Diana Pastora Carson:
Welcome to the Beyond Awareness: Disability Awareness That Matters podcast. Here, you will find a safe space to learn and grow with leaders in education, Disability Studies, disability advocacy, and diversity, equity and inclusion conversations. Specifically, we look at how disability fits into diversity, equity and inclusion, and how to frame disability awareness. In the context of educating K through 12 communities, this podcast serves educators, parents, and community members who strive to learn and or teach about disability in a research-based and respectful way. Moving beyond simple awareness and diving into inclusive and socially responsive conversations. Thank you for joining us today. Now let's go Beyond Awareness.
Diana Pastora Carson:
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Beyond Awareness Disability Awareness That Matters. I am extremely honored and excited to have our guests here on the podcast today. They are the authors of Allies and Obstacles: Disability Activism and Parents of Children with Disabilities. The authors' names are Allison Carey, Pamela Block, and Richard K. Scotch. Welcome to the podcast everyone. I am so happy to have you here, and let's begin by you all introducing yourselves. Who are you? What drew you into this? Why are you writing about allies and obstacles? And share a little bit about yourself. Who would like to go first?
Allison Carey:
I can start. So, I'm Allison Carey. I am a sibling of somebody with a disability, and so I grew up in a family that really embraced disability activism, but it was a particular kind of disability activism. It was very rooted in a charity model. And when I went to graduate school and I saw the disability rights movement and became more exposed to those perspectives, it really blew my mind a little bit that I knew so much about disability yet so little. And so that relationship between the parents' movement and the disability rights movement was of interest to me from the start of, of my career.
Diana Pastora Carson:
Thank you, Allison. Who would like to go next?
Pamela Block:
My name is Pam Block. I'm an anthropologist at Western University, and I've been involved in disability studies and disability anthropology for a few decades now. I am also the sister of an autistic person, my older sister, Hope. My mom was all of the, you know, she, I think, had some disability issues herself. She had a traumatic injury when she was young. She was a special educator a parent advocate and also an activist. She and my sister both were activists and very much on the side of autistic activists like they were my mom was an ally and my sister was, or is, an autistic activist. And mom has passed away. But they kind of dragged me into an understanding of you know, to always question organizations that are supposedly like speak for, like Autism Speak speaks for autistic people, but don't actually include autistic people in their leadership or decision making. So, you know, she, my mom was very vocal about that in ways that, you know, I used to find a little embarrassing, but now I realize that those were really, it was very important for me to hear that. And it enriched my scholarship to know that
Richard Scotch:
This is Richard Scotch, the male voice in the podcast. I am a, a sociologist. I'm on the faculty at the University of Texas at Dallas. And I got started studying disability activism while I was taking a break from graduate school back in the 1970s. And I worked for a disability advocacy or child advocacy organization in in state government in the state of Virginia. And one of my assignments was to monitor the implementation of the federal special education law, now known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act back then known as the Education for All Handicapped Children Act. And as I was going to a variety of meetings, I met some of the activists in the state of Virginia and in Northern Virginia, met some of the activists who were involved at the national level, and was really impressed by them.
Richard Scotch:
And I just thought it was a fascinating topic, but also for a graduate student, a perfect topic in that it was dealing with important issues, but had not been, there wasn't a lot of academic research on it. So I decided to do my doctoral dissertation on the disability rights movement and its impact on public policy, which ultimately focused on the federal anti-discrimination law, Section 5 0 4. But has since looked at other policy areas as well. So that's that's how I got started. And I've been doing that work really for over 40 years now.
Diana Pastora Carson:
Well, thank you for that work. Thank you all for being here. I am curious still, how did you all come together to write the book?
