Tina Obanion is a mom of a very special six year old boy who recently faced felony assault charges resulting from an incident where the boy was physically restrained by two adults at his school. He allegedly bit one of these adults during that incident. However, the boy suffered injuries from multiple restraint incidents and the school has failed this child in numerous other ways as well.
Thanks to a great many people, who wrote, called, faxed and spoke to the court’s juvenile officer as friends of the court, the boy is no longer facing those felony assault charges; however, there is still work to be done.
Readers may remember this story as it was previously reported here. Following the reports, a self-labeled lay person advocate stepped forward and offered to help Tina by filing a due process as well as a cease and desist order. Tina, who had never been through this process before, was grateful for the offer of help although unaware that in her state, a lay person advocate cannot file such pleadings as a “representative” and had to have the case dropped. This required the services of an attorney.
Lawrence Altman, an attorney in the St. Louis, Missouri area is now representing Tina in this process. He needs to be paid to cover costs of filing, depositions, and expert witnesses. He is hoping to file this as a federal case.
Tina does not have the financial means to pay for these services. She is a single mom of three children, two of whom have special needs. Her six year-old has autism and the other son has medical problems. What makes this more challenging is that she has to pay for daycare since her six year old cannot attend school because of the due process and cease and desist order that was previously filed on her behalf by Mr. Robinson.
Mr. Altman has said about this case, “The only thing that I can say about [this boy’s] case is that the issue of restraint is now before the United States Congress. A bi-partisan bill has been sent out of Committee that would put many limits on restraint and seclusion in the public schools. If the bill in its present form were to pass, then cases such as [his] may not have occurred.”
He said further, “Regarding Michael Robinson, I am concerned that he is attempting to practice law without a license. This can be dangerous especially to those people he “represents”. I would hope that your readers would think twice before having any non-lawyer file legal papers on their behalf.”
As reported previously, the case law surrounding whether or not lay advocates can indeed legally file pleadings on behalf of a parent in administrative cases varies from state to state.
How you can help:
A fund has been set up via this website where donations are given to Tricia Kenney’s PayPal account. She then takes the payments from that donation account and hands them over to the attorney in this matter, Mr. Altman, who has a fund account to use on behalf of his clients. Tricia Kenney is an advocate in the autism community and is doing this as an individual. She is also the Advocacy Coordinator for Autism Women’s Network and its Missouri Director.
If you cannot donate financially, there are other ways to help. Please pass along this article or the donation page to your friends, family or other interested parties who may also be able to donate.
Or you can leave encouraging remarks on her Facebook page. She does not have access to the internet at home (she does not have cable TV either) so her response time may be delayed. Her sister helps run the Facebook page as well. She has cut back on all extraneous expenses just to afford the daycare so that she can work and hope to pay bills.
If there are other ways you can help, please make suggestions in the comments below or on her Facebook page. Thank you.
[Edit: 4/13/10: Please visit the blog site set up for donations. There is the AVON sales site that benefits Tina, the rummage sale information as well as a raffle of an art piece by autistic savant, EquiisSavant. There is also contact information for anyone requesting information about the donations, amounts and so on. Thank you!]
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Comments
Nice work Heather. I really feel for this mother and her son. This should never have happened. I hope that anyone with a heart is willing to help this young mother and her boy.
Avon Event for Tina - 10% goes to her attorney fund
tinyurl.com/yd7dslk
How about a chili dinner, a garage sale, a raffle, etc. You wouldn't have to be in the same city as Tina. Just do it in your local town and forward the funds. I think that it would be great to do for all families that are having these issues. Have a fund set up just for these types of need.
@Amy, thanks for posting the link to the Avon drive! I'll put it into the body of the article.
@Sherri, thanks! When I have the information together from Tricia, I'll post it into the article. They are going to do a raffle.
I think that's an excellent idea too that people can host local events and then forward the money raised to the blog's paypal widget.
Also, having a national organization that can give out grants for legal fees for cases such as these would be awesome. I had hoped that there had been one long before now but, unfortunately, it appears that those organizations, like Autism Speaks, is more about awareness and less about action.
Don't get me wrong... I'm glad that there is awareness. But now that awareness is raised, what do we DO about it? This type of organization, if possible, would do so much good!
www.specialMUSE.com
You can list your needs on our site for FREE, and I hope find other resources that you need to help you. I have two children with special needs, and the action of people who don't understand needs to be lawfully dealt with when it leads to these results.
I am holding a rummage sale at the Lamar City Wide, Lamar Mo, April 24th. All proceeds will be donated to Tina and Dallas! Any and all donations are greatly appreciated!
Hi,
I keep asking how much has been collected. I've donated twice, and was just wondering?
Carol, please email me privately at kristiyokley@yahoo.com - I am Tina Obanions Sister and I can get you in touch with Tina,, the last we knew there had only been two donations. She is still about 450.00 in need.
Carole,
When you donated the first time, there did not appear in the account the money you said was donated. At that time, only the initial $5 (given by another person) was showing as given. I hadn't heard of a second donation until this comment.
Because the "chip-in" widget is no longer supported, we are unable to show on the website how much has been raised in an ongoing manner. I will ask the website's administrator to post an updated amount any time we receive donations, or at least once a week, whichever is manageable for him.
Last accounting I had was the account had $10. But there may have been more donations since then, obviously. Tricia Kenny is the one who takes the paypal donations to the attorney, and you can contact her or Kristy at the email she provided here in the comments for a more recent update on the accounting.
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