Here in MA we are in the midst of a hot debate over whether or not to close a state school for the developmentally disabled. This state school has been in operation since 1887 and was the site of some pretty awful experperients involving feeding the kids radiation laced food. Google Fernald and you will read all sorts of horrible stuff.
Deistiutionalization on a large scale is a good idea, but there are 182 hold outs who refuse to move, and this is primarily because the families of these residents do not want their loved ones to leave their home, even it was the site of atrocities and ill advised atrocities in the past. Currnetly, they receive very good care and excellent nursing suppports at Fernals, and I think that many of the residents are medically compromised enough so that finding community placement with w high level of nursing support difficult at best.
This is the idea that I had, and I posted it on the ARC of Massacusetts website. I don't imagine any of you will have mcuh to say about it, but I feel obligated to ge tmy idea out there so that these lifelong residents of Fernald can remain in their home of 50+ years, and acheive community integration at the same time.
Quote:
I am a 20 year veteran in the DD field. I have worked in many capacities, in Day Habs, community residences, from case manager to senior director. I am currently a Guardian Rep with a caseload of 20 adults.
Currently there are 182 (?) people living on the grounds of Fernald. This has been their home since childhood, and much of the resistance to closing this facility is based on the fact that the families of these lifelong residents are not convinced that their loved ones will receive the same level of supports (usually nursing suppports is the #1 on this list of anxieties) in the community as they receive at Fernald.
If this is the case, why not allow these residents to reamin, and bring the community to Fernald? Instead of forcing lifelong residents to move to the community in order to be integrated, why not bring about integration by bringing the community to them?
What is stopping us from renovating empty and under-utlized Fernald buildings to become condos, shops, day cares, beauty salons, public parks, etc while allowing these 182 people to remain where they are? Would they not enjoy and be enriched by this community growing around them? Would they not benefit from neighbors who, like myself, who would relish the opportunity to work and live and raise families in a truly integrated community?
Given the red tape involved in any state venture, I imagine this is an idealistic and naive idea. But having been personally responsible for moving lifelong residents from an institutional setting to community living, and having to watch one of these people die from the sheer shock of the change in his environment, I feel it is my responsibility to put this idea out there for condsideration, even if it only makes it as far as this forum.
_________________ cirlces they grow and they swallow people whole half their lives they say goodnight to wives they'll never know got a mind full of questions and a teacher in my soul and so it goes
Post subject: Re: Fernald State School--the debate
Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2007 3:14 pm
Interweb Celebrity
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 12:47 am Posts: 46000 Location: Reasonville
_________________ No matter how dark the storm gets overhead They say someone's watching from the calm at the edge What about us when we're down here in it? We gotta watch our backs
_________________ cirlces they grow and they swallow people whole half their lives they say goodnight to wives they'll never know got a mind full of questions and a teacher in my soul and so it goes
Post subject: Re: Fernald State School--the debate
Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2007 4:03 pm
Of Counsel
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 1:14 am Posts: 37778 Location: OmaGOD!!! Gender: Male
Places like this should be closed, and should never have been there in the first place, but for those people already there, it's worse for them to be uprooted. How many of them are actually aware of the bad practices that took place there in the past anyway?
_________________ Unfortunately, at the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius, the Flower Children jerked off and went back to sleep.
Post subject: Re: Fernald State School--the debate
Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2007 4:11 pm
Supersonic
Joined: Mon Sep 05, 2005 1:34 am Posts: 12029
kiddo wrote:
which one?
belchertown state schools, there's also northampton and monson nearby. think monson is still partly open. i think they tore down northampton in the past year or two.
Places like this should be closed, and should never have been there in the first place, but for those people already there, it's worse for them to be uprooted. How many of them are actually aware of the bad practices that took place there in the past anyway?
99% of the people who still live there are there because they have significant medical needs that are really difficult to support in the community. When the schools started to be emptied, these people were deemed "too difficult" for community placement. But since it costs so much overhead keeping the 100+acre estate running, the state wants everyone out, no matter what their specific needs are. They call it a move towards community integration. I call bullshit.
The parents are petrified that if their kids move, that they will die. this happend to one of my clients, it was horrible. He could not take the shock of leaving the institution where he lived and went to school for 33 years.
And the ones still living there have a cognitive age of 2 years and younger. They may have residual memories of mistreatment, but there has not been any widespread mistreatment since the 70's. And because they are now treated so wel, the paretns really do not want them to move. There is a lot of guilt on the parent's part too: they put their kids in these terrible schools, watched as it all sorted out, adn now that Fernald provides excellent care, they are being asked to move their adult children to unknown communities to have unknown people care for them.
It is sad. I want my tax dollars to be providing integrated services, but I do not want these gentle souls uprooted for the almighty dollar. Bring the community to them.
_________________ cirlces they grow and they swallow people whole half their lives they say goodnight to wives they'll never know got a mind full of questions and a teacher in my soul and so it goes
because of this reading/research I've been doingabout hte state schools, i came across a book called:
The State Boy's Rebellion: The Intriguing true Story of American Eugenics and the Boys That Survived it
I thought I knew of all of the atrocities that had happened at this state school, but I had no idea that in the 30's, normal boys and girls were put in these "Schools for the feebleminded" simply becuase they were from poor families and in the name if eugenics.
I highly recommend you pick up this book.
_________________ cirlces they grow and they swallow people whole half their lives they say goodnight to wives they'll never know got a mind full of questions and a teacher in my soul and so it goes
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