No, this is not a political diary. It's simply something that has been preying on my mind for sometime that I would like to share with all of you here, and to help you understand better a wonderful group of people who are overlooked every day of their lives. I never wanted to work for these people. That's not to say that I was scared, or intimidated by the prospect. I've got a soft heart, that's all, and I felt sorry for them. I'm talking about the developmentally disabled.
My working life has been spent in the service industry. Always slapping a smile on while a hotel guest was screaming at me about their rooms, or running my ass off waiting table for people who'd leave rotten tips. Dealing with degenerate gamblers at OTB who didn't have the money to even eat, but would mooch off people to make a bet. And yeah, I would feel sorry for myself at the end of the day. I would be tired and cranky and wish I had the money to go back to school and get a real job. I got fed up, and decided I needed a change. So I applied for a job with a local agency to train for a position working with the MR/DD population in my area. Surprise - they hired me, even with next to no experience with the disabled.
Training was tough, but fun. I'll admit that the closer it got to my placement in a home, the more nervous I became. Part of the training is how to deal with people when they have "behaviors" - sreaming, hitting, biting, acting out. The reality was far different. I admit, I was half expecting drooling, non-verbal people sitting in wheelchairs like vegetables. I got lucky - all my guys are verbal. They can feed themselves, three of them can walk on their own, they're mostly calm and reasonable. Yes, they have several medical/mental issues - CP, schizophrenia, mental retardation, and so on. But for some reason, I was surprised to find that they're not different from me, really. I suppose that's a problem a lot of us who are able have. We can't fathom what these people have to deal with on a daily basis. We see them ringing bells during the holidays and walk right by without looking. We see them at Wal-Mart handing out carts and give a condescending smile and think to ourselves "It's nice that they can be productive." We don't understand that they desperately want to be like us, to be "normal" and do what we can do. To prove that they are indeed just like us, just less able.
The agency I work for was created by concerned parents back in the 1950's to try and change the perceptions people had about children with intellectual and physical disabilities. Children were routinely shipped off to hell-holes like Willowbrook or other institutions, where they were routinely mistreated, misdiagnosed and over-medicated. There was no other solution - the stigma of having a "retarded" child was too great, not to mention the physical and economic drain on the families. Parents began slowly to realize that this was the wrong path. The idea now is to try to integrate the disabled population into ours, to help them live as independently as possible, to make sure their rights are not suffocated, to make sure they are as educated as their disabilities allow.
That's wonderful, but many of these oragnizations are non-profit. They are forced to take on staff who may not always be the best suited to deal with people like this, so the job turnover rate is extraordinarily high. I've heard people say they "just took the job for the money", not because they care about the people they are supposed to be helping. I am always infuriated by this. (Besides, the money isn't that great, unless you work for the state. In NY, the average mental health worker who works for a state agency makes about $6 more per hour than I do.) The money was never an issue for me. I wanted to get past my personal hang-ups, to try and help people for a change.
So why am I telling you all of this? Because as I said earlier, these agencies are non-profit. We bill Medicare for services. The population continues to grow, and our group homes are becoming overcrowded. We need better staff, more money to adequately serve these people. I would encourage those of you who give charitably, no matter what time of the year you do it, to look into your local chapters of The Arc, or similar agencies. Become a volunteer, help with our fundraisers, and please, stop not looking at the disabled. They just wanted to be treated with a little kindness and dignity, as we all do. You'll make friendships that will last a lifetime, you'll learn a little, you'll laugh and cry a little, and you'll just feel good. One of my guys and I are going to see a WWE wrestling show in a week or two, and I can't imagine a more fun time, for either of us.
Thanks. If you're interested, here is a website you should see.
www.thearc.org
You can also read about Willowbrook State School on the Wiki.