REALTIME FILE

EARLY HEARING DETECTION & INTERVENTION (EHDI)
"Accessing After School Programs:  
Using The ADA As Your Key"
Room:  Vienna
Tuesday, March 5, 2019
3:00 ‑ 3:30 p.m.  CT

REMOTE CART CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY:
ALTERNATIVE COMMUNICATION SERVICES, LLC
www.captionfamily.com

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Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility.  CART Captioning and this realtime file may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.

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>> SPEAKER:  Okay.  I think it's about 3:00 o'clock and we can get started.  My name is Brittany Shrader and I'm an attorney with the National Association for the Deaf and I know this program says this presentation will be presented by Howard Rosenblum, Caroline Jackson, and Anna Bitencourt, none of those people are here today, you guys are stuck with me.
I am not representative of most of the attorneys at the National Association for the Deaf, I am in the minority and I am one of the few hearing people that work at the National Association for the Deaf.
Most of the attorneys are deaf themselves and fluent in sign language.
I am using my voice mostly because I just can't give up that control over how I sound when someone's interpreting, you know, it's never exactly the word choice that you would use, so bear with me, everyone.
So I hope that everyone is here because they want to learn a little bit more about their children's rights to access.
And I know that this program is mostly about after school programs, we've tried to limit it because we have a small amount of time, but NAD really is an organization you can reach out to and contact if you have questions about your child's access in any kind of setting, whether it be medical, whether it be just using, you know, caption through a phone, using any sort of public accommodation where they might need access to language, you can reach out to us, even if it's not limited to after‑school programs, which is what I am going to be discussing today.
Most people aren't really familiar with the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act, and the various other laws that protect people who have disabilities.
That's, I guess, why you all are here.
But your children are protected by laws that ensure that they have equal rights to communication access as their hearing peers, so what that means is whether your child uses sign language as their primary mode of communication, whether your child needs CART to access classroom instruction or to access a job training program or an after‑school program, whether your child uses a FM system, whether your child needs a combination of interpreters and captioning.
Regardless of your child's needs as a deaf individual, they are entitled to effective communication.
And there's various different laws that apply to different types of agencies.  So your schools, for example, I'm sure most of you are familiar with the IDEA or the idea that your children can get an IEP and get certain types of accommodations in a school setting.
But the law isn't limited to just your children being able to access their education, your children are allowed to go to after‑school programs, they're allowed to participate in sports, they're allowed to participate in everything that their hearing peers can participate in in a way that is accessible to them.
And a lot of times we find that parents are running into problems getting schools or other organizations that are providing job training or interviewing programs or swimming, you know, a swimming team or a sports team, soccer, track and field, to provide the information in a way that's accessible.
And it's not just the spoken language, right.  Think about it.  If your kid's on a track and field team and they can't hear the whistle blow to know when to start, they still need to receive that same information in the same way that their hearing peers would be able to.
And what that means is that the program provider has to consult with you, they have to consult with your child to figure out what is the best way for your child to receive that information.
And then they have to provide those types of accommodations for your child.
And that is an ongoing conversation.  They don't get to just pick, right, they have to talk to you about it.
Because there's not a one size fits all solution, as we all know.  Every child with hearing loss has a very different set of needs.
So that conversation ‑‑ and it's a two‑way street too.  You have to engage with them as well to explain what it is your child needs or requires.  If they don't know, they can't provide it, right?
And like I said, the standard under the law is what's called effective communication.
And that type of communication is the type of communication that their hearing peers would have access to.
So it doesn't mean, you know what?  Your child maybe uses sign language as their primary mode of communication, but we're going to provide them with CART and that's enough because the law says that CART is an accommodation that we can provide and that's what we're gonna provide.
Well, if your child doesn't have strong reading English skills, CART might not be effective for your child.  Your child might need that sign language interpreter.
And vice versa, if your child is strong in reading and writing English but doesn't have the ASL skills, an interpreter might not be the right accommodation.
So again, the standard here is effective communication.
And this is a list of what the law talks about when it talks about auxiliary aids and services, the things that the school or the after‑school program needs to provide your child to make sure that effective communication happens.
And it's not an exhaustive list.  There are all sorts of different things.
And you know your child best.  Your child knows themselves best, and you are the best person to know what it is that your child requires.
And I just want to point out, the first thing on this list is qualified interpreters and this is something that we run into a lot.
The idea that a signer, a person who knows some sign language, can come in and interpret for your child, you do not have to accept that; that is not what qualified interpreters mean.
A qualified interpreter has to be a person who has the ability to receive and convey information.  They have to be a person who is an unbiased person.  So that means you, as the parent, are not a qualified interpreter, in any setting.
So you go to a medical setting.  You are not a qualified interpreter.  Even if you are a certified sign language interpreter yourself, for your own child, your not qualified.