Richard Scotch:
Well Allison and I have known each other couple of decades and have collaborated on some other projects, and we've both known Pam for quite a while as well. So we all knew each other. But Allison and I had both written about disability activism and out of a series of conversations thought it would be interesting to look at parents. There has not been a lot written about parent advocates. And we were particularly interested in some of the tensions both real and potential, between the perspective of parents and the perspective of people advocating for themselves. And so we got started on this I guess about eight or nine years ago. And I don't know Alison, you want to add anything?
Allison Carey:
Well, one of the wonderful things in addition to the collegiality is that Richard, Pam and I bring all, each of us have a disability studies perspective, but we have histories with different populations. So my population specialty area is intellectual disability. Pam's is autism. Richard has this really broad perspective, and his chapters focus on mental illness as well as physical disability. So for me, the collaboration was great because it helped me break out of a narrow population so that we could really think about how the parent activism and its relationship to the disability rights movement, how that was different in different populations, but also look at some similar themes across that.
Pamela Block:
And for me, the timing, when, when Allison and Richard approached me, my mom had just passed away, my sisters, you know, our mom had passed away, and, and it just seemed like something that I could do to honor her memory as well as, as, you know, I also found this to be a really interesting, exciting project. But and I loved the way that the book ended up being organized where we focused on our particular areas of expertise, but then we also provided some like, kind of cross movement, cross disability analysis that I found, you know, veryexciting to do.
Richard Scotch:
We've all been doing this for quite a while, and in fact, each of us has been a leader in the Society for Disability Studies. But we really do have somewhat complimentary areas of knowledge. And so we've, I think, all three of us have learned from the other two. And so that's made it a real a real treat.
Diana Pastora Carson:
Well, I love the, the research based approach and disability studies approach, but also the personal experience that you've tied into your book and to what you'll be sharing with us today. So thank you again for being here. I have a question. In your book, you talk about the interaction of two lenses, the parent lens of disability and disabled lens. You know, with disabled activists coming from a more social model approach of disability, focusing on civil rights, access to supports and services and empowerment. We talk a lot about empowerment of people with disabilities and, and against institutionalization and services in large scale congregate settings. How do you see these different lenses that, you know, there's some things that they're founded in that are similar, but there's also this contradictory thing about the two when put together in certain situations or environments. How do you see this playing out in terms of the education system? I know as a teacher, I've spent countless hours supporting families in IEP meetings, and some parents are saying that they want specialized services for their child in a segregated setting and wanting, quote unquote, "the best" for their child. And other times they're fighting for the least restrictive environment, you know, and inclusive classrooms. How do those two perspectives relate to what you have shared in allies and obstacles? Who would like to share about that?
Allison Carey:
I can start. I think education is one of the places where we see the opportunities for alliance, but also the contradictions and the tensions the most. Education tends to be one of the places where parents are most active. So IDEA says the least restrictive environment, right? And it doesn't actually use the word inclusion, but the assumption behind the legislation is that we want to give children with disabilities the most opportunities possible, and that they and all children benefit from being often included together, learning together. Right? And that doesn't mean that you don't need specialized services, but that services don't, aren't designated by a place. Services can be embedded within an integrated or inclusive setting. And the disability rights movement has taken that call to action very, very seriously. Right? And there's a lot of evidence that supports the inclusion of students with disabilities as best practice.
Allison Carey:
But parents live in this world where they are looking at particular school systems, and they are looking at particular teachers, and they are worried about their children's growth and learning. And it's very hard for parents sometimes to trust that school systems will actually do inclusion well, and it's very hard for them to put their children in the midst of a policy shift, right? To kind of take a risk on, on inclusion. And I think the myth is pretty strong. The children there, there are myths that children are safer in segregated environments, that they will learn better in segregated environments, and the research does not typically bear that out. Now, of course, every child might be different, but across the nation are research overwhelmingly supports inclusion. But there is definitely a a tendency for parents to want a little more protection, a little more specialization for their children, and then as parents push for specialized or segregated settings, it undercuts the disability rights movement, right? And so they end up pitted against each other. And policy makers often, and bureaucrats and teachers themselves, are looking to the parents as the voice, not to people with disabilities. So it's one of the settings that we see as the most controversial.
