THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 30, 1995 TAG: 9506300466
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MIKE KNEPLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 164 lines
Here's C. Lynne Seagle, about to receive an international award previously given to the likes of Mother Teresa and B.F. Skinner. And what's she talking about?
Not her coming honor as a ``future leader'' in the field of mental retardation but how much she had to learn about herself and people with disabilities.
Typical Seagle.
The executive director of the Norfolk-based Hope House Foundation isn't talking about so-called advanced treatments for people with mental retardation. She's talking about how to treat them as people: with the dignity and respect due any individual.
Basic citizenship stuff.
``I think that's what it's always been about, but I didn't always know that,'' said Seagle, who tonight will receive her award from the prestigious Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation. That's Kennedy, as in the Kennedy clan.
As head of the Hope House Foundation, Seagle, 41, oversees a $2 million budget and 130 full- and part-time employees. The nonprofit agency serves about 130 men and women with mental retardation and other disabilities.
But it's the way that Hope House serves people with disabilities that has won recognition for Seagle. All live in their own apartments, and the staff operates on a philosophy that people should have control over their own housing arrangements, including living as independently as possible in their own communities.
At the same time, Hope House staff members are trained to work on their individual biases and attitudes about being care givers.
``What we really want staff members to do is to invest in learning and understanding about our own selves and what's going on inside ourselves and what we can change about that, as opposed to what we can fix or change about another human being,'' Seagle said.
After all, if professionals who work with people with disabilities can't overcome their biases, then how could they expect different attitudes from the general public?
The changing approach is appreciated by people served by Hope House, says Marvin Pope, who has had his own apartment since 1989 and will speak at tonight's Kennedy award ceremony at the United Nations in New York.
``What did it mean? MORE FREEDOM!'' said Pope, who lives in Chesapeake and is training to become an assistant manager at a Pizza Hut. ``When the program first started off, instead of staff, we had house parents. They treated you like children. I was 18 years old. But they said if you acted up you're restricted to your bedroom.
``Lynne let me make decisions on my own. She would help me grow, learn how to do things, how to plan a budget, live on your own.''
For Seagle, the changes in her attitude began in 1975, when she got her first job as a resident counselor in an eight-woman group home in Norfolk's Ghent section.
``When I first moved in there I was thinking, `OK, I'm here for all these eight folks. I'm the one who's going to be a good friend here,' '' Seagle said. ``I was going to be the hero. I was going to be the caretaker. I was going to be the boss. I was going to be in charge.
``It was me without a disability with all of you with a disability.''
But within the first few weeks, Seagle began to have a deeper appreciation of her housemates, learning to see them as eight other individuals and often as friends.
``I just felt like the ninth person,'' Seagle said. ``Two people loved the movies, and I loved the movies, too. So my relationship with them started forming a lot around old movies.''
Lucinda Brown, now living in a Norfolk apartment a few blocks from the former group home, has fond memories of Seagle's work with her. She still likes to talk about Seagle taking her for lunch at Seagle's mother's home in Colonial Heights.
As in any other house-sharing arrangements, she and other residents also clashed. For one thing, Seagle wasn't a very good cook at the time, and she liked to stay up late and sleep in.
That set up arguments with one woman who ``would sing religious hymns very early in the morning at the top of her lungs. If it wasn't religious hymns, it was patriotic hymns,'' Seagle said. ``I just didn't want to be woken up that way.''
In 1978, Seagle was hired as supervisor of residential services for the nonprofit Hope House Foundation. In 1982, she was promoted to executive director.
For several years, the Hope House staff worked hard to open more group homes throughout Hampton Roads, sometimes fighting bitter zoning battles with neighborhood civic leagues, planning commissions and city councils.
Disputes were based on the stereotypes that often fuel not-in-my-back-yard opposition to social programs: fear of falling property values, criminal activities and safety of the people with disabilities.
Seagle went door-to-door in neighborhoods, letting residents know of proposals to open the group homes, answering concerns and mustering friendly testimony for public hearings.
By 1988, Hope House operated seven group homes, each housing eight to 13 participants.
Besides winning some hard-fought and expensive campaigns to open the homes, the Hope House advocates were beginning to overturn many of the biases against people with mental retardation.
But Seagle and her staff already were taking off in a new direction. They began to regard their group homes as another institution that needed dismantling.
The Hope House staff began to believe that people with mental retardation must be better blended into the overall community.
``We had groups of eight or more people living in a house within a community but they were still isolated,'' said Norma Andes, a former program director for Hope House and now a part-time employee. ``Whenever we went somewhere, we went in groups, in vans. People notice that. It's very obvious that a group of people are moving around together.''
Yet it was a risky decision to phase out the group homes in favor of individual apartments.
``We were going against what was then becoming popularly accepted,'' Andes said.
Much of Seagle's message is that society must move away from labeling people because phrases such as ``mentally retarded person'' define someone in terms of a disability or other physical characteristics instead of as an individual.
Hope House has changed its references from ``clients'' to ``people with mental retardation'' or ``people with disabilities,'' just as one might be described as a man with a vision problem or a woman with a hearing impairment.
Seagle and her staff acknowledge that they have also learned from the people they serve. A few years ago, they acted like doubting parents when Earl Carpenter, in his 60s, and Marilyn Pruitt, in her 40s, wanted to get married.
The couple finally convinced Hope House staff, who enthusiastically threw them a big wedding in 1989.
The emphasis on individual aspirations extends to staff as well. ``How could we treat people with disabilities with respect,'' Seagle said, ``if we have a work place that doesn't treat its employees with respect?''
Her staff development work has earned Seagle many outside consulting jobs, not only with other social agencies, but with businesses and sports teams. The work has taken her to at least 25 states and four foreign countries.
She turns over all the consulting money she has earned to Hope House - about $35,000 a year, which would about double her salary if she kept it. ``Because it all relates to the Hope House mission,'' Seagle said. ``It's about creating a community which includes everyone, whether it's work communities, neighborhood communities, organizational communities.''
Creating community is becoming increasingly important to Seagle.
She has joined a neighborhood civic league and encouraged other Hope House staff members to do the same, even though many of them still regarded civic leagues as enemies from the days of zoning fights over group homes.
``It's all about being engaged and responsible citizens, about doing the basics,'' said Michelle Kelley-Jay, a Hope House director. ``If I'm not doing that for myself, then I'm not going to be very good doing my job supporting people with disabilities to do it.''
Seagle also has been buying into her community in other ways. Instead of shopping at supermarkets, she spends much of her Saturday mornings trekking between several small stores to round up her groceries.
``I like supporting people who are in businesses like that,'' she said. ``It weaves us together, when you invest like that.''
Then she holds dinner parties, usually hosting a wide assortment of friends.
``Recently there was a woman from England who was here for a conference. . singer, another woman who plays professional basketball in Brazil, a man who's a hairdresser, a guy who's a machinist and a guy who works at FOG radio,'' Seagle said. ``I like people connecting, and I like sharing that.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
GARY C. KNAPP
C. Lynne Seagle, an expert in her field, says she has much to learn
about herself and people with disabilities.
KEYWORDS: PROFILE BIOGRAPHY AWARDS by CNB