And there's a reason for that, right?  Say you go in and they give you, like, the worst information in the world.  Something that you wouldn't want to necessarily, as a parent, convey to your child in the same manner in which a medical professional or someone who comes in and conveys it.
Well, you might filter that information.  A certified or a qualified interpreter wouldn't filter that information, they would provide it directly.
And, you know, that works kind of on a two‑way street.  Sometimes your child might want to, you know, filter information and/or the provider might want to filter information to the child.
So it's important to have that neutral third party as the interpreter that their job is just to convey the information.  Their job is not to have an opinion, and that's really important and something that you can certainly press on.
If they ever, you know, say, well, hey, mom, you can sign, why can't you interpret for your child?  Hey, you know what?  The law requires a qualified interpreter and that's not me, okay?  
>> Is this PowerPoint online?  
>> SPEAKER:  Yes, it will be uploaded, and if you all have any questions, because I know we have a very short amount of time, you all can feel free to send me an e‑mail, give me a call, our website is NAD.org and there's a parents tab on our website that you can click on and has a lot of information for parents, including advocacy letters that we have for different settings you go to.  There's one specifically for the medical setting where a doctor's office doesn't want to provide interpreters, for example.  There's a pre‑prepared advocacy letter for that, you can go to the website, download it, print it, take it to the doctor's office, hey, this letter talks about my child's rights, are you still not going to provide me what I need?  And then you can go from there.
So I kind of wanted to make this a little more interactive so you guys can participate and ask questions, the rest of the presentation is different kinds of hypotheticals and I think I've talked a little bit about some of these as we've gone through, but this gives you guys ideas, brainstorm, ask questions.
The first hypothetical, I tried to vary the needs of my deaf child in different hypotheticals and you'll see the child needs something different in each hypothetical.
So, in this hypothetical, the child uses CART.  And the child wants to enroll in an after‑school job training program.
What do we do in that type of circumstance?
Anyone?  
>> [Away from microphone and unable to clearly hear]. 
>> Just so you know, if comments are not spoken into a microphone, they won't show up on the captions.  
>> SPEAKER:  Okay.  So it's important that we need a microphone. 
[Pause]. 
>> SPEAKER:  I think we're having a little bit of a technical difficulty with the microphone. 
>> So I'm a parent of a daughter who has already gone through transition, so the first thing that has come to mind is that you would involve your VR counselor to help you get that CART access, because I find that just having a professional at that level, what you're talking about, it is helpful to bring into the group discussion what the support looks like and how valuable it is for access.  
>> SPEAKER:  That is a great idea.  Getting your VR counselor involved in these types of discussions definitely helps to kind of push the needle oftentimes with different organizations who are resistant to providing services.
And it's not always that there's resistance to providing services, because they don't want to accommodate your child, sometimes they just don't know what that means or what that looks like.  Maybe this is the first deaf child that they've encountered so they need a little bit of education, and bringing in someone who can help provide that education is very helpful, and an outside advocate as well.
Now, I just want to take a little bit of this hypothetical and change it just a little bit.
What about your child, your child requires CART, we are saying here, for these group discussions.
What about if your child doesn't use CART in a school setting and the school is telling you, you know what?  Your child uses their hearing aids or their cochlear implant at school, but you're telling me they need CART for these types of discussions.  Why should we do that?
So, again, you all know your child best, right?  And maybe in school, the circumstances are that which a FM system or cochlear implants or hearing aids are sufficient.  But maybe at this after‑school training program, things are very noisy, there's a lot of background noise, and your child can't process the information using those types of modalities.  Maybe they need something different here.  And CART would be the next effective thing for them.
So just because one mode of communication is what is effective for your child in one setting doesn't mean it's effective for your child in all settings.
And that's, again, in these types of conversations, they do have to listen to you as the parent.  Your child as the person requiring these services, hey, you know what?  It's effective for me in this setting but not effective in this setting, and this is why.
So it is absolutely okay for you, as a parent, to advocate for one type of accommodation in one setting, but to say, you know what?  That's not working for my child in this setting, they need something else.
And just because you're saying your child needs something else does not mean that the school or the public accommodation can block you and say you know what?  We've given your child enough and we're not giving them anything else, because, again, the standard is effective communication, and if what is being provided is not providing effective communication for your child, then your child is entitled to that which will.
So.... in this hypothetical, we are talking about a child who wants to be involved in track and field, and I kind of brought this up a little bit earlier, right.
So here your child uses the FM system but the coach doesn't want to wear it.
What do we do?
Okay, well, so I think that there's a couple of different ‑‑ here we're talking about the school, right?  So this is a school‑based athletics program and here at the school, we talk to the school.
