Director’s Letter for April 2011
As Spring finally arrives and the flowers find their way out of the soil, people with disabilities cherish the independence that comes with better weather conditions. This winter especially made us aware of the impact of the seasons on our wellness and independence. If you are looking for new ways to get involved in the community, make sure you give The Ability Center a call.
This month we feature our Nursing Home Transition program and new opportunities this summer offer in conjunction with our community partners. Both of these programs represent the very best in community based programming and support.
We continue to look for ways to spread the news about the Center and our partners. Please forward this e-newsletter to others who may be interested.
Tim Harrington
Executive Director
tharrington@abilitycenter.org
Success Story: Working Wonders for Sandra Sterba
by George J. Tanber
Sandra (seated) with friend
Sometimes, second chances work just fine.
This is Topic A in the arts and crafts room at Northgate Apartments on Stickney Avenue. Sandra “Sandy” Sterba is holding court as one friend after another stop by to chat. Also here is Nicole Cape of The Ability Center, who is among the people responsible for Sandy’s move from a nursing home to Northgate two years ago. It was a challenging task.
“There was a lot of opposition,” Nicole said.
That comment evokes a big laugh from Sandy. She loves to laugh, and laughs large, filling the room.
Deborah Hammond is Sandy’s first guest. She lives at the Northgate annex, next door in the former Stickney Elementary School. But she spends much of her time at the main Northgate building, volunteering at the food bank and library and keeping an eye on her many friends. She considers Sandy one of her favorites.
“I got along with her when I first met her when she moved in,” Deborah said.
She, like Sandy, is a wheelchair-user. Sandy’s issue is a crooked right ankle. She’s awaiting a special brace she hopes will get her back on her feet.
It’s only one of a number of health issues that have complicated Sandy’s life. At birth, she had no hearing in her right ear or sight in her right eye and an underdeveloped right hip. Later, she developed diabetes and now requires four insulin shots a day. The hearing in her left ear is impaired and requires an aid, and her lower arms and wrists are hampered by nerve damage and carpal tunnel, requiring her to wear braces on each arm.
Still, if you ask Sandy how she’s doing today compared to a few years ago, her answer is immediate and upbeat: “Just great. Wonderful.”
That evoked a positive response from Deborah: “She’s doing a pretty good job here.” Added Nicole, who has witnessed Sandy’s journey: “That’s the important thing now, instead of dwelling on the past.”
For the most part, the past was not pleasant. Sandy grew up in central Toledo, one of three daughters in a middle class family. Her health issues have prevented her from working much. Five years at the Wendy’s in East Toledo is the only item on her resume. She moved out of her parents’ house in her early 20s, living independently at a number of apartment complexes. Among her stops was a previous 10-year stint at Northgate.
As her health worsened, her ability to care for herself and keep her apartment clean grew more difficult. Finally, in 2006, her family moved her to a West Toledo nursing home. Sandy was 42 years old at the time. It was a dark day in her life.
“My sister dropped me off there and said she’d be there all the time and she wasn’t,” Sandy said. “I hated it.”
Despite her disappointment, Sandy got along fine with the residents, even though most of them were twice her age. However, there were other issues.
“The nurses weren’t doing what they were supposed to be doing. And the dieticians weren’t giving me the [right] meals for my diabetes,” she said. After three years, she’d had enough. That’s when Nicole, with the help of others, interceded.
“We created a four-page document that outlined everything we had in place,” Nicole said. Still, there was considerable opposition to the idea, especially from Sandy’s then 75-year-old mother.
Nicole remembers: “Her mother said ‘She’s going to be dead within a week.’”
Nevertheless, the push for Sandy to regain her independence moved forward. Finally, on a snowy January day, she returned to Northgate.
The first days – and months – were rocky.An oversight by the nursing home meant she was missing her meds and glucose monitoring equipment. Arrangements for home health care had not been completed. And, as much as she wanted her independence, there was the issue of getting used to being on her own again.
“It was tough at first,” Sandy recalled. “I had to re-adjust to my own schedule. I had to get used to the quiet. Over at that nursing home, it was quiet in a bad way.”
In the beginning, she suffered bouts of depression and had issues with one of the residents no longer there. Her new friends at Northgate helped her through.
Said Deborah: “I used to talk with her when she got mad. I said ‘Nah, uh. Don’t even go there. Let God fight your battles. It ain’t worth getting mad.’”
Sandy appreciated Deborah’s help. “She’s a good friend. She helped me calm my nerves down,” she said. Also helping Sandy was the arrival of her home care provider, Jose Thomas, who visits twice daily.
