Fisher: A disabled San Jose mother fights again for right to raise childBy Patty Fisher
Mercury News
Article Launched: 12/28/2007 01:33:54 AM PST
The first time Sabreena Westphal went to court to try to keep her children, she became a celebrity.
Suffering from cerebral palsy and unable to walk or fully use her arms, she was still determined to care for her two young sons. Disabled parents and advocates rallied behind the young woman with the pixie haircut and impish smile who, at the time nearly 20 years ago, went by the name Tiffany Callo. She was the subject of a book, "A Mother's Touch: The Tiffany Callo Story." She rode in a limousine to an appearance on "Donahue."
But the book didn't come with a happy ending. Her little boys were adopted and taken far from her San Jose home.
Five years ago, she became pregnant again. And now she's back in court.
This time, Westphal, 40, is trying to prevent her 5-year-old daughter from being adopted by a couple in San Joaquin County. This time, she has the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 on her side and a political landscape that has changed substantially for disabled Americans.
Even so, her chances of winning custody appear to be no better than in 1988. In the past 20 years, disabled Americans have won the right to ride on buses and trains, to be educated in classrooms with other kids, to shop in stores and work in offices. But as Westphal's story shows, the right of the disabled to care for their own children is far from guaranteed.
Two decades later, the profound questions her story raised when she first challenged the system remain:
Weighing the enormous costs and consequences, how do you balance the rights of disabled parents with their children's right to a safe and nurturing home?
Circle of support
Millions of parents who are blind or deaf, who can't walk or who have mental illnesses manage to raise children. But a woman who cannot get out of bed or dress herself without help must have a circle of caring, competent adults to make sure her kids can grow up healthy and safe. Unfortunately, Westphal has never been able to create or sustain such a circle. And that's why the court will almost certainly turn the girl - whom the Mercury News is not naming to protect her privacy - over to the couple who have raised her for the past three years, not the mother she has seen only occasionally.
Westphal still clings to the dream of having her daughter nearby, of holding her and watching her grow up. She lives in a small apartment on Monterey Highway in South San Jose with the girl's father, Brian Wince. She can't get out of bed by herself to unlock the door, so if she's alone, visitors have to climb in the window.
She spends her days watching TV, talking on the phone and fighting the Santa Clara County Social Services Agency, the San Joaquin County court, the lawyers, the Medi-Cal bureaucracy, the relatives who she feels betrayed her.
"The day she was born, I knew they would come after her," she says. "And they did."
The first time we met, Westphal explained that she wasn't Tiffany Callo anymore. She had traded her father's last name for her grandfather's name, and had given herself a new first name as well. But her efforts to start a new life after the limelight faded never amounted to much. She had a couple of unfortunate relationships. Then she was hit by a car in her motorized wheelchair. The accident broke her leg and destroyed the chair. She's still trying to get a replacement chair, and without one, she's lost her independence.
About 10 years ago, the county hired Wince as her caregiver. A friendship and romance blossomed between them, and she became pregnant.
"I was happy about it," said Wince, 47. "I was ready."
They arranged for special equipment to make it easier for Westphal to care for the baby and proudly brought her home from Stanford Hospital. But shortly after that, Wince became seriously ill with lupus and has been in the hospital off and on ever since. Westphal relied on neighbors to care for the baby. By the time Wince came home, the Santa Clara County Social Services Agency had been notified that there were questions about how well the child was being cared for. So the girl was placed in a foster home, then sent to live with Westphal's step-grandmother in the Central Valley town of Escalon.
And Westphal, who had hoped to get it right this time, was again fighting for her child.
Two sons
Her first child, David, was born in 1987. Another son, Jesse, was born the following year. In those days, she was a smart-mouthed teenager who survived on street smarts and sheer will. Her mother had walked out on her when she was a baby, and she was raised by her father and grandmother. Struggling with her disability, which she's had from birth, she dropped out of high school, lived in foster homes and got into drugs and alcohol.
But she'd kicked the drugs by the time she had her two sons. She got a job selling light bulbs over the phone. She was determined to be a good mother. She adored babies.
