What is a sheltered workshop?
Sheltered workshops,
founded by Mentally Retarded Citizens of Missouri are state supported
vocational programs designed to provide work for persons with mental
retardation/developmental disabilities.
They were established under Senate Bill #52 in 1968 and provide
employment for over 8,000 handicapped individuals in Missouri.
Value
Funding
Increased in St. Louis
A Parent
View
Defense of
Sheltered Workshops
Workshops are for the
Handicapped
Value
Shelter
Workshops
provide basic needs for the handicapped and the community including:
"Pay Check" allows the handicapped to perform a service
for society by earning a portion of their livelihood.
"Responsibility" gives them the responsibility of
coming to work and doing a job.
"Asset to Business" performs a service to competitive
industry in jobs that are labor intensive.
"Socialization" working side by side with their
buddies.
In
addition it's probably the greatest Respite program ever designed
for parents and guardians, because they have the peace of mind that
their son or daughter is safe, secure and a productive member of
society.
Funding increased for sheltered workshops
Parents group negotiates change
By Greg Uptain, Staff writer
The St. Louis County Productive Living Board gave sheltered workshops an additional $1.6 million at a recent meeting in response to a local parents group’s request.
The Parents Advocacy Group (PAG) asked the PLB for a bigger share of the approximately $14 million in tax dollars collected from personal property and real estate taxes from county residents. That money is appropriated for sheltered
0workshops, residential facilities and other related services.
About $500,000 of the $14 million went to sheltered workshops, and PAG wanted more.
Before about 200 parents at the Nov. 15 meeting, the PLB unanimously approved giving sheltered workshops an additional $1.6 million for building acquisitions or improvements, bringing the total funds for sheltered workshops to about $2.1 million.
“Everything has resolved itself, but we will still watch them like hawks,” said PAG president Bert
Sterbenz.
Three facilities – Florissant Valley, Lafayette Industries in Manchester and ITE in Berkely – will each receive $467,000 for their facilities.
“We are very pleased with the way it came out” said Steve Frank, executive director of the Florissant Valley Sheltered Workshop, which employs 190
persons at two workshops.
Sheltered workshops employ developmentally disabled adults for a variety of subcontracting work, such as packaging, mailing and sorting services for area companies.
The employees work about 30 hours per week and are paid wages based on their abilities to produce compared to normal standards, Frank said.
Another facility, Canterbury Industries in Crestwood, will receive $250,000. Two other facilities, Work Activity Center in South County and Universal Sheltered Workshop in Jennings, are in much better shape and will wait in the wings for more money, Sterbenz said.
PLB member Laurie Donovan, a former state representative and long-time sheltered workshop supporter, was pleased with the meeting’s outcome.
“I came away very satisfied.” She said. “I didn’t hear anyone complain/”
Donovan said she was impressed by the turnout of parents at the meeting.
“I was very, very moved by the testimony of the parents.” She said. “They spoke so passionately and explained things in such a way that made it clear how important sheltered workshops are to their family members.”
For over tow years, Mentally Retarded Citizens of Missouri has been working with the Greater St. Louis Parents Advocacy Group, Inc., St. Louis County Workshop Managers, Donna Mueller of Senator Schneider’s office and Jim McHugh of Buzz Westfalls’ office to facilitate the PLB allocating a “fair share” of its tax revenue to sheltered workshops. As you can see from this Nov. 25 reprint of the Citizen Journal, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
A Parent’s View of her Mentally Retarded Son
There is no parent in this world who prays for a handicapped or mentally retarded baby. All prayers are for a baby with 10 fingers and 10 toes and everything to be all right.
Most parents are blessed with the answer to that prayer. However, some are blessed with a slightly different answer. Those parents become the parents of a special child. While that child is young, his differences do not seem so great, as the parents and family think: Our child will outgrow his problems. He will do better than the doctors think. Therapy will help. My child will improve significantly and be almost normal. He will have a normal future.
While the child is still little, funding is not too difficult to secure for his special needs. Doctors recommend agencies that can be of assistance. Besides, the child is so cute!
As the child grows, a shuffle develops, perhaps a drool sets in, his attention span is short, things that should not be funny are.
Persons notice the differences more. Whispers or snickers do not go unheard. Other children and teens pick on him and get him in trouble when he tries to stand up for himself. His ability to learn has reached its peak at third grad. Schools keep trying to teach him fractions, division, history, science, things that have no meaning for him. REALITY SETS IN.
This wonderful child who is your son or daughter is not going to be able to survive out in the competitive world. This child, who is so special to your is not special to others, but is taken advantage of, stared at, and avoided. He is going to need sheltered employment if he is to grow up to be a productive individual and feel good about himself. That is why parents a number of years ago formed into support groups and then worked for legislation to create sheltered workshops. Because those parents understood that the productive capabilities of their children were not as great as the productive capabilities of
persons in competitive employment, they worked to pass further legislation to provide funding to establish sheltered workshops and keep them operating. They also sponsored the Senate Bill 40 tax levy that was authorized by the State Legislature to enhance these programs.
I am so pleased and thankful that these programs are available to my son.
Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt of a press release to the Macon Chronicle-Herald from Janet Ryan, whose son worked at the Macon County Sheltered Workshop.
From the Citizen Journal, Thursday, November 25, 1999
Defense
of Sheltered Workshops
There is currently a movement to change the mission of sheltered workshops. The Missouri Department of Mental Health is closing its workshop in St. Joseph and placing the workers in supportive employment. SB40 organizations are trying to distance themselves from their founders, sheltered workshops. Some workshop managers along with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education want to hire normal workers for the workshop.
