The care of Ohioans with developmental disabilities has changed dramatically in the past few decades.
Ohio Governor John Kasich’s state budget proposal provides 316 million dollars for services for developmentally disabled Ohioans. But there’s a generation gap when it comes to funding. Ohio Public Radio's Jo Ingles reports.
A few decades ago, people with developmental disabilities were often placed in large institutions that were designed to meet their needs. But now, many of those facilities have been shuttered. And money and services are being provided for programs to help developmentally disabled in their homes and community settings. Gary Tonks advocates for developmentally disabled Ohioans with his work as the Executive Director of the ARC of Ohio. In a recent forum at the Columbus Metropolitan Club, Tonks explained there’s a generation gap of sorts now in the philosophy over how best to care for developmentally disabled Ohioans. He says older Ohioans still want state and local dollars to go to group homes and institutional facilities that they created for their children years ago.
“They created services because their children weren’t allowed to go to public schools. They weren’t allowed to be competitive in the real world so we built on our citizens of color and all of the lawsuits and fights that they fought and created a system out of necessity,” Tonks explains.
But now, Tonks says, many younger families view developmentally disabilities very differently. The younger parents no longer want facilities for their children. They don’t want the segregated day facilities that are available through agencies like Goodwill. They want more individualized services and programs to help developmentally disabled Ohioans be able to live independently in their communities.
Tonks says these days, state and federal dollars are largely being directed toward those services.
“It includes what we wanted. It includes things that are person centered, not facility driven. Yet we have families who are concerned that if I give you the choice of living independently, how will that affect my choice when I like Goodwill Sheltered Workshop and I like the intermediate care facility? How does that affect my choice? And I think we need to answer those questions for those families,” Tonks says.
Tonks says the current system of funding for services is based on deficits – what you can’t do and what you don’t have. He says it should be based on abilities and how to help each person live to their full potential. As an example, he tells the story of a young man with disabilities who worked at the home and garden megastore, Lowes.
“And they employed him in the garden department. And he was struggling. And they actually talked to him about why he was struggling. He says it was because the color of the flowers is not good. It doesn’t look good. They redesigned their garden department so that the coloring of the flowers was more pleasing to him and their sales went up,” Tonk tells the forum.
The Director of the Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities, John Martin, says the state’s current policies on disabilities tries to continue to provide money for institutions and facilities for those who need them. But he says the state is also experimenting with waivers that can be very flexible for services that can help developmentally disabled Ohioans succeed in less restrictive environments.
“It is a waiver that doesn’t have as much funding in it but it has more flexibility in it with the idea of giving people more choices. And we hope that waivers like that become part of the future as well, offering real cost effective alternatives to some of the real expensive comprehensive services that exist today,” Martin explains.
The idea behind these new waivers is that money can be provided for a caregiver for a few hours or a minor home improvement or repair that can help a developmentally disabled person stay in their own home. As care for developmentally disabled Ohioans continues to evolve over time, it is hoped that the cost will decrease as communities put more emphasis on what these individuals can do and how they can help to sustain themselves.