“He’s wonderful,” Sandy said. “He cooks. He does it all. And he has saved my life a few times, too,” recounting a time when she passed out and woke up at Saint Vincents Mercy Medical Center with Jose at her side.
Equally important was Sandy’s decision to get active at Northgate. She ticked off a list of her activities: cards, Pokeno, newsletter, food bank, floor captain, photographer, and special activities decorator.
Becky Carter, another friend, arrives just in time to hear Sandy reel off her list of activities. “Sometimes, she does too much,” Becky said. Sandy agrees, but she has a reason.
“I do it to keep busy, to keep my mind occupied,” she said. “So I don’t have to sit there and think about my disabilities.”
Another friend, Barbara Rocus, stops by. She lives near Sandy’s fourth floor apartment. Barbara knew Sandy during her first stay at Northgate and says she has seen great improvement in Sandy’s ability to care for herself.
“She’s doing very, very well. There’s not a problem with her here. Not at all. There are so many people here, if she was in need she wouldn’t have to worry about it.”
Sandy is happy to be living at Northgate for another reason. By chance, she moved in at the same time as her half sister, Doris DuShane, who she had not seen in 40 years.
Sandy recalled their first meeting. “I knocked on her door. She answered, looked at me and said, ‘”I know you.’”
With her journey having come full circle, a building filled with friends, and family nearby, Sandy is feeling optimistic about her future. And proud of what she’s accomplished.
“Leaving the nursing home was very important,” she said. “I had to prove it to myself – and everyone else – that I could do it on my own.”
Sandra was the first person assisted by The Ability Center’ Nursing Home Transition Department using the Home Choice program.
Toledo Crash Plays University of Toledo Footballers
Nick Hyndman holds game trophy
With a dynamite second half, the Toledo Crash come from behind to beat the University of Toledo (UT) Football team 7-6 in this year’s clash at the UT Recreation Center.
Sean O’Mara predicted a victory over the UT Footballers in The Blade. This usually does nothing more than incite the opposing team, which may explain the 4 to 1 lead UT held going into the half. (Each touchdown in Wheelchair football counts as one point. There are no extra points). The second half was a different story. To read more…
HRC’s Nursing Home Transition Program Places Nearly 400 Consumers
By Dan Wilkins
When Don Smith was approached in the Fall of 2000 to help consumers transition out of nursing homes, Olmstead, the law that supported people moving from institutional settings into community, was less than a year old, and figuring out how to help people safely and smoothly reintegrate into community from such places was a relatively novel idea.
Housing Resource Center Department Staff
There were no parameters, no well-established, thought-through plans, no real guidelines to follow. A former Duty Officer for the Ohio Department of Youth Services, Don specialized in helping troubled youth coming out of the correctional system reintegrate into community, so he knew the logistics of such things. He knew there would be a number of agencies and bureaucracies involved, that success would require a strong foundation of thought and protocol. And numbers … would people sign on for community living?
“It was a different time.” he recalls, “The lengthy waiting list of today was non-existent, only a few names were known. We had to go find people.”
That first year, Don spent countless hours visiting social service agencies, nursing homes, hospitals, dialysis centers, clinics … whoever would listen, wherever there might be someone meeting the criteria and wanting another option. The message was: “We’re here to help you transition out or prevent you from going in.” Word got around. By the end of that first year, around fifty individuals were in Don’s pipeline.
The Nursing Home Transition Program grew slowly at first. It was a methodical process of trial and error, of honing the program that finally had The Ability Center celebrating its first 100 successful transitions in May of 2005. At the time, it was an amazing number. Joan Lawrence, head of the Ohio Department on Aging at the time and keynote speaker for the celebration event, questioned the number, asking, “100 people out! Is that for the whole state?” She was amazed that it was the efforts of just one man, one tiny department at one Center for Independent Living, in one small corner of the state.
In 2008, two important events happened for Don and his program: mid-year, the Nursing Home Transition Program became part of ACT’s new Housing Resource Center (HRC) and, in October, the federal government implemented the Home Choice Program, a demonstration project intended to allow federal support dollars previously only paid to those in nursing homes to follow people choosing to live in community.
The former surrounded Don with a cadre of staff and programs intended to be of support throughout the transition process. ACT’s Home Modification Program and Advocacy Department, each with their own charges but perfectly situated to support the Nursing Home Transition program.
