Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 9, 1994 TAG: 9407110193
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By ROBERT FREIS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Long
Partly that's from the effort of feeding long boards into an industrial sanding machine.
Altizer also has a lot on his mind. Chances are he and nine other employees will be changing jobs soon, leaving the New River Valley Workshop behind.
"All I can tell you, I like my job. I like it here," he said.
Across the large, noisy room other disabled men and women join non-handicapped employees in a variety of tasks: parts assembly, woodworking, packaging and shipping. The workshop teems with people and activity, as any busy factory does.
Although word is out that 10 of the workshop's 75 mentally disabled employees will be leaving by the end of the month, a few of those affected won't understand the change until their workday routine is disrupted.
Diane Sutphin, a workshop employee for 17 years, ("The happiest of her life," says her brother, Roger) was bewildered when a worker told her that soon she would be leaving. The next morning, instead of going to work at the workshop, she was found wandering the streets of Radford.
Others do grasp that they'll be leaving friends and co-workers. "I want to stay," Altizer says.
It's difficult to find anyone who feels comfortable about the dispute that occurred when the local Community Service Board announced plans to reduce its annual contract with the workshop. The contract paid for the 10 to attend the workshop; without it, they'll be laid off unless someone finds another means to pay the fee, which amounts to about $7,000 each annually.
Since the announcement, Bob Huff, the workshop's executive director, says clients have been calling to ask if the workshop is going out of business.
About 1,600 citizens recently signed a petition protesting the Community Service Board's move. Members of the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors have discussed cutting the Community Service Board's funding in retaliation.
Lynn Chenault, Community Service Board executive director, defends the contract reduction as being in the workers' best interests. He acknowledges, however, "a bad public image" partly because his organization did a poor job communicating with families, some of whom heard the news by telephone.
Any public perception that the board is not concerned with the well-being of its clients hurts his organization, he said.
Reaction varies among the 10 affected by the contract reduction and their families. Three of the 10 have already left the workshop. Altizer may leave soon. All intend to cooperate with the Community Services Board's desire to relocate them.
Other family members - convinced their loved ones are better off at the workshop - vow to fight. "Even if they win, they're going to lose," Paul Graham said of the Community Services Board.
"We call them the community dis-services board," added his wife, Leola.
At the Grahams' request, the state Department for Rights for Virginians with Disabilities has begun an investigation to determine if the Community Service Board violated their daughter's rights.
Cathy Graham, 33, of Blacksburg, born with Down's syndrome, has worked at the workshop for more than 11 years - happily and productively, her mother says. The sort of change that the Community Service Board wants for Cathy would be "devastating."
"Who knows them better than we do?" is a question posed by the Grahams and some other parents or family members of the 10.
Sometimes, Chenault replied, outsiders are more objective about what's good for a child's growth than parents or family members. He and his staff are "caring and compassionate people" who believe the 10 aren't realizing their potential at the workshop.
Some of the 10 can prosper by being integrated with non-disabled workers at new work locations, instead of the segregated workshop, where three-fourths of the employees are mentally disabled, he said.
Others, too disabled to be mainstreamed, need to be in a program emphasizing basic life skills that will enhance their self-sufficiency, he said.
Money and professional support is available for clients to move beyond the workshop, Chenault said. If all approach the change positively, the chances of success are "very high."
Keith Altizer's going along, and has talked to the food service department at Virginia Tech about a job making pizzas, his mother said.
"It's a gamble," said Mary Jane Altizer. "Either he makes it or he doesn't. I don't know what will happen."
On balance, Keith, 29, lives an ordinary life. He catches a van each weekday morning that takes him from his Christiansburg home to the workshop, located off Rock Road in Radford, where he makes about $100 every two weeks cutting and sanding wood for furniture.
He likes to watch television, bowl and collect old 45-rpm records. But a congenital condition created difficulties with his hand-eye coordination, and made his health uncertain. New co-workers and supervisors might not be as aware of Keith's needs as the workshop has been, his mother worries.
While it's true that Keith will make a higher hourly wage if the new job at Tech works out, he won't have benefits such as sick leave or vacation days as he does at the workshop, Mary Jane Altizer said. Also, he'll have to endure two annual lengthy furloughs during winter and summer breaks.
Eleven years at the workshop have helped Keith tremendously, she said. "He feels good about himself. He knows the people and the surroundings."
Change for its own sake isn't worth pulling the 10 disabled workers away from comfortable, familiar surroundings at the workshop, some family members say. Keith's been depressed about leaving. "He kept saying, 'I'm not going to have a job,'" his mother said.
Some of those involved also consider the reduction of the Community Service Board's contract as a slap at the workshop. The board's move implies that the workshop's concept is obsolete, they say.
Huff defends the workshop as a growing, successful and diverse private-sector venture. The workshop, with a $3.2 million budget, employs about 100 people - about 75 of whom are mentally disabled - at several locations around the New River Valley, with the primary facility in Radford. "I know it's right for some people. This choice is important," Huff said.
The Community Service Board's contract represents only about 1 percent of the workshop's budget, Huff said. The rest primarily comes from the workshop's commercial operations.
Although it hasn't been mentioned publicly, the two organizations "have a long history of not working together," said Lindsay West, a former member of the workshop's board of directors and, until last week, chairwoman of the state board that oversees all 40 community service boards in Virginia.
The workshop and the Community Service Board have differing philosophies about serving the disabled, she said. The workshop has changed with the times and adapted to the "current vogue" not to completely isolate the mentally disabled - but the Community Service Board sees the Workshop as an old-fashioned "shelter," she said.
Both the New River Valley Workshop and the Community Service Board say they're looking for alternatives before an extension of the contract expires July 30.
In the short run, however, family members with the responsibility of caring for disabled relatives have some hard feelings.
"We live under stress and strain day in and day out," said Leola Graham. "Our children shouldn't have to suffer."
by CNB