Disability support services needed

Lucas Doiron enjoys having choices. Just like anyone else, he wants to be able to choose his activities and select the kind of work he does, but most of all he wants to be able to remain living at home with his mother.

Other than battling with autism and Tourette’s syndrome, Lucas is like any other 17-year-old. He enjoys concerts, fishing with his uncle, playing the drums, and someday would like to have a girlfriend.

What Lucas does not like are constant state budget cuts that take away funding to provide his mother, Jeannie, with professional assistance to help him remain in their home.

“I don’t receive a check. There is no cash involved,” Jeannie Dorion said. Funding that helps families like hers keep loved ones with developmental challenges at home, rather than being institutionalized at greater expense and not having individualized training available, comes in the form of a professional assistant.

Persons trained to provide this service are available, in Lucas’ case about 5 hours a week, to go to the homes of families where one member might have developmental challenges to assist while chores are being done and, in their case, watch after Lucas while his mother is at work and during times when he is not attending class at Thibodaux High School.

Lucas might not fully comprehend the details that are involved with governmental budgets that so far have helped him and others like him live productive lives. But perhaps better than most kids his age, he does understand what would be lost if he were not able to live as independently as he does.

Now, the Louisiana Developmental Disabilities Council and other agencies are pooling efforts to save funding for persons that require in-home assistance because of physical or mental limitations.

“What’s happening is the current fiscal crisis in the state is cutting support [for the disabled],” said Louisiana Citizens for Action Now Region 3 Director Daniel Lirette, Jr. “Because of the budget crisis, [legislators] are cutting support to the point where organizations that provide [in-home services for the disabled] are running a deficit.”

LaCAN is a grassroots network of individuals, families and advocates working to support disabled people that desire to remain in their family homes rather than being segregated into institutional facilities in order to receive government-funded services.

Lirette noted that the full legislature is not required to pass a bill for this personal assistance to be cut, but that it can be eliminated in the simple dropping of appropriations while legislation is in committee.

If people with developmental challenges are not allowed to live at home, Jeannie Dorion said that those persons could become institutionalized, families would be hit with high care costs that many could not afford, and the individuals involved would never have a realistic opportunity to become productive members of society.

Researchers have found that people with developmental disabilities that are able to live at home improve their adaptive behavioral skills and are better equipped to function independently. Advocates for the developmentally challenged contend that the success rate demonstrated in keeping people with many physical and mental challenges at home in family settings should alone be enough to justify funding.

On Friday, Gov. Bobby Jindal presented his proposed $24.9 billion budget for 2011, which included $1 billion in cuts and not quite $475 million in one time revenue designed to make up for a $1.5 billion shortfall.

Lirette said that although the current budget does not specify any elimination of programs that assist the developmentally challenged, last year cuts amounted to more than 3 percent, it is not a sure thing that legislators would not target those services during their regular session.

Lucas and Jeannie will join members of the LaCAN, the Louisiana Developmental Disabilities Council, Gulf Coast Social Services, Arc and other organizations in a Disability Rights Rally. The assembly of awareness will be conducted at Peltier Park in Thibodaux beginning at 9 a.m.

Already local government bodies are responding to the needs of individuals and families dealing with limited capacities.

The Terrebonne Parish Council is expected to adopt a resolution during their regular public meeting tonight that would designate March as Development Disabilities Awareness Month.

“All we are asking for is the opportunity to have a choice, and not have that choice taken away,” Jeannie Doiron said. “I want to be able to choose how Lucas will be educated, I want to know he has a skill to be able to work, I want to know who is going to take care of him in case I’m not around.”

“We need to step in with a voice [for the physically and developmentally challenged] because a lot of times they don’t have a voice for themselves,” Lirette said. “We want this to be a positive message. If we can get the status quo [in funding] this year we will be happy. But the system is in jeopardy if we cut any more.”

Lucas Doiron does not let autism get in his way of enjoying a game of catch, playing the drums or participating in other activities enjoyed by typical 17-year-old youths. He just hopes state legislators will not take away his opportunity to continue living at home. MIKE NIXON