Back in episode 8 of the podcast, I talked with Vilissa Thompson, LMSW, founder of Ramp Your Voice!, and all-around amazing person. As I go back through the catalog, I've been thinking about that conversation again, and wanted to write something connected to some takeaways from our talk. I encourage people to check out the full episode because there’s nothing like hearing what Vilissa has to say directly from her.
Serious harm has been — and is being — done to disabled people by social workers
Vilissa covered so much in our talk. One huge point she made is something the social work profession and related professions really need to think about: the disabled community, broadly, does not have a favorable opinion of social workers. This may seem obvious to some, less obvious to others. Real harm has been done to people in this community at the hands of our profession.
An important example of this that Vilissa talked about is how social workers have removed disabled parents' custody rights with no allegations of abuse, no reports, no suspicion of harm. Simply because the parent is disabled.
Take a minute to really think about that. The disability itself was treated as the risk.
This isn't an isolated pattern. Dr. Victoria Copeland, along with Brianna Harvey, coined the term family policing system to replace "child welfare system," because surveillance and control describe what the system actually does more accurately than protection does. Victoria talked about the need to abolish the family policing system, as a guest on this podcast, alongside fellow family policing abolitionist Joyce McMillan. Legal scholar Robyn Powell's research found that parents in 42 states and D.C. remain legally at risk of having their parental rights terminated because they're disabled, not because of anything that happened to their child. Alan Dettlaff, a researcher and leading voice in the family policing abolition movement, has pointed out that nationally, most removals are for neglect rather than abuse, and neglect findings are frequently a proxy for poverty. Research also shows disabled parents who are also Black, Brown, or poor face even higher rates of investigation and removal.
Now, of course, people will say, “But it’s not all social workers,” or “But those aren’t real social workers.” And that’s true, but is it really the point?
Ableism in family policing is about a system that has long treated disability itself, especially layered with race and poverty, as evidence of unfitness. Who has the ability to define what is considered a “fit” parent, and then act on that definition, comes from a position of power. And we know that what is considered “normal” is defined by a white supremacist, ableist, classist, patriarchal, heterosexist worldview.
What language are we still using, and why does it matter?
Vilissa also brought up the issue of language. Our profession has largely taught person-first language: a person with a disability. That language actually originated from disabled self-advocates themselves, growing out of the People First movement in the 1970s, and was meant to center a person's humanity rather than reduce them to a diagnosis.
Since then, disability rights advocacy has continued to evolve, and many in the disabled community now prefer identity-first language: a disabled person, a disabled woman, a Black disabled woman. Vilissa pointed to this shift when we spoke. After the episode was published, I heard from social work colleagues who told me they'd always taught person-first language and were genuinely surprised to hear about identity-first language. They shared that they honestly thought they were speaking in a way that was respectful and honoring of disabled folks. And honestly, that’s what I was taught too, and how I had approached speaking about disability. Professional fields have often been slower to catch up to how communities evolve.
At the same time, like so many things, this issue of language isn't a settled either-or. Not all disabled people prefer identity-first language. Some do, some don't. The point isn't that one is correct and one is wrong. It's that practitioners need to actually ask the people they work with what they prefer, rather than defaulting to whatever we were taught. We shouldn’t rely on clients to teach us, but we should check in with them on how they prefer to be called. While I’m on this point, this also applies to names and pronunciation. Is it that hard to ask someone how to pronounce their name? I say this as someone who has my name incorrectly pronounced multiple times a day.
Vilissa’s hashtag #DisabilityTooWhite
Vilissa also shared about creating the hashtag #DisabilityTooWhite after a friend shared an article about disabled women and beauty. Every face, every voice in it, was white.
She'd seen the pattern before. Body autonomy. Body positivity. Sexuality. Conversations about disability overwhelmingly represented through white voices. Lack of representation. Which also means lack of understanding, lack of community, lack of belonging. There’s a whole lot being missed when whiteness is fully in effect.
The hashtag went viral within 24 hours. It gave disabled people of color the space to finally name something they'd been saying for years: who gets to represent disability, and whose stories the media, and the disabled community itself, consider worth telling.