Pamela Block:
It's so tricky because, I mean, of course, in early childhood education and you know, before the kindergarten, before preschool parents are, are essentially involved and their voices are essential to to advocacy, right? Because, you know, there, there is as Allison says, because the contexts are so particular and so stratified, and, and we can, you know, I'm sure it, this will come up again. The, you know, the, the expertise that the parents have in their particular location is super important. But as you get into secondary school or even like junior high you know, to not include the, the children and their wishes and their voices in the process you know, becomes more and more problematic in these moments of transition when there are choices and options. You know, it's, it's super important for, for the children themselves to have both the tools and the opportunity to make choices.
Richard Scotch:
I think it also depends on where people are located. So there are some communities where the disability rights movement is very visible accepted. People know about it. And so it's a little easier for parents to see that perspective as opposed to what they might simply deduce based on their own experience or that of their child or that of others in their school or their immediate community. But that's not true across the United States. And so if you have within your network people who provide that social perspective on disability, you're much more likely to take that on yourself. But not everybody has that kind of access. And so I think, you know, in some areas it it's a little easier to make connections, although not always. I mean, sometimes people are just, just adamant that they that this is a threat to their kid or they can't take those risks. And that may also depend just on the personality of their individual child, or it may depend on what kinds of services are available in their community.
Diana Pastora Carson:
Yeah. Thank you Richard, for saying that. Absolutely. There's, so, there, there are so many variables, and you reminded me that, you know, some parents may not know about the different lenses and what the history behind kind of our culture. You know, we have a culture of parents in d in different parent-led organizations. And can you just take us back a little bit into the history of the relationship between parent understandings of disability and disability-centered understandings of the disability experience and you know, how that, how they also affect what parents are seeing as necessary for their child within the school system?
Richard Scotch:
Well some of the material I brought into the book really focused on a period before the disability rights movement was well established and, and across the United States. So there have been disability activism across American history, but really as a, as a national movement it began in the, the mid to late 1960s. And so if you look back before that parents did not have that as a, as a model, and they were kind of developing their own ideas and, and, and really inventing themselves as activists and in the late 1940s and fifties some of the physical disability groups were founded. And, and those often are the ones that were sort of began with this charity model who were inclined toward the kinds of activism that might include organizing a telethon or elevating poster children and, and really emphasizing the tragedy as they saw it of disability.
Richard Scotch:
Although these parents often were very vigorous advocates for the inclusion of their own kids but they also were trying to mobilize a nation and, and, and get people's attention. And they used what the, the tactics that were available to them. But I think as we get into the, the real rise of the disability rights movement and it's prominence within, among the various social movements in the United States some of the parent groups, some of them more quickly than others started to partner with them. And I've looked at some of the, the development of those partnerships in advocating at, at Washington DC or in state capitals and states like Pennsylvania where Allison has looked at things. And so those partnerships tend to in many cases, change the perspective of parents, although not always.
Richard Scotch:
And so I think it's a lot harder to just be unaware of or to ignore the perspective of disability advocates right now. So I don't think that that there are still many tensions and to some extent these, these center around adult children and, and parents of adults or, or adolescent children who are parents may be fearful about but to some extent also this, this, these tensions exist among parents of younger children as to whether they should be segregated or whether they should be part of the larger community. So I don't know if either of my colleagues want to comment further on this
Pamela Block:
Question. I just wanna say that like, parents were involved not just in in that period that, that Richard's talking about, like services just did not exist, and services came into being because of parent advocacy. They created services and spaces that didn't exist before and were parallel to the public education system when the public education system was closed to disabled people, largely closed. So you know, the, we are not trying to minimize the, the impact and, and the role of, of parents in creating opportunities and options for children, their children that didn't exist before.
