Here's How An AI Tool May Flag Parents with Disabilities: AP News

[appalachiablue]

(Photo: Lauren Hackney feeds her daughter during a supervised home visit. Lauren & her husband wonder if their daughter’s own disability may have been misunderstood in the child welfare system. The girl was recently diagnosed with a disorder that can make it challenging for her to process her sense of taste, which they now believe likely contributed to her eating issues all along).
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- 'Here's how an AI tool may flag parents with disabilities,' AP News, March 15, 2023. - Ed.

PITTSBURGH (AP) — For the 2 weeks that the Hackneys’ baby girl lay in a Pittsburgh hospital bed weak from dehydration, her parents rarely left her side, sometimes sleeping on the fold-out sofa in the room. They stayed with their daughter around the clock when she was moved to a rehab center to regain her strength. Finally, the 8-month-old stopped batting away her bottles and started putting on weight again. “She was doing well and we started to ask when can she go home,” Lauren Hackney said. “And then from that moment on, at the time, they completely stonewalled us and never said anything.” The couple was stunned when child welfare officials showed up, told them they were negligent & took their daughter away. “They had custody papers & they took her right there and then,” Lauren Hackney recalled. “And we started crying.”

(Photo: At 7 months old, Andrew & his wife, Lauren, had difficulty feeding their daughter & brought her to the children's hospital in Pgh. They believe the staff alerted the Dept. of Human Services because the baby was severely dehydrated & malnourished, which resulted in removing the young child from their custody. The Hackneys & their lawyer believe the county Family Screening artificial intelligence tool may have flagged the couple as dangerous because of their disabilities). More than a year later, their daughter, now 2, remains in foster care. The Hackneys, who have developmental disabilities, are struggling to understand how taking their daughter to the hospital when she refused to eat could be seen as so neglectful that she’d need to be taken from her home.

They wonder if an artificial intelligence tool that the Allegheny Co. Dept. of Human Services uses to predict which children could be at risk of harm singled them out because of their disabilities.

The U.S. Justice Department is asking the same question. The agency is investigating the county’s child welfare system to determine whether its use of the influential algorithm discriminates against people with disabilities or other protected groups, The AP has learned. Later this month, federal civil rights attorneys will interview the Hackneys and Andrew Hackney’s mother, the grandmother said. Lauren Hackney has attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder that affects her memory, and her husband, Andrew, has a comprehension disorder & nerve damage from a stroke suffered in his 20s. Their baby girl was just 7 months old when she began refusing to drink her bottles. Facing a nationwide shortage of formula, they traveled from Pa. to WVa. looking for some and were forced to change brands. The baby didn’t seem to like it.

.. Before algorithms were in use, the child welfare system had long distrusted parents with disabilities. Into the 1970s, they were regularly sterilized and institutionalized. A landmark federal report in 2012 noted parents with psychiatric or intellectual disabilities lost custody of their children as much as 80% of the time. Across the U.S., it’s extremely rare for any child welfare agencies to require disabilities training for social workers. The result: Parents with disabilities are often judged by a system that doesn’t understand how to assess their capacity as caregivers. The Hackneys experienced this firsthand. When a social worker asked Andrew how often he fed the baby, he answered literally: 2 times a day. The worker seemed appalled, he said, and scolded him, saying babies must eat more frequently. He struggled to explain that the girl’s mother, grandmother and aunt also took turns feeding her each day. - Forever Flagged...https://apnews.com/article/child-protective-services-algorithms-artificial-intelligence-disability-02469a9ad3ed3e9a31ddae68838bc76e

[reymega life]

1. see this is evil

talk about child separation

[appalachiablue]

6. Absolutely, evil and abusive. See # 5. Thanks for commenting.

[dalton99a]

2. Kick

[reymega life]

3. this is child separation btw

just claim their refugees and then there's amnesty international and the United Nations on our backs.

[LiberalFighter]

4. It seems some child welfare workers should lose custody of their children.

[appalachiablue]

5. Yes and more. The system needs an overhaul, as in more training for social workers,

fair treatment of people with disabilities and in depth revision or dismissal of the stats and nos. based algorithm program. That's a tall order esp. as the country's social welfare system is being dismantled.

The separation and stress that the parents have endured is appalling and inexcusable. As well, they are running out of money as the article states. I sincerely hope that justice is served in their case and they are compensated for the gross incompetence, disrespect and agony they've experienced for a year or more.

The story made me think of an active, sharp couple I knew from working previously in the disability field. The man was an exec. at a major, national level advocacy organization and the woman served as a peer counselor where I worked. Both were well educated professionals and legally blind. The two children they were raising were bright, healthy and well adjusted. I know that the couple would have been all over this case, legally. The abusive treatment of the disabled in the US and elsewhere which has a long dark history must be countered. Progress is the way forward.