Expanding Horizons

On a recent Friday night at the Block in Orange, Felicity Stafford wandered through the outdoor mall, not to shop or to people-watch, but to show a group of developmentally challenged adults a good time.

If Stafford noticed the curious looks of the passersby who watched her lead her 10 excited charges, she didn’t show it. At 28, she learned long ago to ignore the stares of strangers.

For three years, Stafford has volunteered with the YMCA’s New Horizons program, taking mentally challenged or autistic adults and those with cerebral palsy or epilepsy on field trips and Friday-night excursions.

Stafford is suited to the job because she knows what it’s like to be different. She has a mild form of cerebral palsy, which causes a tremor in her right arm. She’s dealt with strangers’ questioning looks all of her life, she says. It’s one reason she volunteers with New Horizons: She wants the stares to end and the public to accept those who are developmentally disabled.

“It’s cool for them to be out in the community and say, ‘We’re here.’ They have jobs, and they like to have fun,” Stafford said. “Sometimes they’re hard to understand, and you have to be patient. But they deserve to go out to the movies and not be gawked at.”

Stafford takes her charges to movies, plays, miniature golf courses and bowling alleys. She manages an often unwieldy group of adults who greet everyone and examine everything, who sometimes try to wander off by themselves or stay anxiously at her side.

The group’s recent trip to the Block began when Stafford met the participants at Enderle Center in Tustin, where they boarded a YMCA van driven by volunteer Catherine Doezie. Stafford helped the adults into the van and buckled them into their seats, while a cluster of parents stood in the parking lot, watching. For their caretakers, the weekly night out offers a rest from the often difficult job of caring for a developmentally challenged person.

The New Horizons program operates three vans every Friday, each transporting 10 to 12 clients on different field trips. Occasionally, volunteers take clients on weekend trips to the Los Angeles Zoo or Mission San Juan Capistrano and five-day vacations to such destinations as Yosemite and San Francisco. Stafford accompanied one group to San Diego and another to Las Vegas.

YMCA Community Services in Tustin offers the program, which started in 1974 to provide social time and recreation to people who have developmental special needs, as well as respite to caregivers, said Susan Alexander, program coordinator.

“The most important thing is that [participants] get to practice skills they need to be successful in the community,” Alexander said.

About 125 people participate in the program each month. The majority live in a board-and-care facility and pay a portion of the activity’s cost. A weekend caravan trip costs $85 per person, which includes transportation, meals and lodging. The cost for a six-week session of Friday-night field trips is $150.

The fees cover about one-third of the event’s expenses, Alexander said, and New Horizons makes up the difference through private donations, grants, foundation gifts and fund-raisers. (A small number of participants live at home and are registered with the Regional Center of Orange County, a state social work agency for the developmentally challenged, which pays the entire fee.)

Stafford signed on as a volunteer after working as a receptionist for the YMCA and learning about New Horizons.

“Because of the challenges she has faced due to her own disability, she has special insight and deals really well with participants one-on-one,” Alexander said. “They look to her as a role model. They see she hasn’t let her disability keep her from doing what she wants to do.”

Stafford’s cerebral palsy affects the right side of her body, causing her arm to shake and occasionally making her unsteady on her feet. She also has epilepsy, which she controls with medication to inhibit seizures.

“I can understand where they’re coming from, as far as feeling they can’t do something. I tell them, ‘I know you can,’ ” Stafford said.

She often coaxes participants to try new adventures, such as strapping themselves into a boat-racing video simulator. She remembers her parents encouraging her to push herself when she was a child.

“They were like, ‘Get on out there. I know you can snow ski. I know you can water ski.’ My dad wouldn’t stop the boat until I got up. Once we were on Lake Mead until 5 p.m. He knew I could do it.”

She loves it when participants beat her at her own game, outscoring her at bowling or miniature golf.

“I tend to lose the ball a lot in the water, and they think it’s a riot,” she said.

The outings give adults who might otherwise be isolated a chance to have fun with people their own age.

“This is his social life,” Pam Carlson of Anaheim said as she watched her son Brent, 28, head off to the Block.

Friday Night at the Mall

Once the van arrived at the mall, Stafford and Doezie led the group to Gameworks, a video arcade. At first, the group stood nervously in the middle of the arcade, a little overwhelmed by the noisy games, loud music and colorful visual effects.

Soon, though, Stafford had them engaged in a game of air hockey. Then she urged them to play Skee Ball, a virtual shooting gallery and other games. Stafford watched as Sarah Kinney, 21, of Costa Mesa climbed into a boat-racing simulator and went for a wild ride.

“Whoa! I didn’t know it would do that, but she’s loving it,” Stafford said.

Brenda Snook, 35, of Santa Ana at first refused to let Stafford out of her sight but grew braver as the night went on.

“I come here to be with my friends,” Snook said.

Each client had received a prepaid card that allowed them to play five games. Some found it difficult to understand that the cards wouldn’t allow them to play games forever.

Stafford also helped them trade tickets, earned from scoring game points, for prizes. When Snook lost a bracelet she had picked as her prize, Stafford persuaded a woman at the counter to give her another.

‘We’ve Become Family’

Although Stafford worked hard keeping track of the group, she was having fun. She danced to the arcade’s loud music and enjoyed the video games.

“Hanging out with [the group] every week is awesome,” Stafford said. “We get to do rad stuff, and we’ve become family--one of the best families I’ve ever been involved in.”

Stafford lives with her parents in North Tustin; her father is a civil engineer who moved the family frequently to work at different projects.

“We’re a traveling family,” Stafford said. In 1974, they moved to Orange County from Australia, where Stafford recently visited her older sister.

Stafford attends Cal State Fullerton, where she’s a senior majoring in human services. After spending “a long time going around in circles,” she said, volunteering with New Horizons has given her a newfound goal: to become a social worker who helps the developmentally challenged.

“I could probably make a career out of this,” Stafford said, “and as far as me having cerebral palsy, it hits close to home.”

To volunteer with New Horizons, or for more program information, call the YMCA Community Services office in Tustin at (714) 838-4549.

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