Stephen H. Morgan is the executive director of the Arc of Baltimore, a not-for-profit organization formerly known as the Baltimore Association of Retarded Citizens.
The organization seeks to help retarded and developmentally disabled citizens in the Baltimore region develop their potential and live as independently as possible in the community. Morgan oversees the organization's myriad of programs, which include community living, foster-care, vocational training and employment efforts.
Morgan began his 30-year career with Arc as a camp counselor in 1972. He became an instructor and then worked his way up the administrative ladder to his current position in 1985. He holds a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and a master's in clinical psychology from Loyola College.
What is the Arc of Baltimore? How large is it?
If you combine all of the programs that we operate in the Greater Baltimore area, we serve in the neighborhood of 2,000 individuals. We have about 650 paid employees. Our annual budget right now is around $38 million.
You also have volunteers?
We do. They're involved in governing the organization, as volunteer board members and as committee members. Other people volunteer to work directly with our clients in our recreational programs and daily programs. Others may assist us in fund-raising or office work. In a way, they are our ambassadors to various segments of the community -- the business community, the neighborhoods. That's critical.
How is Arc's budget financed?
Our principal source is state funding, through the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. And, increasingly, our community-based programs are eligible to receive a complement of federal funding. So, it's a state-federal partnership. The money flows to us through the state agencies, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, but, then, they're able to be reimbursed for a substantial share of the cost from the federal government through the federal Medicaid program.
Considering the state's $1.2 million budget deficit, are you concerned about your funding?
It's hard to say at this point, because it appears that the fate of future funding of a lot of human and social-service programs depends on the state's ability to raise additional revenue. And, of course, the approaches to that are a very controversial thing now, with the slot machines and certain tax provisions on the table.
My guess would be to say that we are not at risk of having our funding for the people we currently serve cut back, but we've been pretty steadily each year receiving increased funding for serving new folks who are on waiting lists for community services. And that continued growth, if you will, could be at risk over the next couple of years.
Is there a large demand for your services that is not being met?
Yes. And we're in the last year of a five-year initiative begun by the Glendening administration. The goal was to virtually eliminate the waiting list, but it has turned out that although that's been a very successful initiative, new individuals have come onto the waiting list almost as rapidly as people have gone off.
The estimate is the community-services programs that we have in place now probably are addressing only half the need that is out there. One of the reasons there is such burgeoning need has to do with the population demographics and the Baby Boomers, who are now 49 to 57 years old. Because there are so many people in that age bracket, there is a correspondingly large group of folks of that age with developmental disabilities who need services.
And then, if you add a generation to figure in the age of their parents, it's pretty easy to see that the caregivers, the people who have often been lifelong caregivers to those developmentally disabled people, are aging and dying and often needing long-term care themselves.
Therefore, their adult children who have developmental disabilities now are requiring our services. Arguably, when we age out through this generation of Baby Boomers, the waiting list should be more manageable.
Many of your clients are seniors?
People, particularly in the residential community-living programs tend to be older. Ten percent are over 70 years old, and 50 percent are over 50 years old.
How difficult is it to train seniors to be independent or to function independently in society?
It's not. There are certainly some challenges associated with age. But it's not so much an educational or behavioral challenge as it is a medical challenge, because, like most people, they need greater attention to their medical needs as they get older. Most of the folks, even if they haven't been in a community-living program with us, have been involved in the community -- perhaps through one of our employment programs.
Even if they may have continued to live at home with parents, they've still had a fair number of independent experiences. They still get out of the family home to go to work or perhaps attend one of our day programs. So the notion of community living is not new to them.
Does Arc receive much revenue from its subcontracting and employment services?
Our chief revenue source is state funding, but second to that is the revenue that our clients generate through the various work programs we sponsor. We're probably best known in the community for our landscaping and janitorial services. Our clients perform commercial and institutional contract work.
How great is the demand for those services?
It's pretty high. There's both a federal and a state program that gives a certain priority to employment programs for people with disabilities to be the recipient of federal or state contracts for this work.
For example, our landscape crews maintain all the grounds at the Social Security Administration in Woodlawn. Our organization is paid on a contractual basis for the work , and we, in turn, pay commensurate wages to both our client workers and our supervisory staff.
What other benefits come from providing these services?
I think sometimes we don't realize how much we define ourselves by the work that we do. So this work is a tremendous boost to our clients' self-esteem. And, also, with the community-based employment -- where people are out working in visible locations, mixing with the general public -- that adds to the self-esteem, too.