This changes the original concept form sheltered employment to integrated employment infusing the pressures of competition and productivity.
Supportive employment takes workers out of the full time work environment of the workshop and places them in fifteen hours per week part time employment. What do they do the rest of the time? Who watches over them? Do they get to socialize with their buddies?
What is even worse now that many have been moved into the community with inadequate support, they are “home alone” to be used and abused when they should be in a structured environment.
This is not acceptable. This defeats the purpose of the workshop programs in the first place. The workshop was designed by parents to give their sons and daughters dignity, self worth and socialization with their peers.
Parents are not going to let theorists destroy the most successful program in all the disability field!
It’s tough to run hab centers, group homes, sheltered workshops, etc. It takes, brick and mortar, supervision, technical skill and work. That’s right, plain old hard work. Parents are tired of bureaucrats and professionals designing programs that are “easy” to administer i.e. “pass the money around.” It’s time they go back to work and design programs for the mentally retarded. That’s what they supposedly are paid to do!
It’s time for professionals in the field of mental retardation to wake up! Place common sense back into your repertoire. Persons with mental retardation are not normal and they never will be. Quit trying to make them something they are not! Let’s give the mentally retarded the help to attain their constitutional right of the pursuit of happiness instead of placing them in environments without adequate supports.
Workshops Are For The handicapped
House Bill 1415 allows normal workers into Sheltered Workshops. We oppose this measure because it will do irreparable harm to our sons and daughters. We have been advocates for them for over 40 years and have found through those many years of experience that the Sheltered Workshop is the only place where our sons and daughters are not pushed to be normal - the only place where they are not pressured to compete with normal
persons and the only place where they are not used and abused. Sheltered Workshops brought the out of the Middle Ages!
While it is true that a small percentage of the mentally retarded can be successful in the normal workplace provided there are adequate supports, the vast majority of
persons with Mental Retardation cannot function in normal settings.
Nothing can replace the smiles on our sons’ and daughters’ faces as they work and interact with their peers in a stress-free environment. Nothing can replace their pride in a job well done. Nothing can replace their self esteem at being the best!
Editor’s Note: Following is a response by Majorie Zeller, a parent, to a letter supporting SB707 by the president of the Workshop Managers Association, Peggy Kutchback. March 4, 1996.
William R. Cady II
Director of Canterbury Enterprises, Inc.
#2 Algonquin Woods
St. Louis, MO 63122
Dear Mr. Cady,
Peggy Kutchback, president of MASWM sent a paper to Missouri Sheltered Workshop manager in support of Senate Bill 707. She states that the only organized opposition to this bill is from “Missouri
Association for Retarded Persons”, a group she discounts. The Greater St. Louis Parents Advocacy Group for Mentally Retarded Citizens, Inc. opposes SB 707.
We are not Mentally Retarded Citizens of Missouri. She further states that arguments against the bill are “insubstantial.” We do not consider our carefully thought out objections to the bill unworthy of consideration.
She says that workshops were formed back when persons with disabilities were called retarded and needed protection against the risks and demands of the competitive world. The politically correct term “person with a disability” can mean everything from severe arthritis to color blindness. We shall use the more precise word “retarded” to indicate mental slowness. Those with this characteristic still need a degree of help and protection. To deny them this is on a par with denying a wheel chair to those who cannot walk. Our children’s shops provide encouragement, supervision, jobs they find exciting and challenging, the pride of accomplishing meaningful work, compatible peers and the all important pay check. In short; the rewards of a successful career.
Missouri Sheltered Workshops are now mandated to serve the mentally retarded. Kutchback displays great distaste for this arrangement, apparently overlooking the fact that no one is forced into a workshop. Other opportunities abound. In fact, many agencies steer clients away form workshops and toward supported employment and other costly options that siphon funds from traditional programs.
Kutchback correctly states that workshop managers “support the voluntary movement of workshop employees” into competitive employment. The problem is that they often make it difficult to return after the humiliation of repeated firings.
Ms. Kutchback states that non-disabled workers will be role models. Does she really believe that wholesome stable workers will flock to sheltered workshops? She advises us to have no concern about “workers who would be detrimental” because the integrated programs would be approved of and monitored by a governmental agency. The news is full of tragic stories of abuse which agencies could not prevent.
In another part of the paper, she states that there are not enough jobs for “workers who require a high level of support” and thoughtfully translates this to the understandable term “lower functioning employee.” Yes, our workshop employees are low functioning which is why they need the help a workshop is mandated to provide. Many St. Louis area shops turn away employees and contracts because of space constraints. The inclusion minded PLB, the group that controls the revenue dollars marked “Sheltered Workshops” on St. Louis County tax bills, denies funds for expansion. Non-disabled workers entering one of these shops would displace retarded workers. There is not other possible scenario.
Workshops are not intended to be competitive and managers should be committed to the sometimes frustrating job of encouraging the lower functioning to be somewhat productive.
Ms.. Kutchback condescendingly explains that any disagreement with her position is because “Parents are just afraid of change.” This is thoroughly untrue. The point is that we don’t want to change the things that make our children’s lives happy and satisfying. A recent poll by the PLB reported 85% satisfaction with sheltered workshops as they now exist. Why did the “segregated” shops achieve such a high rating? Why did they achieve a higher rating than any other form of employment? We think it’s because by the time retarded children reach adulthood, their families grow in another way. Dreams of “cures” and prestige jobs blossom into acceptance and appreciation of their children’s happiness with their peers and their special place in life.
Peggy Kutchback may label our concerns insubstantial, but they are heartfelt and come from years of experience.
Sincerely, Majorie Zeller
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