For the second straight year, the ladies of the Ivy Circle Garden Club in Ocala donated their time and efforts to improve the landscaping around the ARC Marion campus.  Specifically, they spruced up the area surrounding Group Home 12 where several of our adult developmentally disabled clients live.  This is exactly the type of community involvement [...]

During the fall last year, we began a project within the ARC Marion arts & crafts classes where we converted some of the great original pieces of art into blank greeting cards.  Well, we are at it again with this year’s assortment of Christmas and Thanksgiving cards all produced by original artwork of the developmentally disabled clients [...]

*This week’s blog was written by guest blogger, Beth Lewis, Director of  Community Supports of ARC Marion.
When we tell stories of people with developmental disabilities, they usually end up being something about money. That’s really unfortunate when the subject of money also has something to do with someone’s life. Stories about funding in the human [...]

Florida legislators considering funding cuts for the developmentally disabled. 
House and Senate aren’t agreeing.
Balancing the budget on the backs of Florida’s most vulnerable, many of whom aren’t able to speak for themselves.
Sound familiar?  Well immediate action is needed today, and you, our advocates, can speak up!  Visit this Web site to take a stand.  Currently the Florida [...]

You ever have those epiphany moments when things just suddenly become clear?  I hate to sound like a broken record on the state of the Medicaid waiver system in Florida.  I guess it comes up every time the Florida legislature goes into session.  I’ve talked about it here, here and here as well as several other [...]

My mother works in administration at a University that trains students in all sorts of fields of study including special education.  In her 20 plus years there, she’s had a few chances to share a parent’s perspective of the special needs education system to prospective teachers.  One such opportunity came this week. 
Working with the developmentally and [...]

Last Thursday, clients and staff at ARC Marion were going about their morning, business as usual, when the unusual happened.  While on break, a client in the Adult Day Training (ADT) job skills program got choked on a piece of food and started turning blue.  Staff immediately sprung into action preforming the Heimlich maneuver, life saving training each of [...]

I had the wonderful opportunity to spend a week in Tennessee with my family over the Holidays.  It was the first time I had seen my sister in over a year.  She doesn’t travel, and the birth of a new child in our home put a damper on our travel plans for a while as [...]

I posted on Tuesday that we were going to limit blogging to once a week and only for very pertinent topics of interest… then I opened the local newspaper!  Headline reads in today’s Ocala Star Banner: “School district: Teacher and aide verbally abused disabled student.”  The 7-year-old child’s mother caught the whole thing, at least one day of [...]

In talking with a client’s mother the other day I realized something that is lacking for families of the developmentally and intellectually disabled- a child-sitting network.  I don’t want to use the word “babysitting,” because the children needing to be looked after are essentially all adults.
I’ve mentioned before how my family used to take vacations [...]

I’ll be honest.  I don’t really like to read that much.  Maybe it’s because I got so burned out in graduate school having to read so many books cover to cover that weren’t that interesting to me?  Maybe it’s because I enjoyed watching Sesame Street and Electric Company better than reading Nancy Drew as a [...]

My sister is developmentally disabled.  She is diagnosed with cerebral palsy, mental retardation and autism, but the last of these diagnoses has not always been a part of her life—something I only came to remember in the past few weeks.  Here’s my autism story.
It was late in the 1980s when the movie, Rain Man, came [...]

I have to privilege to work alongside wonderful individuals at ARC Marion who care deeply for the clients served here.  They take great pride in their work and rejoice in every “victory” in a client’s life and feel pain and anguish when clients are hurt and sad.  Great things happen here every day.  Too many [...]

While our Florida state lawmakers continue to do things that baffle me, I’ve got a new one that should ruffle your feathers, too.  The Florida Agency for Healthcare Administration who regulates and oversees service provider agencies across the state for everything from hospitals to nursing homes, mental health centers to those facilities serving the intellectually [...]

For the second November in a row, the clients, staff, family and friends of ARC Marion are collecting  nonperishable food items for Interfaith Emergency Services  food pantry in Ocala.  Last year, it was a developmentally disabled ARC Marion client who suggested we do something in the community to help others in need.  At that same time, our local [...]

I love being busy, but I hate being busy.  I don’t like it when things are so slow-paced that I get bored. But I also don’t like it when things are going by so quickly that I don’t have time to stop and enjoy the little things going on around me…not taking time to “stop [...]

I have a board member who is also a parent of an ARC client.  She’s been on my board for the past two years and has added a lot of insight to fundraising during her time with us.  However, this year she’s energized and empowered in a way I’ve never seen her.  When I asked [...]

I know there is a great need for information about the Medicaid Waiver, because it can be confusing and daunting to anyone just starting the process.  While I am aware that Medicaid Waiver systems are basically in place all across the country, (see map ) the state of Florida is different than most others and is unique.  We are [...]

We in “the business” of serving and working with the developmentally disabled have gotten ourselves into a quandary.  While we strive for political correctness, as nearly everyone in this present age attempts to do, we’ve caused much confusion in our terminology and lingo among people of all ages.  Often when I’m speaking to people and [...]

Imagine living with a nonverbal developmentally disabled individual who has no means of communication whatsoever.  She crawls around the house, eats at the dinner table, plays with some toys and goes to school on the short bus every day without any way to tell her family what she wants. Ever. Then picture the day when [...]

When I was a child, my mother had been caring for my developmentally disabled sister at home for a little over two years and had reached a point she didn’t think she could do it anymore.  Mom cared for my sister the best she could on a daily basis.  She struggled to hold back the [...]