THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 14, 1996 TAG: 9602130106
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SERIES: SPECIAL REPORT: MENTAL RETARDATION
SOURCE: BY JO-ANN CLEGG, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 140 lines
THE NATION'S PUBLIC hospitals began returning persons once thought to be suffering from incurable mental illnesses to their home communities during the 1950s.
The change, known as ``deinstitutionalization,'' was possible because medications had been discovered to control symptoms of the illnesses.
Deinstitutionalization for mentally retarded persons began about a decade later and for somewhat different reasons. A growing understanding that not all mentally retarded persons needed to be housed together in large institutions and that in many - if not most - cases, it was better that they weren't.
In the mid-1970s a group of concerned parents and professionals sat down with representatives of the Virginia Beach Community Services Board and the Association for Retarded Children to make plans for supporting the city's mentally retarded/developmentally disabled (MR/DD) population.
The services have grown from those needed to serve a small group of clients, most of them children, to the comprehensive program that now helps about 1,000 MR/DD individuals in Virginia Beach.
``We've been very fortunate,'' said Jay Lazier, who has been the MR/DD program director for 20 years. ``The support we've received from the city has enabled us to provide top-notch services.''
The services are especially important for young children and adults, whose needs fall outside of those covered under a federal law enacted in the mid-1970s.
The landmark legislation, known as Public Law 94-142, required the nation's public schools to provide free and appropriate education for all children and youth ages 2 to 22 who have physical or mental disabilities.
For those too young to be included in the public school population, the Community Services Board offers an Infant Stimulation program, which has operated for almost two decades. Started by volunteers who worked with a handful of children, it now serves more than 200 children each year.
Newborns and toddlers, diagnosed (or suspected) to be lagging in development, attend sessions several times a week so they can be further assessed and so that their parents can learn stimulating activities that will help their development.
At age 2, most of the efforts to help MR/DD children are coordinated between parents and the public school system.
The MR/DD program does offer after-school and summer programs as well as respite care so that outside of school hours the youngsters may be cared for by specially trained care givers.
From age 22 on, services for MR/DD individuals in Virginia Beach are provided primarily by the Community Services Board.
The board's services for MR/DD adults have been especially innovative. All clients, children and adults, are assigned case managers who work with them and their families to determine what their needs are and how those needs can best be met.
For most adults, the greatest needs are for the skills and the resources to live independent or semi-independent lives. For families such as the Stricklands who are profiled in the accompanying story, there comes a gradual awareness that the parents will not be there to care for the mentally retarded son or daughter forever. That's when the need for some form of supervised or supported living arrangement, along with basic vocational training, becomes apparent.
Mentally retarded individuals are not the Community Services Board's only clients with vocational and housing needs. Housing and jobs also are issues for the seriously mentally ill and for recovering drug and alcohol abusers.
Meeting those needs has long been a priority for the board.
For nearly 20 years, both Comprehensive Mental Health Services and MR/DD have provided housing for clients, mostly in small group homes or individual apartments.
Baker House, a group home for 12 mentally retarded adults, is the city's largest. Since it opened in 1980, the trend in housing for mentally ill and mentally retarded adults has been toward smaller residences. The MR/DD program currently has about 50 units housing about 150 individuals.
While the number is impressive, Lazier said it is not enough.
``We've made a lot of progress in providing services to as many people as possible,'' said Lazier, who served as Israel's national rehabilitation supervisor before coming to Virginia Beach in 1975. ``We've reduced or eliminated waiting lists for many of our services but we still have 150 people on the (waiting) list for housing.''
The figures for mental health services are similar with 48 housing units serving 150 people and a waiting list of 43.
The Comprehensive Substance Abuse Program also is in the process of establishing similar family-style units for recovering alcoholics and substance abusers.
Regardless of the disability, most clients living in group homes pay a portion of their incomes toward rent.
Giving clients the skills to bring home paychecks is another important service offered by the board.
Both mental health and MR/DD services offer job training programs.
Before moving into the workplace, many MR/DD clients participate in SkillQuest, a program that prepares them in such areas as computers and communications. It also gives them a taste of the work world through volunteer work at several city work sites and private agencies.
Once ready for outside employment, clients receive help in finding and mastering appropriate jobs. The MR/DD Employment Services Unit has more than 100 clients working for outside employers.
Many more could be placed, if jobs were available.
Comprehensive Mental Health Services currently has 10 clients working in jobs that are known as Transitional Employment Placements. The program allows the client to get work experience and a reference, both prized commodities for someone who has never held a job. Mental clients also can learn job skills through membership in Beach House where they perform voluntary work in clerical, maintenance and food service positions at the group's club house.
Housing, jobs, and the supervision and support required to provide them, take a lot of money. The Community Services Board spent more than $1.4 million on its vocational and residential services in the last fiscal year.
That amount, while considerable, is far less than the $75,000 to $100,000 or more required to maintain one person for one year in a state institution. To the clients and their families, it represents something else: the independence, security and self-worth that their counterparts without disabilities take for granted. MEMO: [For a related story, see page 8 of The Beacon for this date.]
SPECIAL REPORT: SUNDAY: MENTAL ILLNESS, TODAY: MENTAL RETARDATION,
FRIDAY: SUBSTANCE ABUSE.
ILLUSTRATION: Jay Lazier served as Israel's national rehabilitation supervisor
before coming to Virginia Beach in 1975 as program director for
Mental Retardation Services.
GRAPHIC
COMMUNITY SERVICES BOARD EXPENDITURES
MENTAL RETARDATION SERVICES CONSUMERS
The Virginian-Pilot
[For a copy of the graphic, see microfilm for this date.]
CSB CONSUMERS SERVED
Graphic
SOURCE: Community Services Board
CORRECTION: Some numbers were reversed in Sunday's graphic
KEYWORDS: MENTAL RETARDATION
by CNB