By Staff
To the editor:
I am a sibling to a consumer at Gateway. I am opposed to Riverwood decreasing Gateway services for developmentally disabled persons.
Did your community mental health, Riverwood, decide these changes, or as some at Riverwood imply, the changes have to be made because the State requires it?
Who thinks these things up? What manual writers decide that developmental disabilities can be "ameliorated" if the persons are disconnected and separated from peers, removed from a routine that is Monday through Friday that comes with a small paycheck, and provides pride and self-worth?
Charlie Weis, Notre Dame football coach, has a special needs daughter. He is developing a community for developmentally disabled people, 18 and older, which will include a farm and residences. Are the rules in Indiana different? Does the community mental health in Indiana not oppose this "segregation"?
Families and friends of developmentally disabled people do believe in choice and community involvement. Consumers are not, to my knowledge, being held in Gateway against their wills. Additionally, they're not really segregated either, prison re-entry people are also working there.
I can only wonder how Coach Weis was acclaimed on the front page of the news for doing something that would probably approach sin in Michigan. It has been announced that he has been appointed to the President's Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities, formerly the President's Committee on Mental Retardation. He's out-of-the-loop in Michigan; maybe it will go well in Washington.
It's time for Community Mental Health to think about whom they are in existence to serve, and to listen to those they are supposed to be serving.
Niles