Richard Scotch:
Another kind of source of variation is how much parent groups have aligned themselves with with medical experts and, and with professionals, because those professionals often tend to minimize the, the, the voice of parents, but particularly of, of people with disabilities. And so, in instances where there have been partnerships as parents have tried to promote more biomedical research more clinical kinds of services, that tends to often sometimes literally suppress the involvement of self advocates
Pamela Block:
Or the existence. I mean, if the focus is on prevention of disability or cure of disability, you know, that is, is very problematic and threatening to, to dis disabled activists.
Richard Scotch:
So I think disability activists tend to not always seek alliances with parents at the local level as well. So where they have reached out, they have often been more successful. But what I've seen is at the national level, in terms of policy making or at state government levels some of these alliances develop, but they don't always trickle down to what's happening within specific communities into this whole issue of segregation versus inclusion. And not all parents even now appreciate that that inclusive perspective.
Diana Pastora Carson:
Yeah. Well, I, one of you mentioned , there's a lack of trust. And I think when you, as a family member or as a parent when you've had to fight for every service and every moment of some kind of positivity related to your child's existence yeah, that trust is lost and you don't wanna let go of the control because there could be some harm coming to your loved one. So I get that. And at the same time, then you miss out on the self advocate or the disabled advocates' perspective, which is invaluable if you truly want what's best for your loved one, Right?
Richard Scotch:
But as kids grow into adults, you know, the, the, we had, we do such a bad job in the US of providing community based services that some of those fears of parents are, are, are well founded and, and, and their unwillingness to take the risks of allowing or, or encouraging their children to live independently, which means independent of them, not just independent of, of institutions can be problematic for some from these, some of these parents.
Diana Pastora Carson:
Right. Go ahead.
Pamela Block:
I was just gonna say that there's sort of also a, a another level of distrust that exists in some communities with regard to biomedical interventions for people from you know, of certain ethnic and racial histories where there's some well-founded distrust that can interfere or influence the, the trajectories that, and the choices that people make for their children that you know, that, that sort of make the situation more complicated still.
Diana Pastora Carson:
Right.
Diana Pastora Carson:
(School bell rings) Hey, there, my friend. Just a quick word with you about some resources that are available to you. First of all, if you're an educator or parent looking at disability awareness or diversity, equity, and inclusion work in your school or community, please, please, please make sure to get my free resource: The 5 Keys to Going Beyond Awareness. Before you start planning, you want to ensure that you're focused on the right topics and that you do it in the most respectful and research-based way. To get my free resource, please go to GoBeyondAwareness.com/keys. And if you aren't doing any disability awareness or DEI work in your school or community, but you like the topics shared in the podcast, I also encourage you to head to GoBeyondAwareness.com/keys so you can sign up for my emails, which often contain free links and resources related to these topics.
Diana Pastora Carson:
Again, that's GoBeyondAwareness.com/keys. Finally, I want to share that I have several free Beyond Awareness resources at my Teacher's Pay Teachers store, which is called Disability as Diversity. Also, another reminder: in the show notes, you'll find links to other resources I've created for you to take the message of disability way beyond awareness, including a thematic unit for educators for my book Ed Roberts Champion of Disability Rights. Also, a very stylish Beyond Awareness Tote bag, a beautiful journal or notebook whose cover is graced with the amazing Beyond Awareness cover artwork of autistic artist, Jack Medved, and some very cool, fashionable tops, including a Beyond Awareness hooded sweatshirt, and a raglan T-shirt. And finally, another reminder that with each episode in the show notes, I list books written by disabled authors and other resources relevant to the topics discussed. So check out the show notes for each episode as we learn and grow together in going beyond awareness. (Bell Sound, end of commercial)
Diana Pastora Carson:
Okay. Allison, you talk in the book about current similarities and differences between parent led organizations and those led by people with disabilities. Can you talk a little bit about the three points of agreement and division among the two groups?
