Disability²

I am an attorney in Denver who represents parents with disabilities in custody cases and I represent people with disabilities in discrimination cases, mostly involving the ADA, Fair Housing Act and the Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.

I have several disabilities. I have a neuromuscular disease and am a power wheelchair user, and I am also deafblind. I am a single mom and have had three kids placed with me for adoption. My commitment to advocacy within the community of parents who have disabilities stems in large part from my own experiences becoming a parent.

I first inquired about adopting my older daughter Heather, who is my biological niece, shortly after she entered foster care, in January 1999. Heather has severe developmental disabilities. At the time she did not communicate, was not independently mobile, needed assistance with all aspects of her care, and used a g-tube. Under the Adoption and Safe Families Act, which had gone into effect the year before I contacted her social worker, because I was kin, my home should have been studied for placement within thirty days. That did not happen.

For six months, I called her social worker every two weeks seeking an update on her progress toward getting my home studied for Heather to come. Her social worker refused to progress with studying my home due to my disability. Fortunately Heather had a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) who learned about my existence during a status conference. This CASA advocated on my behalf to the court to get the court to order the county to consider placement with me. Finally in July 1999, Heather’s worker called me to get the basic information needed to do an Interstate Child Placement Compact (ICPC) homestudy referral.

Despite this call, no progress was made. I continued to call the worker every two weeks. Several times she told me she had lost my information, and needed to get it from me again. It was not until October 1999 that the ICPC referral finally happened. The social worker from Denver county did a fabulous job in doing my homestudy quickly, and my homestudy was back in Tennessee within a month. In mid-October, I traveled to Nashville to visit Heather. During that visit Heather’s social worker visited and made me prove I could care for her. Despite my explanations that my home was accessible, and that I had attendant care to help with her care, the social worker wanted me to prove that I could lift Heather in and out of her wheelchair, maneuver her chair in and out of her foster family’s home with a small step, and in and out of my rental van. None of these tasks were under real-life conditions, but evidently I passed her scrutiny. I was promised Heather would be home by Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving came and went with no Heather. I was calling two and three times a week for updates, but still no kid. I was promised she would be home for Christmas, but still no kid. I was then told by the Heather’s CASA that the social worker did not want to place Heather with me. In January, the judge demanded to know why Heather had not been placed with me, and ordered her placement before the end of the month.

Finally on January 31, 2000 Heather arrived, albeit not without drama. Heather’s social worker overslept, and missed their flight. They managed to get on a later flight. I met Heather’s plane, and expected to have the social worker meet me at my house. However the social worker was in a hurry, to do some sightseeing before her return trip to Nashville. We unceremoniously signed the placement paperwork on my extended van lift.

The drama didn’t end there. When the social worker returned to Nashville, she reported to the judge that she and a foster parent could barely care for Heather on the flight, between the two of them. She reported “there is no way that handicapped woman can care for that handicapped child,” and that they would have to come back to Denver and get Heather. Fortunately the CASA had been in contact with me and had learned that things were going well, Heather had started school and was safe and sound. Heather’s adoption was not finalized until July 2002.

In June 2001 I inquired about a seven-year-old girl who was waiting for an adoptive home. Ariana was from Denver County. I contacted her social worker, and her placement was the antithesis of Heather’s. Within 39 days of my first inquiry, Ariana was placed in our home. The rest of Ariana’s placement did not go so smoothly. When I filed my petition to adopt Ariana, her paternal aunt and uncle changed their mind about adopting her. These people had declined to adopt Ariana repeatedly in the past, and had supported her placement with me. Because the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) applied to Ariana’s case, the aunt and uncle were able to challenge the adoption. Despite multiple experts, including her therapists, advocating for her to stay with me, Ariana was moved back to her aunt and uncle’s home, 10 months after she was placed with me.

The entire process was heartbreaking. The child Heather and I had opened our hearts and homes to was wrenched from us. Ariana had a spinal cord injury, and used a wheelchair. When she left her aunt and uncle’s care, she had no independent living skills. By the time she moved from my home, she was doing all the things a typical 7 year old would do, except for bowel and bladder care, and she was learning to do that. Her aunt and uncle showed no regard for her disability, constructing an inaccessible home while she lived with them, and believed it was appropriate to carry an eight year old child everywhere. While my disability was not the primary reason for intervening, it played a part in the aunt and uncle’s decision, and it came up several times during the contested custody hearing. While my situation was not like that of parents who have lost their children to social services, it gave me a window into how devastating losing a child to the courts really is. I also had seen first hand, while advocating for parents, how easily they lose their children permanently due to their disabilities. It was at this time that I knew much of my career would be dedicated to advocating for parents with disabilities.

I started my third foray into adoption during the spring of 2003. I had my homestudy updated and began inquiring about waiting children. Many social workers would not consider me at all due to my disabilities. In early 2004 we bought a house, so needed to update our homestudy again. I decided to use a private agency to give me more flexibility in getting my homestudy out to social workers. The social worker, a mother with a disability herself, documented my disability meticulously in my homestudy. I was asked many disability related questions non-disabled parents would not be asked, despite being an experienced adoptive parent. I had 2 failed referrals before I got a referral for Adrianne. Adrianne arrived five months later in January 2005.

You can learn more about us by visiting our website: The Lucas Family