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QUINCY, Ill. (AP) — Bill and Kitty Coons have three adult sons with developmental disabilities in programs coordinated by Transitions of Western Illinois, and they appreciate how important jobs and life training are for their sons.
The jobs give the sons a sense of purpose, a feeling of accomplishment and a modest paycheck. Transitions programs also give them social interaction and an anchor in the community.
Bill Coons said adults with special needs who don't have those things miss out on so much.
"It's just like the world has left them behind," he said.
Transitions of Western Illinois has been improving people's lives for 60 years.
What was then known as the Adams County Mental Health Center had four employees when it was launched as a mental health program in 1955. Today it has about 200 employees and last year served about 7,500 people through 16 programs mainly focused on mental health needs, services for people with developmental disabilities and vocational training.
Seth Coons, 40, has been a client at Transitions for 17 years and is an enthusiastic supporter.
"They have a good program. They have good people to work with," he said.
Growth of the agency
The agency was, and in many respects still is, a pioneer in meeting mental health and developmental needs. Similar agencies exist in Chicago and some of the other largest cities in Illinois. Even in those metropolitan areas, few of them offer all the programs offered by Transitions under a single umbrella.
Barb Baker Chapin, director of development for Transitions, has been with the agency for 43 of its 60 years. She's seen tremendous growth in the number and reach of programs that help a variety of clients.
"Quincy is rich in terms of social services," she said.
When the agency was founded, many people saw mental illness as a stigma or an embarrassment, and schools didn't have special education programs. Over time, people began to see mental health problems in the same way they would other health issues. The public became aware that chemical imbalances in the brain could trigger depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorders and other conditions.
As perceptions about mental health were changing, people also became more enlightened in their views toward people with developmental disabilities -- yet there were few options for a person with learning deficits in those early years.
Before 1967, it was not unusual to send people with severe mental challenges to the state hospital in Jacksonville, but federally mandated educational requirements were created to meet the needs of people with developmental disabilities.
The agency added a sheltered workshop in 1972 where adults it serves could work. Shelter care homes started in Quincy in the late 1960s, and Transitions instituted its first one in 1980. Day care programs for adult clients also were added.
Chapin said Transitions now operates four group homes -- three serve people with developmental disabilities, and one is for people with mental illnesses. The agency also owns two apartment complexes -- one for adults with developmental disabilities and the other for people with mental health issues.
"These are for people who are a little more independent but need some supportive services. For some of the residents, they might get help each day, and for others, it might only be once a month," Chapin said.
Transitions had a $9.8 million budget last year, with the state providing 73 percent of the revenue. Federal programs contributed 5 percent, and local revenue accounted for 22 percent of the budget.
Mike Rein is in his 23rd year as the agency's executive director, and he said the work couldn't happen without community support.
"We're just a cog or a wheel, and without every other part, every other cog or wheel, doing its job, we couldn't get anything done," Rein said.
'These people can't fight for themselves'
Seth Coons operates a paper shredding machine at Transitions. He works at Hy-Vee two days a week. He recently met with lawmakers at the statehouse in Springfield and urged them to help fund the programs for developmentally disabled people.
"The budget is going down. We don't have any money right now," he said.
Kitty Coons went back to college after her five children were born, got a teaching degree, and worked as a special education teacher for 15 years. Through her knowledge of the programs at Transitions, she set up some of her students to go directly from high school to Transitions.
However, after years of declining state dollars, Transitions must charge new clients who do not have exceptional needs. Kitty Coons said the Illinois budget battle has hurt programs for people with special needs and laments that there are few champions for those programs.
"Politics shouldn't be that way. These people can't fight for themselves," she said.
The Coons family knows Transitions better than most. Tom, the oldest son, started going there in 1994, when he marked his 22nd birthday and was no longer eligible for classes through Quincy Public Schools. Younger sons Seth and Jared made the move to Transitions in 1996 and 1997, respectively.
"There was no problem back then. Money was there, and if they were a part of a special needs program (in school), they could go straight into a program at Transitions," Kitty Coons said.
Reductions in state funding have led to the creation of a waiting list that assesses the needs of applicants for Transitions' developmental services.
In addition to work programs, the Coons brothers are part of a life-training sequence meant to help them manage everyday tasks and blend in. Their parents also teach them the skills they would need to function in society.
"We go out and they order food," Kitty Coons said. "They get in line and order for themselves and pay for their food. They know how to behave in public. We're training our kids to be invisible in society."
She hopes Transitions itself and the cause of people with developmental disabilities will never become invisible.
"It's amazing how many things they've got going out there," she said.
Helping at-risk infants
Parents as Teachers is a Transitions program that helps at-risk infants and toddlers.
Lora Belden, 22, was terrified when she came home with her son Camryn, who was born several weeks premature and spent time on a monitor in the neonatal intensive care unit.
"He weighted 2 pounds, 13 ounces when he was born and I didn't know what I was doing with a preemie. He's my first, and it's very scary as a new mom," Belden said.
During the first several weeks after Camryn came home, a Parents as Teachers worker visited and helped assess the baby's progress and answer his mother's questions. They worked on Camryn's fine motor skills with games and routines. Progress in his first year seemed slow at times to Belden.
"With crawling and walking and talking, I wanted to compare him to other babies, and you shouldn't do that. They told me to let him set his own pace," Belden said.
Gradually, the home visits were reduced to once every two weeks as Camryn's development accelerated.
"He's 2 now and all caught up to the other 2-year-olds. He's out of the crib, and we're doing potty training now. His favorite word is 'yes,' " Belden said.
"I'm a single mom and I got some help from my mom and my sister and a cousin, but they weren't here all the time. (Parents as Teachers) was fantastic, and (they) helped out a lot."
Looking back on her experience, Belden cannot imagine what she would have done without the program.
Receiving vocational training
Several businesses provide not only financial support, but also jobs to people who get vocational training at Transitions. Other businesses pay to have laundry services, document shredding or other services done by sheltered workshop workers.
Blessing Hospital's in-patient services are needed by many of Transition's clients, and the hospital coordinates with agency staff.
Rein said it's difficult to say whether services for mental health or developmental disabilities represent the largest part of the agency's work.
"If you look at our staff, the developmental side is bigger because so much of that service is much more involved with custodial care" jobs and services that are daily or long-term, Rein said. "On the mental health side, we may have people who meet with our counselors an hour a week or an hour a month."
Transitions operates a crisis hotline for people or families facing a mental health crisis. The agency also partners with Blessing Hospital to offer space where a suicide survivors' support group meets.
Vocational training is one service that usually involves developmentally challenged people, but it also contributes to the clients' mental health.
"We're teaching them work skills, and they trade some of their time for money," Rein said. "Self-worth is really defined by our work. We all feel a little better when we've got a job. People with disabilities are no different."
Chapin said Transitions is rare because it merges state and federal funding with locally raised dollars. It also stands out because it combines so many needs-based programs in a rural area for people who would have few other options close to home.
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Source: The Quincy Herald-Whig, http://bit.ly/1YdFcTU
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Information from: The Quincy Herald-Whig, http://www.whig.com
This is an AP-Illinois Exchange story offered by The Quincy Herald-Whig.
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