Out of that same frustration, Vilissa built the Black Disabled Woman Syllabus, a resource she created after being tired of explaining her own existence to people unwilling to do the reading themselves.
Racism, ableism, and lack of belonging
Vilissa also talked about how she and other Black disabled advocates often don't feel fully welcome in the disabled community, and don't feel fully welcome in the Black community either. Ableism shows up inside communities that are otherwise fighting for liberation. Racism shows up inside communities built around disability rights.
She named the Black church's teaching that illness or disability is something to be healed, cured, prayed away. She named the history of how enslaved Black people who couldn't produce labor were treated as without value. Similar to deciding who is a “fit” parent, these issues are part of the same pattern of deciding whose full humanity gets recognized.
Vilissa isn't asking either community to abandon itself. She's asking both to look honestly at where they've caused harm.
So where does that leave us?
I think about my own MSW program, and I know disability rights or advocacy barely came up. And I actually did a clinical track specializing in “Health, Mental Health, and Disability.” Vilissa said the same about her program. Both of us haven’t been in school for a little while, but I’ve seen plenty of syllabi and heard from enough people to know this is a continued problem. If our education leaves this big a gap, we're not fully equipped to serve one of the largest populations we work with.
We don’t need to — and we’re not going to — do this perfectly. But we have to learn what we weren't taught. And actually listen when the people we serve tell us what they need, instead of assuming we already know. In addition to collaboration and culturally affirming practice, we can engage in action like advocacy and education.
Some ways to get involved with advocacy is to look at some of the work already being done, get involved, and expand it. In 2002 and 2003, Idaho became the first state to pass comprehensive legislation protecting disabled parents from exactly the kind of removal Vilissa described, disability alone treated as evidence of unfitness. Twenty-two states still don't have those protections. The National Research Center for Parents with Disabilities tracks state legislation and is a place to start.Additionally, engaging in anti-oppressive practice means asking why a family was investigated in the first place, and whether race, disability, or poverty had anything to do with that decision, pushing back, as well as engaging in what Joyce McMillan has called mandated supporting, rather than reporting.
What would it look like for you to examine the language, the assumptions, and the gaps in your own practice when it comes to disability?
Serious harm has been — and is being — done to disabled people by social workers
Vilissa covered so much in our talk. One huge point she made is something the social work profession and related professions really need to think about: the disabled community, broadly, does not have a favorable opinion of social workers. This may seem obvious to some, less obvious to others. Real harm has been done to people in this community at the hands of our profession.
An important example of this that Vilissa talked about is how social workers have removed disabled parents' custody rights with no allegations of abuse, no reports, no suspicion of harm. Simply because the parent is disabled.
Take a minute to really think about that. The disability itself was treated as the risk.
This isn't an isolated pattern. Dr. Victoria Copeland, along with Brianna Harvey, coined the term family policing system to replace "child welfare system," because surveillance and control describe what the system actually does more accurately than protection does. Victoria talked about the need to abolish the family policing system, as a guest on this podcast, alongside fellow family policing abolitionist Joyce McMillan. Legal scholar Robyn Powell's research found that parents in 42 states and D.C. remain legally at risk of having their parental rights terminated because they're disabled, not because of anything that happened to their child. Alan Dettlaff, a researcher and leading voice in the family policing abolition movement, has pointed out that nationally, most removals are for neglect rather than abuse, and neglect findings are frequently a proxy for poverty. Research also shows disabled parents who are also Black, Brown, or poor face even higher rates of investigation and removal.
Now, of course, people will say, “But it’s not all social workers,” or “But those aren’t real social workers.” And that’s true, but is it really the point?
Ableism in family policing is about a system that has long treated disability itself, especially layered with race and poverty, as evidence of unfitness. Who has the ability to define what is considered a “fit” parent, and then act on that definition, comes from a position of power. And we know that what is considered “normal” is defined by a white supremacist, ableist, classist, patriarchal, heterosexist worldview.
What language are we still using, and why does it matter?
