When Disability Services Disappear: What Covid-19 Taught us about Caregiving Through Crisis

What happens when children with disabilities age out of the systems meant to support them? And what can families do to ensure their futures are protected? In this episode, anthropologists and authors Faye Ginsburg and Rayna Rapp explore the often-overlooked experiences of disabled caregivers and families navigating complex systems during and beyond the pandemic. We talk about how policy falls short, what protections families should expect, and the creative forms of resilience and care that disabled communities have built in the face of systemic neglect.

This conversation offers both a critical lens and a hopeful one—rooted in the power of community, advocacy, and the enduring brilliance of disabled lives.

To read "How to Be Disabled in a Pandedmic” online, please click here.

Rayna Rapp is Professor Emerita in the Department of Anthropology at New York University, and the author of Testing Women, Testing the Fetus: The Social Impact of Amniocentesis in America, coauthor of Disability Worlds, and co-editor of How to be Disabled in a Pandemic (2025), along with other award-winning books.

Faye Ginsburg is David Kriser Professor of Anthropology at New York University. She is cofounder of the NYU Center for Disability Studies and the Center for Media, Culture & History.  She is author of Contested Lives: The Abortion Debate in an American Community, coauthor of Disability Worlds (2024) and co-editor of How to be Disabled in a Pandemic (2025), along with other award-winning books.