That contrasts with a fairly long history in this field of people being relegated to sheltered workshops. I'm not saying those are bad places, but they do tend to be isolating, and they often deprive people of naturally occurring opportunities to interact with the general public.
Why did you first begin working with the Baltimore Association of Retarded Citizens?
It was really just quite a coincidence. I was in undergraduate school -- and I knew I wanted to do something in the teaching or helping profession. A friend of mine from the church I was going to invited me to visit a summer camp for individuals with mental retardation and developmental disabilities. And that happened to be a summer camp that was sponsored by BARC. It was just a brief visit, but I found the whole experience intriguing.
I, of course, through my life had met a few folks or neighbors who had developmental disabilities, mental retardation. I was intrigued by how normal and typical they were, how they sought to be part of the neighborhood fabric -- part of the community fabric -- just like everybody else.
That was in the summer of '69. I went back the next couple of summers as a counselor. And when I finished undergraduate school and went looking for my first job, I came to the Arc of Baltimore. I was hired full time as an instructor in what we then called a child-care center.
What kind of programs did you have there then?
Prior to 1975, when the federal government enacted the Right to Education for All Handicapped Children Act, the school systems were allowed to be selective -- and kids with more severe or profound developmental disabilities were generally excluded from schools.
So, as an alternative, our organization operated a network of child-care centers. Kids between 3 and 21 years old who could not get into the local school we would serve in a kind of alternative educational program we called child-care centers. I had a group of adolescents with pretty severe and profound disabilities.
Did you enjoy your work?
I loved it.
Is that when you decided to make working with retarded citizens a career?
Yes. The people were just a pleasure to work with.
Oftentimes, when I tell people what I do, they say: "Aw, you're a saint! That's such hard work. How do you do it?" I feel quite the contrary. I feel blessed, in a way, to have the opportunity to work with people that I see as normal and as typical as the rest of us.
Certainly, there are challenges; I wouldn't deny that. But, by and large, actually what has sustained me through the years is those positive personal experiences with people.
And even though, increasingly, my work is more administrative and managerial -- and dealing with state officials and budgets -- I'm fortunate to have ample opportunity to interact with people, because, as you might imagine, they're here and about our office and all of our locations all the time. And many of them are individuals that I've known for years.
I mentioned the developmentally disabled neighbors that I interacted with when I was a teen-ager. Both of these people wound up in our community-living program years later. And, after having lost touch with them, we were re-engaged when they came into our programs.
The organization seeks to help retarded and developmentally disabled citizens in the Baltimore region develop their potential and live as independently as possible in the community. Morgan oversees the organization's myriad of programs, which include community living, foster-care, vocational training and employment efforts.
Morgan began his 30-year career with Arc as a camp counselor in 1972. He became an instructor and then worked his way up the administrative ladder to his current position in 1985. He holds a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and a master's in clinical psychology from Loyola College.
What is the Arc of Baltimore? How large is it?
If you combine all of the programs that we operate in the Greater Baltimore area, we serve in the neighborhood of 2,000 individuals. We have about 650 paid employees. Our annual budget right now is around $38 million.
You also have volunteers?
We do. They're involved in governing the organization, as volunteer board members and as committee members. Other people volunteer to work directly with our clients in our recreational programs and daily programs. Others may assist us in fund-raising or office work. In a way, they are our ambassadors to various segments of the community -- the business community, the neighborhoods. That's critical.
How is Arc's budget financed?
Our principal source is state funding, through the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. And, increasingly, our community-based programs are eligible to receive a complement of federal funding. So, it's a state-federal partnership. The money flows to us through the state agencies, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, but, then, they're able to be reimbursed for a substantial share of the cost from the federal government through the federal Medicaid program.
Considering the state's $1.2 million budget deficit, are you concerned about your funding?
It's hard to say at this point, because it appears that the fate of future funding of a lot of human and social-service programs depends on the state's ability to raise additional revenue. And, of course, the approaches to that are a very controversial thing now, with the slot machines and certain tax provisions on the table.
My guess would be to say that we are not at risk of having our funding for the people we currently serve cut back, but we've been pretty steadily each year receiving increased funding for serving new folks who are on waiting lists for community services. And that continued growth, if you will, could be at risk over the next couple of years.
Is there a large demand for your services that is not being met?
Yes. And we're in the last year of a five-year initiative begun by the Glendening administration. The goal was to virtually eliminate the waiting list, but it has turned out that although that's been a very successful initiative, new individuals have come onto the waiting list almost as rapidly as people have gone off.