Allison Carey:
So first I wanna acknowledge that the, the range of parent organizations and the range of disability-led organizations is significant. So when we look at disability led organizations, we're really focusing on disability rights organizations. Disability rights organizations tend to focus, first of all on social reform rather than fixing the person, rather than a medical approach. So they are looking to create accessibility, to create inclusion, to ensure opportunity to civil rights. Parents may or may not be on board with that. So some parents, parents often talk about rates, but the way that they talk about rights has much more to do with whatever a parent wants to meet the needs of their child, right? So when they're talking about rights, it might be the right to the segregated school or to the specialized school, it might be the right to healthcare. So the whole model of rights is really different.
Allison Carey:
The way that they talk about rights is different. And so when we see something like a community like the deaf community where adult deaf activists want appreciation for deafness, where deafness can be Deaf Pride, there can be an acceptance that deaf people can live really meaningful lives. But for some parents, they don't know anything about disability when their child is born. So they instantly get into a medical model because right, they're in the hospital setting, they get introduced to issues around cochlear implants, and they become focused more on addressing the deafness as a medical concern than on,
Diana Pastora Carson:
I'm sorry for interrupting. I just wanted to clarify with our listeners, even though we've gone over this before on other podcasts, could you just give a very brief definition the difference between the social model versus the medical model so that our listeners are right there with us as we're talking about this?
Allison Carey:
Absolutely. So the medical model looks at disability as an individual level defect that should be addressed either through medical intervention or sometimes through psychological or educational intervention. But basically you're trying to bring the disabled person as an individual up to some norm or even higher than the norm. The social model roots disability instead in the inaccessibility and discrimination found in the environment. So it says, here's a person who uses a wheelchair, but society isn't letting them in the door because there are steps. And so the answer isn't to get the person who uses the wheelchair to walk, the answer is to build a ramp to ensure elevators. It doesn't have to just be physical accessibility. It can be attitudes, it can be policies, right? That we want to build a society that can meaningfully include all people, right? So the social model focuses on fixing society so that all people can participate, whereas the medical model focuses on fixing the individual's what are often seen as biological deficits.
Diana Pastora Carson:
Thank you.
Allison Carey:
You're welcome. So that medical model versus social model is a big source, is one of the sources of tension. We've already discussed the issue around specialization versus inclusion. So the disability rights movement tends to be very focused on inclusion across all settings, opportunities, and parents, again, will often fight for rights, but they often also seek a level of specialization and segregation to some degree. The third and maybe the most important is the issue of power. Who has it? Parents have to fight, as you said, for everything, right? I just was talking to somebody the other day and said, Why is everything a fight? Right? , no matter it's been decades since the disability rights movement started, everything is still a fight. And so parents are often looking to enhance their authority to have a role in their child's life, to ensure that their child's services are good.
Allison Carey:
And that is very, very important. However, people with disabilities are also looking for the authority to create disability policy in a way that they see as most effective, and they are looking for their voice, and they are looking for their rights. And so when parents, for example, form their own group, rather than uniting or looking for the disability-led group, parents bring their resources and their symbolic authority to, to their own group, and they end up potentially competing with people with disabilities who are trying to get their voices out there. And it's easy to say, Oh, well, everybody should have their own voice. But in politics, parents tend to have more resources and to some degree, more symbolic authority than people with disabilities themselves who are often treated in a very paternalistic way.
Diana Pastora Carson:
Thank you. Thank you, Allison. Okay, Pamela, I have a question for you. You talk about communication access. Can you tell us why that is so important in this book and what can be so confusing to families, especially young parents, when learning about communication access? And I know that there are some controversies over methodologies in supporting student communication. What do we as families need to understand about this topic and and, and also not just as families, but as educators of young and especially non-speaking students?