Schools typically know a little bit more about what's required than some of the other outside organizations, because they deal with students on a daily basis.
So the first step is to talk to the school.  Hey, you know, you provide FM loop to my child in the classroom setting.  My child is joining the track team.  The coach isn't using the FM system.  My child needs it for being able to participate in track and field.
And hopefully that, you know, pushes the ball.
If the ball ‑‑ you know, if you can't get the ball pushed, again, use your resources, you can use your VR counselor, you can reach out to us at NAD.
We can send a letter sometimes, we can just make a phone call, and sometimes just having that outside advocate reach out is enough to push the ball.
But your child does have a legal right to this communication access and schools know that.
So, change that a little bit.  Okay, your child uses the FM system, but they don't wear it when they're competing, right?  So they use it during training and things like that, but when they're running, they take it out.
We talked about that earlier, right, they need other things, they might not hear the whistle blow so they know when it's time to take off and they need some visual cue when it's time to go.
And that's a discussion again you'll have to have with the track and field coach, maybe it the school, simply because that might be something that they just aren't clued into, they aren't thinking about that.
Okay, we've provided the FM system, great, the child understands, the child can hear, okay, but they don't know what to do, they can't access that information that now it's time to take off.
The same thing in a lot of sports, they have visual, even sometimes they have, like a bass drum that will provide vibrations that the kids will be able to feel and know it's time.
It depends on the sport.
There are different kinds of accommodations that can give those types of visual or non‑auditory cues to your child so that they can participate in the same ‑‑ at the same level as their peers.
All right.  Here we have a child who wants to go to an after‑school daycare program.  The child uses sign language, but also communicates well in written English.
Now, the question is here, for an after‑school daycare program, does your child need a sign language interpreter?  And would your child be entitled to a sign language interpreter?
Or what does your child actually need?
So, this one's a little bit tricky, right?  Because it's an after‑school daycare program, there probably isn't a lot of what we're doing right now, with someone up here speaking and providing a lecture or anything like that, it's probably more playing with the other kids, very simple instruction.
And if your child communicates well in written English, this might be a circumstance in which they don't need an interpreter, they might just need ‑‑ an interpreter for your child, following them around while they're playing with other kids might be more of a hindrance and something they don't want to have.
So this might be one of the circumstances where that's not the thing that your child needs.  Your child doesn't necessarily need an interpreter in every circumstance, and that's where kind of that collaborative discussion between you and the parent and your child, who really is an important person to bring into this conversation, and the provider really needs to happen, because you might think, you know, okay, every time I go into one of these settings, I'm thinking all right, sign language interpreter, that's what my child needs, that's what I'm advocating for, and the provider might come back to you and say you know what?  Really, do we want to provide an interpreter in this situation?  And this might be one of those circumstances where you say you know what?  You're right, maybe that's not what my child needs.  But maybe sometimes it is.  Say they're going on a field trip to, like, a museum or something, there should be an interpreter for that, right?  So it has to be an ongoing conversation and that's an important takeaway, that you need to be engaging in ongoing conversations with these providers, because your child's needs are ongoing and sometimes they're changing and it depends on the setting in which your child is in that their needs might be different to match that setting.
Okay.  Here we have an after‑school school subsidized tutoring program, the school doesn't want to provide qualified sign language interpreters for your child.  Do you have any recourse?
So I know I kind of, like, jumped through the legalese pretty quickly and I did that, I think for a lot of non‑lawyers, legal, like, going really deeply into the statutes is probably not interesting.
What you need to know is there are laws that protect your children.
But there are different sections under the Americans with Disabilities Act that apply differently to, depending on the type of organization.
Here, we are talking about a state school or a public school, Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act applies to public schools or any public entity.
What that means is the law is even stricter on those entities.  The law requires not only do they provide effective communication, but it also requires they give primary consideration to the preference of the child.
So what that means is in this setting where we're talking about a school subsidized program, they're required to provide your child with what your child prefers unless they can show that providing that would somehow fundamentally alter their program, or that it would be an undue burden on them, which is very difficult for a school to prove, that providing interpreters would be an undue burden for them to provide.
And again, a fundamental alteration means that the program itself would have to be changed in such a way that it would no longer provide the same services, essentially.
So, the other kind of prerequisite is that your child has to meet the requirements to be in the program.
So, for example, you can't say I want a sign language interpreter for my child to take driver's ed. if your child is, like, 10‑years‑old.  Your child doesn't meet the qualifications for driver's ed. no, no interpreter.
If your child meets the requirements and everything for driver's ed. that's a different story.  That's another piece of it that they can push back on you, maybe your child doesn't qualify for this program.  Did they take the classes in school that they needed before they could engage in this after‑school program?  Do they have the minimum GPA before they can participate in the sports program?
These are the types of things that the school or the after‑school agency can try to push back on you with.
