State NYSARC honors NorthCountryNow.com news editor
Thursday, October 22, 2009, 11:02am
A statewide organization is honoring NorthCountyNow.com’s news editor for a story on the strides made by St. Lawrence County NYSARC during the past 50 years.
Craig Freilich is the recipient of NYSARC’s 2009 Media Award in the News Article category. He will fly to Albany Friday to accept the award at NYSARC’s annual convention awards luncheon at the Crowne Plaza Hotel.
NYSARC works with and for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The St. Lawrence County chapter now employs nearly 600 and serves 650 clients.
Freilich’s story, published on Feb. 25, traced the history of the local chapter’s roots, starting half a century ago when virtually no services were available for people with developmental disabilities. It was titled, “St. Lawrence NYSARC: 50 Years and Still Expanding”
The state-wide organization presents media awards each year to recognize “their contribution toward furthering the public’s awareness and understanding of intellectual and other developmental disabilities through documented journalism.” In addition to awards for news articles, honors are also presented for photography, human interest stories, and editorials/letters to the editor.
The original story posted on NorthCountryNow.com follows:
By CRAIG FREILICH
St. Lawrence NYSARC is marking 50 years since the group was formed by parents who were concerned about the quality of life and the future of their children with developmental disabilities.
Today, the service organization has grown to employ nearly 600 people and to serve 650 clients at 38 sites throughout St. Lawrence County.
“At the time there were no services for people with developmental disabilities, just the institutional system,” said Richard Laurin, St. Lawrence NYSARC’s first executive director, who served until 1996.
What was originally called the New York State Association for Retarded Children now offers help to people with a range of disabilities, including those with cerebral palsy, with the spectrum of disorders called autism, and people who sustained traumatic brain injury before they were 21 years old.
Now there are programs in schools, employment opportunities in communities across the county, activities outside the home during the day, and medical help, and the Dodge Pond recreation area, which employs some NYSARC clients and provides recreational activities.
The parent-driven movement began in 1948 in New York City and spread from there.
In St. Lawrence County a decade later, it amounted to a small group of parents who gathered from time to time to share ideas, advice, and commiseration.
“There were no choices in the community,” Laurin said. “Parents’ choices were limited to staying home to take care of their child or to institutionalize them in a state-run system. That’s what drove what you see today.”
What parents most wanted for their children was a way to “continue care after they left school. There were some special education programs in schools,” but once the children were done with school, their options, and those of their parents, were limited, said Laurin.
The key was to find the young people “meaningful work where they would be paid just like everyone else.”
Current St. Lawrence NYSARC Executive Director Daphne Pickert says that several parents’ groups were forming in St. Lawrence County in the mid to late 1950s.
“A group of parents in Massena came together, and some Ogdensburg parents actually went to NYSARC, Inc. in Albany to become chartered members,” Pickert said.
“Parents were the driving force and still are.”
Pickert points out that the group’s bylaws stipulate that the majority of directors on the board have to be parents or blood relatives of disabled people. “The idea was that it would be a family-based, family-oriented organization, and it certainly is.”
“There was no government money in the beginning,” said Laurin “The only government money came from matching funds to the agency that raised funds by itself. A local not-for-profit would raise money on their own and apply to the United Way, and that would be matched by New York State.”
The NYSARC organization had originally spread from New York City to other population centers and affluent communities, Laurin explained. “Here in the North Country, we were in the wilderness, so things came here later. It was difficult. There were no funding streams, no Medicaid, no entitlement programs.”
Even when those funding streams came online, supplementing the fundraising the group did on their own, he said, “the social, cultural and recreational activities were not covered by the government.” Any such activities they did manage to participate in – a bus day trip, for instance – were paid for by the “consumers,” the young people in the program, helped by fundraising.
Laurin, who had been a guidance counselor at Clifton-Fine Central School in Star Lake, had no personal stake in the work of the organization other than a desire to help. He had no disabled children, though he and his wife adopted six children, two with cerebral palsy, since then. He became a member of SLNYSARC’s board of directors in 1965, as the group was formalizing itself, “before there were any professional services,” Laurin says. At that time the parents who constituted the organization met to “share their hopes and dreams about disabilities.”
A small work program, for six young people, began in Ogdensburg at the Boys Club in 1965.
Laurin signed on as SLNYSARC’s first executive director in September 1968. From there, the program continued to grow.
“Parents were working to find something for their children to do,” Pickert said. “During his first years, Richard reached out to the local community to make contractual agreements with different businesses in St. Lawrence County,” Pickert said.
Over time, Pickert says, NYSARC arranged for work programs with ACCO, the Seaway Development Corporation, the local colleges, and a variety of custodial services, including at the Ogdensburg border station, among many other programs.
The community residence program began in 1973. “That gave an option for parents,” Laurin said. “There was an alternative so they wouldn’t have to put young adults in a nursing home or be institutionalized.
“The parents were always concerned: ‘What happens when I pass on? Will he have to leave work and friends to go to California to live with his sister?’ The residence program offered the option of continuing in the community where he grew up.”
In the mid-1970s, as public opinion and the courts turned against the “warehousing” of the disabled in large institutions, SLNYSARC’s role grew.
“Kids that had been institutionalized at Sunmount (in Tupper Lake) were returned to St. Lawrence County, and we got them into group homes or family care,” Pickert said. It was set up like foster care, where the homes would be certified, “and with that came a commitment from ARC to place them in work programs.”
As programs continue to expand and the number of people in them increases, Pickert said, they are looking at a “zero-growth budget, which is extremely troubling. The need for services is going up. I don’t think it will go up as rapidly as it has over the last 10 years, but it will still go up.
“We’re expecting the same expense level as last year when all of us realize the economy certainly hasn’t stayed at that level,” Pickert said.
She said there is a hiring freeze on non-essential personnel, while trying to maintain the general work force.
“We’re trying to cut costs and to be as efficient as we can and not sacrifice the staff who help us with our people. They are invaluable.”
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