Photo: Lia Kendall Photography
Alana Prochuk
Building Better Communities, One Grant at a Time
SPOTLIGHT ON GOOD WORKS
Mothers in a Disabling Society: The Continued Struggle for Change ©iStockphoto.com/Shalatea
T he challenge is extreme poverty. That is the biggest problem for me. I lost my WCB [appeal] recently. So, I get zero compensation, zero retraining, zero therapy, zero. – A mother with disabilities living in poverty ell when I was in the hospital W and when I was pregnant, there was a social worker that came and she was talking to me. And she really . . . yeah, she really was not happy for me. She was, sort of like, thinking, Are you really thinking of your child? Like, “I think it would be best for your child if you gave the child up.” And I thought, I just delivered a child, I’m lying in bed, and you’re telling me this? I was devastated. – A mother with cerebral palsy
50
TABLE OF CONTENTS
T
hose are just two of the many powerful firsthand experiences shared by participants in West Coast LEAF’s 2014 “Mothering with Disabilities Project,” funded in part by The Notary Foundation of BC. This law reform project was launched to address a gap in research on the systemic barriers to equality faced by women with disabilities in relation to parenting. Our interviews with 25 diverse mothers with disabilities confirmed that discriminatory attitudes about parenting ability can create obstacles to reproductive choice, adoption, and fairness in family law and child protection for these women.
undermines their access to the legal system and to basic necessities for themselves and their children, including housing, child care, and nutritious food. As a result, women with disabilities may have their children apprehended by the child protection system because of a lack of resources and support, not because of abuse or neglect. The struggles are compounded for mothers who also experience inequalities based on indigenous identity, race, sexual orientation, and other aspects of their identity.
Furthermore, the economic insecurity disproportionately experienced by women with disabilities
The Mothering with Disabilities Project culminated in our “Able Mothers” report that set out our research and many recommendations for changes to laws and policies to better support women with disabilities. Its overarching recommendation was for governments to provide all necessary supports to ensure that children can remain with their parents when that is in the best interests of the children.
The Society of Notaries Public of British Columbia
Volume 26 Number 2 Summer 2017