While your child is not meeting their requirements to live up to their end of the bargain, right?
So the thing is they obviously can't use that as a tactic to try to prevent your child from participating, right?  They can't use that in such a way that they're using it differently as to your child simply because they don't want to pay for an interpreter.
So, that's another thing to kind of be aware of.
If there are certain requirements, are those requirements that are applied equally to everyone in the program, equally to everyone in the school?
Or is it a requirement that is designed specifically to weed out persons with disabilities?
Sometimes there might be a requirement that you have to be able to read and write English fluently, for some ‑‑ to participate in some sort of training program.
Some programs, maybe that is a necessary requirement, but for a lot of programs, that's not, right?
So that's the kind of place where you see these types of requirements popping up that you can push a little bit on; okay, well, you're saying that my child can't have an interpreter because one of the requirements is that they be able to take this examination and pass this examination or whatever using English.
Okay.  Is English a necessary component?  Or is that something designed to weed out persons with disabilities or things like that?
And those are the types of gray areas, right, that might be difficult for you as parents to flag.  And that is a perfect time for you guys to reach out to your VR advocate or to NAD or to any other local agency in your area that helps to advocate and promote for the deaf and hard of hearing.
But absolutely feel free to contact us at NAD.
I'm part of our litigation team and what we do exclusively in the litigation team is handle cases of discrimination against people who are deaf and hard of hearing.
So, those cases can be in a wide variety of different circumstances where children aren't being provided access to interpreters in schools; children aren't being provided access to sign language education in the schools so they aren't being able to access the educational materials; it can be anywhere from medical settings; the court systems.  A whole ‑‑ basically every kind of place that you could think of in your everyday life that you might encounter that your children could run into communication difficulties.
Now, of course, going to a restaurant and ordering dinner, your child is not going to be entitled to CART or to an interpreter or anything like that, that wouldn't be reasonable, right, in those types of circumstances.  We can point to a menu, we can write back and forth, very basic communication.
But really, what we focus on in NAD and the litigation team is these types of disability discrimination cases.
So even if you just have a question, feel free to reach out, send us an e‑mail, give us a call.
We also have an attorney who focuses on policy work.  She works with the various different players.  She's working on legislation or with the legislation players to try to promote and advocate for deaf and hard‑of‑hearing people.
So there's a whole range of services.  We also have a youth services.  Yes?  
>> [Away from microphone and unable to clearly hear]. 
>> SPEAKER:  Oh, no.  Microphone. 
>> What I run into as a mom of a son who is deaf, 17, so every soccer, I'll give you a scenario, soccer, you're signed up, it is a non‑profit organization, but they charge a fee, and I've signed him up and I've indicated that I need a sports interpreter for that.
They had no idea!  They had no idea.  Why do organizations ‑‑ so my question is, why do ‑‑ it's all on the person who is ‑‑ who has a disability to inform.
Why don't businesses and organizations and whatever know about ADA law?  They act as if what.... the.... H is all that about?  
[Laughter]. 
>> Sorry, I'm, like, crawling out of my skin here. 
>> SPEAKER:  No, that's a great question and you're absolutely right.  And you know what, sometimes ‑‑ I think sometimes organizations legitimately maybe don't know, which is ‑‑ no, I was saying that's a great question, I think sometimes perhaps organizations legitimately don't know about the law.  I mean, that's kind of hard to believe that organizations don't know about the law, especially when you're going through the process of setting them up.
But it does happen all the time, unfortunately.
And it also, you know, it depends on where in the country you're located.  Is there a large Deaf community in that area?  Or is it a very small Deaf community?  And they don't have as much contact or access?
And sometimes I think that agencies kind of act like they don't know.  Oh, wait, what?  What do you mean I have to do that?
So yes, that is probably one of the most frustrating things.
But one of our biggest jobs as members of this community, as parents, as advocates, as attorneys, is education.  And that's ‑‑ when I go into a trial, that is the hat that I put on and I say that my primary function is is to educate that hearing jury that has no idea about what it is to be deaf, to have contact with a deaf person, and to teach them about the deaf experience in the time that I have that trial, which, as we all know, is a very difficult task.
So, yes, you are absolutely right, it is extremely frustrating to be the person tasked with educating everyone you come into contact with.
And that's why we really have tried to create these advocacy letters so you guys can just take them and hand them to the person.
Yes?  
>> Yes, we are about out of time, so if you do have other questions, then maybe you could see them at the end.  Is that okay?  
>> SPEAKER:  Yes, absolutely, absolutely. 
>> Thank you so much!  
>> SPEAKER:  Thank you very much.  
[Applause]. 
>> SPEAKER:  Contact information, if you all want to take a picture of that.
[End of session].

** Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility.  CART Captioning and this realtime file may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. **