MAKING A DIFFERENCE : One Foundation’s Approach: Day care for Severely Disabled Kids

The non-profit Jeffrey Foundation provides a rare combination of full-range day care and family social services for multi-handicapped children in Los Angeles. The foundation’s philosophy, as quoted in its mission statement: “Handicapped children have the same basic needs, desires and rights that all children have, and are entitled to the same opportunities for recreation and education.” Children at Jeffrey may be unable to speak, see, walk or feed themselves. Many need medication and/or special equipment. They may be disabled by muscular dystrophy, mental retardation, cerebral palsy or autism. Others were disabled in accidents or by abuse; some were born affected by their mother’s drug use.

BASIC PRINCIPLES

* Strong involvement of parents and families.

* Continuous monitoring of each child’s individual program and progress.

* “Mainstreaming” of children into regular settings as much as possible; and teaching each child to:

--interact in socially acceptable ways;

--develop self-esteem; and

--develop abilities as fully as possible.

MILESTONES

1972: Jeffrey Foundation opens its first day care center in West Los Angeles. Founder Alyce Keller Morris, a divorced single mother of a young adopted son, Jeffrey, with multiple handicaps, had recently moved to Los Angeles. When she learned there was no day care available for multiply disabled children, she opened her own home to care for them.

1979: Jeffrey Foundation’s first group home for severely handicapped teens opens in Mar Vista.

1980: Jeffrey, inspiration for the Foundation, dies of muscular dystrophy at age 16.

1985: Second after-school program opens at Salvin School in South Los Angeles.

1992: Early intervention program for pre-school toddlers is added at West L.A. facility.

QUOTE

ALYCE KELLER MORRIS, President and Founder

“Families with a handicapped child need a lot of support and we try to help them cope. We involve them in the school and we advocate on their behalf with social agencies--we just go a little further. Almost all our children have single working mothers who can’t pay for day care. We don’t turn away anyone because they lack funds.

“Some of the children we take have terminal diseases like muscular dystrophy; some who were at Jeffrey have died now. But we hear all the time from others who have grown up, and at Christmas many of them come here with their families to be with us.”

WHO ATTENDS

Ethnic Distribution:

African-Americans, 50%

Latinos, 40%

Anglo, 5%

Asians and others, 5%

Ages:

Five and under, 40%

elementary-school children, 40%

teens, 20%.

Income:

low-income and poverty-level, 95%

middle-income, 5%.

THE NEXT STEP

On May 7, the foundation plans a grand opening for its newly purchased building next to its multi-purpose center in Los Angeles. And to help parents in other cities who hope to start a similar program, the foundation is preparing a video that will include suggestions for fund-raising.

The foundation says it will continue to concentrate its own efforts in Los Angeles, and hopes to increase the number of children it can enroll.

To get involved: Jeffrey Foundation, (213) 965-7536