2,712 Comments for Fuller State School and Hospital

But thank God for people like your mother who took care of these folks. Always underappreciated, frequently underpaid, often slandered by outsiders, often pushed around by the more dominant and less caring staff, but working for their charges selflessly because it wasn't about the money - it was about the people they took care of. She earned the love and respect of her charges and could look at herself in the mirror at the end of the day. She is someone we can all definitely look up to. :-)

nice work.

my mother worked as a nurse in a center very similar to this and she would come home some nights with tear-filled eyes as another child she had grown fond of and worked closely with had passed away. a very harsh and tragic reality of the sometimes short lifespan the disfigured and severely handicapped, a loving staff was their only savior but all too often the ones who worked the longest and rose in the ranks were the heartless and cruel.

love it.

Is this one of those other weight loss contraptions?

Isn't the containing cage for the blades back and to the left? I don't believe that a manufacturer, even in the old days, would get away with selling a bladed fan like that without a protective cage.

Motts ---> regarding the word "client":

People who lived in institutions were initially called "inmates" to reflect that they were involuntarily incarcerated. When The Powers That Be decided that a disability was not quite an intentional act, the model moved to a medical one, and "inmates" became "patients" who lived on "wards." With the changing emphasis on "rehabilitation" and the (partial) dropping of the medical model, the label switched to "residents," reflecting that they weren't "patients" but instead people who resided (lived) in these facilities. Times changed and the decision was made to quit calling people by a label that just referred to where they lived. The model changed to habilitation and active (as opposed to custodial) treatment and the term chosen was "clients."

In my mind the positive thing about this particular label is that it infers something very radical and invaluable and is a total change from previous models, and that is that by definition a "client" is someone who decides who gives them services and can therefore choose who provides that service. The provider is a paid person whose job it is to provide a service for that client. For the first time a label reflects that one person is paying another person and that they have some say in their treatment - there is some reciprocity for the first time. I personally believe that this was a huge step forward in the field and it only occurred about 20 or so years ago as an extension of the human rights and People First movements.

Today the label has changed to "consumer" or "individual." Like everyone else, I would love to drop labels entirely. The problem is, if a person doesn't have a label that describes specific program eligibility criteria, s/he doesn't qualify for services. I know that all of us in the field would be thrilled to find a word to use to discuss the people we work with, but it becomes very confusing to call everyone the same thing - staff and people receiving services - and it becomes one large mouthful to say what I keep writing - "people with disabilities." If you just call them "people" then you have to say, "You people who are paid to work here need to get the group of people who pay to live here and come to dinner." And if you try to call everyone by name this doesn't work, because many of these folks can't understand you if you call multiple names at one time - that's just too much information to process.

You know, this stuff is really much harder and more complicated than it looks. I do wish everyone who comes to your site would volunteer to work for a week in a group home, a special ed class, a mental health clinic, or an ER room and then see what terminology they would then use. Maybe they could help us with some good ideas. We always need new blood. This isn't a field that people exactly flock to, after all. :-)

If you have large people who don't have control of their bodies and who do not understand the concept of danger, there is great potential for them falling out of bed and getting injured. When they are in bed you need some sort of barrier to prevent them from falling out.

If, like most institutions, you had little money, you had several choices. You could strap them in so they wouldn't fall out (restraint! Eeeks!), you could lay everyone on the floor on mattresses so when they rolled over they wouldn't have far to go (how callous! How barbaric!), you could make wooden sides for the beds (but then the person in the bed couldn't see anything but the ceiling), or you could go for a large crib which at least offered some way of seeing what went on. I think there would have been equal criticisms had they chosen ANY of these options.

Again, it's easy to be critical of the situation if you aren't aware of the cultural views at the time. People with handicaps were sent away because they were considered "incurable," families were strongly encouraged to leave them behind, the state received very small amounts of money for their care, and the staff were paid outrageously low salaries and were generally treated like grunts. If it wasn't for the group of underpaid but dedicated and caring staff who kept these folks alive, even if they had to fight management and other staff who didn't feel likewise, many of these folks wouldn't be alive today (and there are MANY people still alive today who lived in institutions when they were at their most crowded peaks in the 60s and 70s). There were also courageous families who stood up for their loved ones in these places and fought for more money for better care and for money for community placements because they didn't receive any government assistance if they tried to keep their loved ones at home.

And just try to care at home for a large person with a severe to profound handicapping condition without support from others, and do it day after day after week after month after year. And don't get too comfortable and try to sleep through the night because your loved one DOESN'T understand danger and something terrible could happen if your attention wandered or you slept too soundly. This was not a black and white "institutions = bad, staff = bad, families = bad," but a mixture of what was believed at the time.

I challenge anyone who is critical of what happened back then to have been part of the culture at the time to have acted much differently, especially with the lack of support they would have gotten. This is NOT a defense of how things used to be - they were atrocious - but this IS an attempt to educate people on why it happened so that it doesn't happen again. The budget is getting tighter and institutional budgets are getting squeezed, as are the budgets for community and home programs for folks with disabilities.

I hope all of you who have expressed concern about what you have seen on Motts' site are contacting your local and state governments and asking for increased funding for people with disabilities. Otherwise saying "tut tut" and being outraged about what happened in the past - while ignoring that it is funding that prevents this from happening today in your very own community - means you are also turning a blind eye and are part of the problem.

[OK - sorry - jumping back down off soapbox again.]

I bet many a turd had been flung against the wall and door, here.

This place really IS Byberry's younger brother.

This is beautiful! It's a gorgeous fireplace! I would kill for something like this in my house!

This is disturbing. What kind of adults were placed in "cribs"? Looks more like a crude cage to me. Like these people were treated like animals in a zoo.

They do have a certain retro-air to them, don't they? I could see them in a sitting room with a big fat cat sleeping on one of them.

Look at the lack of protection around the fan's blades! Jeezus!

More than one abandoned bike? That just sends chills through me! Like everyone just abanded the place before they were prepared to do so.