Willowbrook

I had an amazing opportunity today to travel to a town south of Belgrade to make two presentations on the subject of the education of students with disabilities in the United States. Serbia has just passed its first law giving children with disabilities the legal right to attend school (a similar law was passed in the U.S. in 1975), and there is quite a bit of interest here on how other countries have managed to implement these kinds of laws.

In preparation for yesterday's events, I spent a lot of time this past week putting my presentations together, and felt strongly that I needed to be honest with my audiences about the historical context of this issue in the United States. In truth, the United States had a terrible track record when it came to the treatment of people with disabilities -- until things began to change for so many disenfranchised groups in 1960s and 1970s. Prior to the passage of the law that gave children with disabilities the right to go to school in 1975, over 1 million American children were completely excluded from school. Had our son, Graham, been born when I was born (in the 1960s), he would not have been permitted to attend school at all. In fact, our doctors probably would have pressured us to place him in an institution when he was diagnosed -- something many parents regrettably were convinced to do.

One particularly egregious example the failings of the United States is the Willowbrook State School of Staten Island, NY. Built in the 1930s as a "home" and "school" for children with mental retardation, Willowbrook was built to house 4000 children. By 1965, 6500 children lived there. In 1972, a brave doctor from Willowbrook approached Geraldo Riviera, who at that time worked for a local news station, and told him of the horrific conditions there. He gave Geraldo a key to one of the buildings, and asked him to make a visit. He warned him that it was "bad;" Geraldo described what he found at Willowbrook as "horrible."

Below is a short preview of a longer piece that was produced as a result of Geraldo's visit to Willowbrook. I will warn you that the images are disturbing.




As bad as things were before 1975, the United States (namely its families, advocates and legislators) undoubtedly deserves credit for trying to do the right thing by passing an education law and implementing other reforms that have significantly impacted and improved the lives of people with disabilities. Since the passage of the education law, educational opportunities for people with all kinds of disabilities have increased. Those of us who care deeply about these issues in the U.S. still lose sleep over the many injustices that we feel occur to this day, but when you step back and look at the big picture, there is no denying that we have come a long, long way in the last 35 years.

Conditions for people with disabilities in Serbia (as in many countries throughout the world) generally are very poor. There is no doubt that Serbia and other countries are behind us on this issue. As an advocate, though, and someone who cares passionately about the lives of people with disabilities, I believe that we can help countries like Serbia by being honest with them, and by sharing our journey and struggles. In so doing, perhaps we can encourage them to keep moving in the right direction on these important matters.

Erin