The estimate is the community-services programs that we have in place now probably are addressing only half the need that is out there. One of the reasons there is such burgeoning need has to do with the population demographics and the Baby Boomers, who are now 49 to 57 years old. Because there are so many people in that age bracket, there is a correspondingly large group of folks of that age with developmental disabilities who need services.
And then, if you add a generation to figure in the age of their parents, it's pretty easy to see that the caregivers, the people who have often been lifelong caregivers to those developmentally disabled people, are aging and dying and often needing long-term care themselves.
Therefore, their adult children who have developmental disabilities now are requiring our services. Arguably, when we age out through this generation of Baby Boomers, the waiting list should be more manageable.
Many of your clients are seniors?
People, particularly in the residential community-living programs tend to be older. Ten percent are over 70 years old, and 50 percent are over 50 years old.
How difficult is it to train seniors to be independent or to function independently in society?
It's not. There are certainly some challenges associated with age. But it's not so much an educational or behavioral challenge as it is a medical challenge, because, like most people, they need greater attention to their medical needs as they get older. Most of the folks, even if they haven't been in a community-living program with us, have been involved in the community -- perhaps through one of our employment programs.
Even if they may have continued to live at home with parents, they've still had a fair number of independent experiences. They still get out of the family home to go to work or perhaps attend one of our day programs. So the notion of community living is not new to them.
Does Arc receive much revenue from its subcontracting and employment services?
Our chief revenue source is state funding, but second to that is the revenue that our clients generate through the various work programs we sponsor. We're probably best known in the community for our landscaping and janitorial services. Our clients perform commercial and institutional contract work.
How great is the demand for those services?
It's pretty high. There's both a federal and a state program that gives a certain priority to employment programs for people with disabilities to be the recipient of federal or state contracts for this work.
For example, our landscape crews maintain all the grounds at the Social Security Administration in Woodlawn. Our organization is paid on a contractual basis for the work , and we, in turn, pay commensurate wages to both our client workers and our supervisory staff.
What other benefits come from providing these services?
I think sometimes we don't realize how much we define ourselves by the work that we do. So this work is a tremendous boost to our clients' self-esteem. And, also, with the community-based employment -- where people are out working in visible locations, mixing with the general public -- that adds to the self-esteem, too.
That contrasts with a fairly long history in this field of people being relegated to sheltered workshops. I'm not saying those are bad places, but they do tend to be isolating, and they often deprive people of naturally occurring opportunities to interact with the general public.
Why did you first begin working with the Baltimore Association of Retarded Citizens?
It was really just quite a coincidence. I was in undergraduate school -- and I knew I wanted to do something in the teaching or helping profession. A friend of mine from the church I was going to invited me to visit a summer camp for individuals with mental retardation and developmental disabilities. And that happened to be a summer camp that was sponsored by BARC. It was just a brief visit, but I found the whole experience intriguing.
I, of course, through my life had met a few folks or neighbors who had developmental disabilities, mental retardation. I was intrigued by how normal and typical they were, how they sought to be part of the neighborhood fabric -- part of the community fabric -- just like everybody else.
That was in the summer of '69. I went back the next couple of summers as a counselor. And when I finished undergraduate school and went looking for my first job, I came to the Arc of Baltimore. I was hired full time as an instructor in what we then called a child-care center.
What kind of programs did you have there then?
Prior to 1975, when the federal government enacted the Right to Education for All Handicapped Children Act, the school systems were allowed to be selective -- and kids with more severe or profound developmental disabilities were generally excluded from schools.
So, as an alternative, our organization operated a network of child-care centers. Kids between 3 and 21 years old who could not get into the local school we would serve in a kind of alternative educational program we called child-care centers. I had a group of adolescents with pretty severe and profound disabilities.
Did you enjoy your work?
I loved it.
Is that when you decided to make working with retarded citizens a career?
Yes. The people were just a pleasure to work with.
Oftentimes, when I tell people what I do, they say: "Aw, you're a saint! That's such hard work. How do you do it?" I feel quite the contrary. I feel blessed, in a way, to have the opportunity to work with people that I see as normal and as typical as the rest of us.
Certainly, there are challenges; I wouldn't deny that. But, by and large, actually what has sustained me through the years is those positive personal experiences with people.
And even though, increasingly, my work is more administrative and managerial -- and dealing with state officials and budgets -- I'm fortunate to have ample opportunity to interact with people, because, as you might imagine, they're here and about our office and all of our locations all the time. And many of them are individuals that I've known for years.
I mentioned the developmentally disabled neighbors that I interacted with when I was a teen-ager. Both of these people wound up in our community-living program years later. And, after having lost touch with them, we were re-engaged when they came into our programs.