Vilissa also brought up the issue of language. Our profession has largely taught person-first language: a person with a disability. That language actually originated from disabled self-advocates themselves, growing out of the People First movement in the 1970s, and was meant to center a person's humanity rather than reduce them to a diagnosis.
Since then, disability rights advocacy has continued to evolve, and many in the disabled community now prefer identity-first language: a disabled person, a disabled woman, a Black disabled woman. Vilissa pointed to this shift when we spoke. After the episode was published, I heard from social work colleagues who told me they'd always taught person-first language and were genuinely surprised to hear about identity-first language. They shared that they honestly thought they were speaking in a way that was respectful and honoring of disabled folks. And honestly, that’s what I was taught too, and how I had approached speaking about disability. Professional fields have often been slower to catch up to how communities evolve.
At the same time, like so many things, this issue of language isn't a settled either-or. Not all disabled people prefer identity-first language. Some do, some don't. The point isn't that one is correct and one is wrong. It's that practitioners need to actually ask the people they work with what they prefer, rather than defaulting to whatever we were taught. We shouldn’t rely on clients to teach us, but we should check in with them on how they prefer to be called. While I’m on this point, this also applies to names and pronunciation. Is it that hard to ask someone how to pronounce their name? I say this as someone who has my name incorrectly pronounced multiple times a day.
Vilissa’s hashtag #DisabilityTooWhite
Vilissa also shared about creating the hashtag #DisabilityTooWhite after a friend shared an article about disabled women and beauty. Every face, every voice in it, was white.
She'd seen the pattern before. Body autonomy. Body positivity. Sexuality. Conversations about disability overwhelmingly represented through white voices. Lack of representation. Which also means lack of understanding, lack of community, lack of belonging. There’s a whole lot being missed when whiteness is fully in effect.
The hashtag went viral within 24 hours. It gave disabled people of color the space to finally name something they'd been saying for years: who gets to represent disability, and whose stories the media, and the disabled community itself, consider worth telling.
Out of that same frustration, Vilissa built the Black Disabled Woman Syllabus, a resource she created after being tired of explaining her own existence to people unwilling to do the reading themselves.
Racism, ableism, and lack of belonging
Vilissa also talked about how she and other Black disabled advocates often don't feel fully welcome in the disabled community, and don't feel fully welcome in the Black community either. Ableism shows up inside communities that are otherwise fighting for liberation. Racism shows up inside communities built around disability rights.
She named the Black church's teaching that illness or disability is something to be healed, cured, prayed away. She named the history of how enslaved Black people who couldn't produce labor were treated as without value. Similar to deciding who is a “fit” parent, these issues are part of the same pattern of deciding whose full humanity gets recognized.
Vilissa isn't asking either community to abandon itself. She's asking both to look honestly at where they've caused harm.
So where does that leave us?
I think about my own MSW program, and I know disability rights or advocacy barely came up. And I actually did a clinical track specializing in “Health, Mental Health, and Disability.” Vilissa said the same about her program. Both of us haven’t been in school for a little while, but I’ve seen plenty of syllabi and heard from enough people to know this is a continued problem. If our education leaves this big a gap, we're not fully equipped to serve one of the largest populations we work with.
We don’t need to — and we’re not going to — do this perfectly. But we have to learn what we weren't taught. And actually listen when the people we serve tell us what they need, instead of assuming we already know. In addition to collaboration and culturally affirming practice, we can engage in action like advocacy and education.
Some ways to get involved with advocacy is to look at some of the work already being done, get involved, and expand it. In 2002 and 2003, Idaho became the first state to pass comprehensive legislation protecting disabled parents from exactly the kind of removal Vilissa described, disability alone treated as evidence of unfitness. Twenty-two states still don't have those protections. The National Research Center for Parents with Disabilities tracks state legislation and is a place to start.Additionally, engaging in anti-oppressive practice means asking why a family was investigated in the first place, and whether race, disability, or poverty had anything to do with that decision, pushing back, as well as engaging in what Joyce McMillan has called mandated supporting, rather than reporting.
What would it look like for you to examine the language, the assumptions, and the gaps in your own practice when it comes to disability?
What are your thoughts/reflections? Join the community and engage in our discussions.
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