"That's all I ever wanted - to be a mom," she said.
County social workers didn't think she could handle parenthood. After all, the boys' father was in a wheelchair, too. How could the couple care for one baby, much less two?
More than 8 million American families include at least one parent who is disabled. Before the Americans with Disabilities Act passed in 1990, disabled parents were automatically considered unfit. So when Westphal went to court (under the name Tiffany Callo), it was a landmark case.
"Certainly, Tiffany was one of the first disabled parents to get media attention," said Megan Kirshbaum, founder of Through the Looking Glass, a support agency for disabled parents in Berkeley. Kirshbaum provided Westphal with special equipment to help her care for the babies and testified for her at her 1988 trial, but Westphal was afraid she would lose the case and agreed to give up her parental rights before the trial ended.
Retired Superior Court Judge Leonard Edwards, who presided at the trial, insisted during a recent interview that disabilities weren't the only factors involved.
"I've placed a child with a foster mother who was in a wheelchair," he said. "Wheelchairs mean nothing to me."
He recalls allegations of abuse against the boys' father, whom Westphal split from years ago. And he was concerned that the couple would need round-the-clock attendants to care for the boys. The county couldn't be expected to pay for that, he said.
"It would have been hard to do it differently."
Boys separated
Westphal had hoped that by settling the case, she would get to see her boys regularly. But they were adopted by different families. Today, one lives in Florida, the other in Washington state.
In the years that followed, courts finally acknowledged that disabled parents have rights. The state now has a legal obligation to provide services that would prevent the removal of a child.
Still, Edwards said, the needs of the child come first. "We have to examine the system that surrounds the family, and make sure the kid is taken care of."
In this case, the county gave Westphal and Wince a list of conditions they needed to fulfill to get their child out of foster care. Each demand took them months to fulfill - recarpeting the apartment, for example, and getting child-proof locks.
"I tried to do everything the county said I needed to," she said. "But it was never enough. Things just weren't coming together."
America Westphal, Sabreena's step-grandmother in Escalon, cared for the little girl for two years. Eventually, she decided Sabreena would never get custody. The girl needed a permanent home. So in 2004, she helped a couple she says she met at church begin adoption proceedings.
Sabreena had hoped her daughter would live in San Jose - even if she had to be in a foster home. So she was furious with her step-grandmother.
"She wants to keep the baby in her grippy little paws where she can watch this little girl grow up and split her off from her parents," she said.
Responded America Westphal, "I'm sorry for Sabreena. But it seemed the best thing I could do. They are a wonderful couple, and this child deserves to have a family."
Few resources
Since then, Wince and Westphal have been fighting for their daughter long-distance. The court case is in Stockton - a long way for a couple with no car and very little money. They live on her monthly SSI check of about $650 and his $1,600 caregiver salary from the county. Wince's lupus requires him to get three dialysis treatments a week, so they sometimes miss court appointments. They complain that their lawyers haven't kept them informed and that the couple adopting the girl has failed to bring her to San Jose for court-ordered visits.
"We just want to see her," Westphal said. "Is that too much to ask?"
Attorneys for Westphal, Wince and the couple adopting the girl failed to return my repeated calls. The court records have been sealed. The Santa Clara County Social Services Agency can't discuss the case because of confidentiality rules.
Clearly, Westphal and Wince needed more help to raise their child. But how much help are they entitled to? Should the county have paid for a full-time attendant for the girl? Or given the enormous obstacles for Westphal to become a successful parent, did the county do the right thing for her daughter?
I don't pretend to have the answers to this sad and complicated case. But I understand Westphal's heartbreak. She had three chances to prove she could handle motherhood, and each time the hurdles were just too high.
When I visited recently, Westphal and Wince had hung a tiny stocking on the wall near their Christmas tree in hopes of their daughter's homecoming. Westphal talked about fixing up the spare bedroom for the child she calls "my sweet little gymnast-ballerina-jazz singer."
It's a lovely dream. And she's not about to give it up.
Contact Patty Fisher at pfisher@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5852.
http://www.mercurynews.com/pattyfisher/ci_7827393?nclick_check=1
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