The [UK] Guardian presents a special package of news and commentary linked to the upcoming event Beyond Boundaries Live 2009, scheduled for July 4 and 5 in Hampshire. Inspired by a reality TV show featuring people with disabilities, the event is billed as “the UK’s largest lifestyle event for people with disabilities.”

Featured activities include beep baseball, wheelchair customization, adapted SCUBA diving, a fashion show, functional electrical stimulation, adapted skiing, and more.

Among the Guardian’s stories:

The quest for equality By Ben Furner. Significant steps have been made in the past 15 years to create a genuine state of equality in which disabled people can thrive. But this is no time to be complacent.

The future: in whose hands? By Ian Cook. One in five UK adults has a disability — meaning the disabled voice is becoming ever more varied. But are policymakers listening?

A sporting chance By Mark Gould. Too many disabled people are denied the chance to keep fit by poor facilities and a lack of support from their peers. How can this be remedied?

Individual thinking By Emma Bowler. Independent care for disabled people has evolved as far as it can in its current guise. But are providers ready to take the next step?

Willing and able By Emma Bowler. The disabled population’s desire to work is not matched by the number of jobs available. What is being done to redress the balance?

From the Miami Herald (with video):

Miami’s No Barriers Festival showcases technology from around the world that promises to transform the lives of people with disabilities, allowing them to be more independent.

Among the innovations featured at the conference this weekend are an artificial sight generator; a GPS system for those who are blind; and ”smart” prosthetic limbs that read and react to brain signals like real nerve endings.

See also:

‘Technical advances help erase stigma of prosthetics‘ - Miami Herald

An interview with Paralympic track star, model, and speaker Aimee Mullins, keynote speaker for the No Barriers Festival’s opening night:

”It’s a funny thing when you cross the line from being cute to people to almost being a threat,” Mullins says, chuckling. “People once viewed the physically disabled as cute, and to be pitied. So yes, the technology has changed attitudes. I think we’re at the beginning of the end of that period when people who are missing natural limbs or have some other physical issue are automatically considered disabled. I’m certainly seeing less of that kind of attitude.”

Aimee Mullins and her 12 pairs of legs – TED

Earlier post here.

From the [UK] Independent:

Some fifty years after the world’s worst drug disaster, Thalidomide survivors like Nick Dobrik (left) are still fighting for justice, seeking adequate compensation to help them live with disabilities caused by a drug that had not been fully tested before it was put on the market.

The over-the-counter medication was used by pregnant women for morning sickness in the late 1950s and early 1960s, resulting in the births of about 10,000 people worldwide with deformities like foreshortened and twisted limbs.

A Thalidomide trust was set up by the drug’s manufacturer in 1973, but Dobrik says it is not adequate to address the needs and expenses of people as they age.

“”It is ridiculous that 50 years after the events we are still fighting for justice,” Dobrik said. “… The least you can do for the Thalidomiders is allow them some independent life. They are very few in number but their needs are very great.”

Related posts here.

(Photo from the Independent)

From the National Council on Disability:

Even after years of laws, regulations and policies designed to enhance federal hiring of people with disabilities, the number of such employees in the federal workforce is less than one percent and has been steadily shrinking, according to a report released this week by the National Council on Disability.

As of 2007, only 0.92 percent of federal workers are classified as having disabilities, researchers found. The total number of federal workers with disabilities was counted as 23,993 in fiscal 2007, a reduction of 14.42 percent since fiscal 1998.

The report also found:

• Workers with disabilities leave the federal government at nearly twice the rate that they are hired;
• Only 15.8 percent of agencies with 1,000 or more employees have established a numerical goal for improving employment of people with disabilities, even though those goals are required; and
• Government managers with disabilities are extremely scarce, ranging from 0.43 percent to 0.49 percent of the management workforce, depending on job classification.

The nine conditions targeted for coverage in the report are: “deafness, blindness, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, convulsive disorders, mental retardation, mental illness, and distortion of limb and/or spine.”

Earlier posts here and here.

From the Yakima [WA] Herald-Republic:

More than 50 people, including many with disabilities, protested last weekend against institutionalized care in the state of Washington. They called for the closure of the Yakima Valley School.

As dozens of older men and women with mental and physical disabilities yelled in unison about “freedom” from institutions, some organizers admitted they hesitated to go through with the event in recent days.

“We’ve heard a lot about whether we’re exploiting people … Our agency has no financial interest in this,” said Von Elison, executive director of Central Washington Disabilities Resources in Ellensburg. “It was the people with disabilities that said, ‘We want to do this.’”

State officials are divided on the fate of the institution. Gov. Chris Gregoire’s proposed budget calls for closing it. The proposed Senate version of the budget takes the same position, but the House version would keep it open.

Supporters of the school, backed by the state employees’ union, are making an economic argument to maintain the institution. They say the daily cost of $508 per resident could be reduced substantially by increasing the number of residents and not adding staff.

The institution employs 275 workers, most of whom are represented by the state employees’ union. It houses 87 residents.

From AP/Seattle Times, Chicago Tribune, Atlanta Journal-Constitution,

A suburban Chicago man with disabilities, whose February 26 assisted suicide plans were put on hold after the Final Exit Network arrests last month, says he has found a new reason to live: defending the right-to-die movement.

Kurt Perry, 26, is diagnosed with Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT), described as a painful inherited neurological disorder that weakens his limbs and breathing. The Charcot-Marie-Tooth Association says the condition usually isn’t life-threatening.

In an interview, Final Exit founder Ted Goodwin defended his group’s right to hasten the deaths of people who are chronically ill, as well as those who are terminally ill.

Disability rights advocate Stephen Drake, of the group Not Dead Yet, countered that assisted suicide sends the message that certain people are expendable. “What you’ve done is you’re saying that group of people, their lives have less value,” Drake said.

Earlier post here.

(Chicago Tribune photo)

From the [Nashville] Tennessean:

The metropolitan Nashville public school district is working to include more students with disabilities in typical classrooms. The move follows a state mandate, prompted by lagging special education scores and a scathing report by a local special education task force last fall that said students with disabilities were unnecessarily segregated.

Of its 8,200 students in special education, the district reported that 48 percent this year will spend the bulk of their day in regular classrooms, up from 36 percent last year. The state average is 54 percent. Federal law requires that students with disabilities be educated in the least restrictive environment.

Dan Reschly, professor of education and psychology of special education at Vanderbilt University, called Metro’s improvements dramatic and said there is little research that supports segregation as an effective model for educating special-needs students.

(Photo from Tennessean. Leisa Hammett, left, has had difficulties getting daughter Grace Goad into general education classes. Grace has autism.)