Pamela Block:
Yes. I have very strong personal opinions about this because my sister is non-speaking and, and uses a variety of different communication strategies using her body using the tone of her voice, using her facial expressions, using physical humor pointing, saying yes and no. And finally she can do some either independent typing very, very minimally and, and more expanded or elaborate typing with support. And that's the one that's considered pretty contentious. But let's go back to talk about how stratification within school systems really impedes communication access so that if parents, as Allison said earlier, are, are dealing with very specific context. And if you are in an under resourced school system, then the opportunities that children might have to develop communication strategies or have access to technologies that might help them communicate are going to be limited.
Pamela Block:
Now, there are lots of ways that children can be encouraged to communicate even, you know, just a simple yes no opportunity is huge, right? And to see young adults coming out of the system who appear to be capable of at least indicating in some way, yes and no, not having a strategy in place much less, something more complex is, is very very frustrating. And, and some of that is perhaps due to not presuming competence, like just presuming incompetence. And some of it might just be chronically under-resourced school systems that are stretched thin and they're just not being enough you know, available to give students, you know, the kind of communication access that they need. But as a, a young person grows up, their ability to communicate becomes incredibly important in terms of the way that their lives might turn out, you know, on so many different levels, you know, And because if they don't have a way for them, for them to communicate even in a very rudimentary way, then their parents or service providers are gonna be communicating and making those choices for them.
Pamela Block:
So that's why I think it's, it's super important. And and I also think it's, it's very important to presume competence as well, not to just look at a diagnosis and say, this person doesn't have the capacity because that has been shown to be wrong. And, and there are these very deeply embedded ideologues in, in certain clinical fields that are you know, that have kind of set themselves up against particular kinds of, of technology despite the evidence base. And, you know, it, it's it's very strange, but I think we're in an exciting time where technology is not just available to communicate, but it's also available to measure the ability to communicate and to show how communication is possible. And you know, there are some wonderful researchers who are also parents leading the way.
Diana Pastora Carson:
Do you have any resources that you would recommend for families or educators on the subject, or maybe that you could get me later that we could put in the show notes?
Pamela Block:
There's an organization that I recommend called United for Communication Choice, I believe that's the correct name. Communication, Yeah. United for Communication Choice. And I think they're just a wealth of information about communication, access and different possibilities. And, but these kinds of things are, are, you know, struggles are going on school system to school system because you may in, in, in one area have very easy access, right? And, and then just 20 minutes away, you may find the door completely shut in your face. I mean, it's very, it's random. It's not random, no , it is it matches whatever racial ethic and, and economic disparities exist. , you know it is it enhances those disparities still further,
Diana Pastora Carson:
Right? Absolutely. And, and you'll find mindsets to be an obstacle. If you're not of the mindset that you presume competence for all people, then you're not gonna have any reason to empower that communication access, right? Because that person isn't capable in your mind.
Pamela Block:
So parents are, are essential to this process, right? Yes. Because educators are only with your, with children for a few hours, but parents, you know, parents are experts at com at, at figuring out how to communicate with their children and, and but not everybody is going to be able to have that kind of access that parents have. So, you know, the children need to be able to, to, and adults need to be able to communicate effectively without the parent having to mediate.
Diana Pastora Carson:
Right? And then when the parents know that their child can communicate, they can advocate for the services with the speech and language practitioners in their schools and communities through
Pamela Block:
Their occupational therapists as well.
Diana Pastora Carson:
Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Agreed. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much. So in the end, assuming that we all have students best interests in mind for long-term life quality, what would be helpful? This is to any of you, to express your thoughts on. What would be helpful for educators to know and commit to in order to best support students long term futures from an allyship perspective as opposed to an obstacle?
Allison Carey:
I think it's very important that educators increase their own exposure and the exposure of children and parents to adults with disabilities to see the meaningful choices that people are making, to see the valued lives that they're living. Also, to see the, the barriers and how people with disabilities address those barriers in their everyday lives. That the answer doesn't have to be to protect and bubble, but that disabled adults have created communities and solutions and strategies that parents and youth can draw on.