The latter created a partnership between The Ability Center and the Northwest Ohio Area Office of Aging and expanded our service area to 19 counties. Don’s program grew to meet the larger potential demand, assigning Nicole Cape as direct support with transitioning. Not only did Don get a few more staff in the program, his success rate garnered him attention as a model of “Best Practice”. People were watching, asking questions, taking advice.
“Knowing that we make small changes in the system here and there, slowly moving it forward, motivates us for sure,” explains Don, “but it’s much more than that … we, as a department, are mostly motivated by the people we help. We change people’s lives for the better. And for some of us, it’s personal.” Don had a grandfather who died in a nursing home from neglect.
Today this tiny department with a big, big heart is approaching another milestone. In the very near future, they are going to celebrate the 400th person they’ve helped transition out or stay out of a long-term care facility, and, while that is an astounding number on its own, I am all the more impressed by experiencing the fact in “context”:
As I sit in the HRC building, listening to the phones ring, watching this small multi-departmental support community go about their hectic business, I am reminded of an old, old performance on the Ed Sullivan Show. There was this guy who would maintain a large number of spinning plates on poles, running from one to another while wild music, Khachaturian’s “Sabre Dance”, played in the background. Only, I’d add one thing: a bunch of monkeys running in sporadically, disrupting the process.
“You can’t make solid plans for any given day,” laments Smith, as I comment on the energy of the room, “or, if you do, you know you may very well be going in a totally different direction.”
Ash Lemons, Director of the HRC and Advocacy, concurs, “It’s not always easy. When we work with so many different agencies, each with their own motivations, philosophies and ways of doing things, we have to be both creative and flexible. What we are noticing, though, is that many with whom we work, newer to this process than we are, have recognized and incorporated what we’ve learned from ten years of trial and error. They see our successes as “best practice” and use what works for them.”
Don has the last word. “Here it is a real team effort. Each member of the department is really good at what they do. Together we are greater than the sum of our parts.” he states, “But most importantly, our advocacy and effort is driven by our philosophy. It is what makes us so successful.”
If you know someone wanting out of a nursing home or in need of a ramp or modifications to their home, call us. We can help.
Ability Center Expands Support of Summer Programming
The Ability Center has been evolving to meet the needs of the day for individuals and families experiencing disability in northwest Ohio since 1920. For more than forty years the Center has hosted Camp Cricket, an inclusive summer day camp experience for children with and without disabilities.
Camp Cricket has been historically hosted on site, with daily excursions to many interesting places in the community, i.e. Toledo Zoo, Fifth Third Field, Olander Park, the Butterfly House, and the Swanton Coliseum. Our counselors are well trained in accommodating various disabilities. Camp Cricket became the preferred camp for children with disabilities, with attendance doubling over the last ten years. We have provided inclusive camp experiences for over 160 children per year, including children requiring one-on-one supports.
The challenge that comes with successful programs is that Camp Cricket can only serve so many kids each year. There was a waiting list of over 50 children last year; each family looking for the opportunity to place their children in a setting with both accommodations for disability as well as the engagement of typical peers.
The Ability Center is poised to respond to the obvious need for additional inclusive recreation and social opportunities for kids with disabilities. We believe that with proper staffing and supports, what works at Camp Cricket can work at any like-minded community-based camp.
To begin our community capacity building, we are currently working with our partners to provide accessible and inclusive camp programming at their facilities. By combining the expertise of our host Camps, with the knowledge of inclusive programming by Camp Cricket staff, we will ensure families an excellent camp experience. This expansion also provides parents the benefits of summer long extended day programming within their own communities.
Our goal is to continue to expand our collaboration with area organizations, to ensure they too have the necessary tools and support to provide inclusive programming which exemplifies best practices.
If you would like more information about this new and exciting endeavor or about participating in Camp Partners, please contact Annie Kim, Director of Community Connections, at (866) 885-5733 or visit the Summer Opportunities page.
The Ability Center Awarded Ohio Housing Trust Fund Grant
The Ability Center (ACT) recently received an Ohio Department of Development Ohio Housing Trust Fund grant. This is a two year grant that offers ACT the chance to complete home accessibility projects. Through this grant, ACT can serve Williams, Fulton, Lucas, Ottawa, Defiance, Henry and Wood Counties.
Like to Build Stuff?
Or, never built anything but would like to try it?
Consider Volunteering on a Ramp Build Project.
Great way to spend a day.
Give Us A Call. We Appreciate the Help.
866-885-5733
If you or someone you know could benefit from a wheelchair ramp, low-rise steps, grab bars, or handrails, please visit Home Accessibility Program page for an application. If you prefer to have an application mailed, please give us a call. We look forward to serving you through this grant.
