Day Care in a Park: A Place for Children With Disabilities

Dorothy Baker said it was difficult to find day-care help for her energetic, 12-year-old son, Ricky.

Several times she came home and found Ricky, who has a degenerative disease and is unable to care for himself, locked in his room by the sitter. On another occasion Baker found that another sitter had tied Ricky to a chair.

But the day she found a note pasted on the refrigerator saying that Ricky had been hit by a car, Baker decided to quit her job as district manager for an encyclopedia company and start her own day-care center. That would allow her to take care of Ricky and other handicapped children whose parents might be experiencing similar problems finding help sensitive to their child’s special needs.

Now, three years and a lot of toil later, Baker spends her days supervising care for nine handicapped children at the Ivey Ranch Park day care center, a spacious, 15-room, two-story ranch house not far from Mission San Luis Rey in east Oceanside.

And Baker says this is only the beginning. She hopes to get state approval soon to allow her to increase the number of children to 25.

“When I see a lot of kids out here, I’m happy,” said Baker, a short woman with a round, smiling face who seems to give a grandmother’s love to the children. “That’s what we’re here for.”

One-year-old Crystal likes to play on the small slide outside the day-care center. Crystal, whose enthusiasm radiates around the playground, was born with only a few fingers and toes. But she taught herself to use a spoon, and she is learning to throw a ball and put building blocks together.

Angel, age 3, has no control of her neck muscles. While sitting in Baker’s arms, Angel manages to hold her head up for a few moments. Baker encourages her with hugs and kisses.

Ricky has a disease that is slowly deteriorating his mental and physical abilities. Doctors said Ricky wouldn’t live to see his 10th birthday, and they told Baker to put him in an institution.

“They still tell me to put Ricky away,” she said. “He’s always happy. I’ve never seen Ricky in a bad mood. A lot of parents would have gone without a lot of joy if they had followed the doctor’s advice.”

The day-care center is part of a 17-acre park for the handicapped, one of only a handful nationwide. Although much work remains before the petting zoo, aviary, aromatic garden and camp site are built, Baker and the other parents believe the park, which is expected to cost $7 million, will provide a medium for able-bodied and disabled children to play and learn about each other.

“You won’t find very many (handicapped children in parks), if you find any,” Baker said. “Either there’s not enough equipment for them to play with or they’re not accepted. Parents are taking their (healthy) kids from you and acting as if you have leprosy. One day I told a lady, ‘It’s not catching.’ ”

One purpose of the facility, Baker said, is to provide a warm, loving environment for children who may not have long to enjoy it. “Many of our children won’t reach adulthood,” she said. “We want to have something nice for them while they are here.”

Baker’s life has always been centered around children. For 20 years she was a nun with the Daughters of the Faith. Her work at the convent took her to teaching assignments in Alabama at segregated black schools during the turbulent ‘60s. She also worked for four years in Chile rehabilitating teen-age prisoners.

Baker thinks it was a normal progression from the church to full-time work with handicapped children.

“I felt I could do good among the people and have a family,” she said. “I just didn’t want the convent to feel like a security blanket for me. Whatever (care) Ricky needed, there were others who needed the same, if not more. I guess the Lord was just preparing me for this work.”

She began her own preparations in 1978, when she wrote several letters to the local paper to see if other parents were interested in starting a day-care facility.

During that same time, Baker met Monica MacGowan, a mother of three handicapped children who wanted to start a park for the handicapped. MacGowan thought parents of handicapped children needed a support group to share information and to help them cope with problems. Two years later, she and Baker founded Parent Awareness, an advocacy group that had only four members when it began. Now, it boasts a membership of 141 parents.

The group learned later that year that I.O. Ivey, a local rancher, had died and left 752 acres of land to the city. Seventy acres were earmarked to be set aside for a park, so MacGowan arranged to meet with Oceanside Mayor Larry Bagley and explained to him that Ivey Ranch would be the perfect location for the unique facility. Bagley and the City Council agreed.

A dedication ceremony was held in December, 1981, and the Ivey Ranch Park Assn. was organized to raise money for the park, which under the agreement is leased from the city for $1 per year until the year 2008.

Since the establishment of the park, such organizations as the Cal-Diego Paralyzed Veterans and the Optimist Club have raised money for equipment and maintenance.

With the money, the association has purchased a few special toys, like swings that children pump with their hands to gain higher altitude, and a circular sand table for children in wheelchairs.

“This way they can be independent like other kids, which is so important to them,” Baker said.

She remembered the joy experienced by a 14-year-old boy with cerebral palsy when he rode in the swing. “It was his first time in a swing,” she said. “It just gave him such a feeling of independence.”

Baker is also amazed by the way the children help each other, even when they can hardly help themselves. “I think they forget about their handicap when they see someone worse than they are,” she said. “They really have a lot of love to give. They ask for so little.”

Baker and MacGowan know their efforts have just begun, and that the park may take years to finish. But the payoff from the children makes the work worthwhile, MacGowan said.

“When I realize what it’s all about and what it can be someday, I can almost hear the kids out there,” MacGowan said. “I can almost hear the laughter. It’s gonna be so super great to know that those kids can get out there and not be afraid of one another.”