Richard Scotch:
Yeah, I would, I would just agree with that. And, and I think there was, someone was trying to figure out how to define disability in terms of writing a US Census question, and they did some focus groups. And what came out of the focus groups with, with adults with disabilities was that having a disability means I do something differently. And I think educators need to understand that parents and children both come up with their own creative unique ways of doing things differently. And I think it's sometimes hard for professionals to accept that kind of diversity, that kind of sort of ad hoc development of approaches to deal with challenges.
Pamela Block:
Yeah.
Richard Scotch:
So I, I think, I think accepting diversity in all of the various ways that we define it is, is really important, particularly for children with disabilities who are often very creative and, and listening to parents about how they and their children have managed to resolve or tackle different kinds of problems.
Pamela Block:
Peer support is so important, both for parents and for youth, right? Youth supporting each other, sharing strategies with each other, but this recognition that there is an expertise there, the parents have an expertise and the, and the youth and the, and the, and the adult disabled adults also have expertise, and they share those strategies with each other. And, and so I would say can educators and, and systems, educational systems provide opportunities for peer support you know, the more kind of magic is gonna happen, like good things will result. Maybe sometimes uncomfortable things because it might, you know, there it might mean pushing for systems changes, right? And change can be hard. But but it absolutely is the, the best thing for disabled people to have access to each other and learn from each other.
Diana Pastora Carson:
I have goosebumps listening to each of you share. Thank you so much that I'm sure will resonate with many of our families and educators. Thank you. So my last question is where can listeners find you and your book Allies and Obstacles? Where would you like them to go for that?
Allison Carey:
Allies and Obstacles can be found through Amazon, through Barnes & Noble.com. You won't typically find it in your local bookstore because it is a more academic book, so you'd have to go online. It's also published by Temple University Press.
Pamela Block:
So I just wanted to add that we are working on a sequel to Allies and Obstacles that it will be a few years before it comes out, but it, it will be an edited volume, capturing additional that will be, that will provide additional stories and perspectives that we're not included in the first book. So we're super excited about that.
Diana Pastora Carson:
Oh, wonderful. I can't wait.
Richard Scotch:
We've asked parents to contribute their perspectives and their own voices. Not everything will be from parents, but that should be of interest I think to your listeners.
Pamela Block:
It is a, a combination of of activists and parents writing chapters. So people are, are speaking directly about their experiences in the new book.
Diana Pastora Carson:
And I'm curious, are there voices from different multiply-marginalized communities, intentionally in your book?
Pamela Block:
Yes.
Diana Pastora Carson:
Okay, great. That's wonderful to know. Thank you so much for your valuable information, your perspectives. I'm gonna sum it up with something that I like to say. As we were talking about the disability definition. I tend to blend a little bit of my own with the ADA definition of disability as a normal and natural part of the human experience and a valuable part of diversity.
Allison Carey:
Thank you, Diana. Thank you for having us on.
Diana Pastora Carson:
Thank you for tuning into this episode of Beyond Awareness: Disability Awareness That Matters. If this was helpful to you, be sure to subscribe, rate, and review this show on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Spotify. You can also follow me, Diana, on Instagram @dianapastoracarson and on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/GoBeyondAwareness. Or you can go to my website for more information at www.DianaPastoraCarson.com. My books include Beyond Awareness: Bringing Disability into Diversity Work in K-12 Schools and Communities, as well as my children's book, Ed Roberts: Champion of Disability Rights. They can both be found on Amazon. For your free Beyond Awareness resource called the "5 Keys to Going Beyond Awareness," simply go to www.GoBeyondAwareness.com/keys. This podcast transcription and podcast guest information can be found in the show notes. Intro and outro music has been provided courtesy of Emmanuel Castro. Thank you again for joining me. Be well, be a lifelong learner, and let's be inclusive. See you next time.
