discussion could also highlight
the need to modify how information is presented to a person with a developmental
disability so that he/she can succeed in learning and adopting expected approaches
to child rearing."
Cindy Lichti
Developmental Pathways, Inc.
The Community Centered Board Serving Arapahoe-Douglas-Aurora, Colorado