Table Of ContentDOCUMENT RESUME
ED 374 609
EC 303 331
AUTHOR
Racino, Julie Ann
TITLE
The Closing of Laconia: From the Inside Out.
INSTITUTION
Community and Policy Studies, Syracuse, NY.
PUB DATE
93
NOTE
34p.; For related documents, see EC 303 329-332 and
ED 355 735.
PUB TYPE
Reports
Descriptive (141)
EDRS PRICE
MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage.
DESCRIPTORS
Adults; *Agency Cooperation; Case Studies; *Change
Agents; Change Strategies; Children; Community
Programs; *Deinstitutionalization (of Disabled);
*Developmental Disabilities; *Personnel Management;
Placement; Program Development; Program Termination;
*Residential Institutions; Staff Utilization; State
Government; State Programs
IDENTIFIERS
*Laconia Developmental Services NH; New Hampshire
ABSTRACT
This case study shares the perspectives of two
individuals who worked from within Laconia Developmental Services (a
state institution in New Hampshire for people with developmental
disabilities) to close it. One individual was institutional
superintendent and the other served as a liaison officer among the
state government offices, Laconia Developmental Services, and the
community service system represented by area agencies. The
institutional superintendent identified four major areas
as critical
in the internal. process of closing Laconia: (1) revisions in the
personnel system; (2) caring for and about staff members; (3)
restructuring and reorganizing the institution as it became smaller;
and (4) maintaining institutional quality during the closure process.
The liaison officer helped people from the community and institution
to "get to know each other," in order to facilitate community
placements by improving relationships between the community and
institutional staff. Primary strategies for facilitating changes
included: finding the window of opportunity, building trust and
sharing expertise between the community and institutional system,
reinvigorating the internal process by building on the knowledge and
skills of institutional staff, shifting the attention of the
area
agencies to the people left in the institution, and focusing
on
individuals. Other critical issues included finances, the advantages
of not having a formal closure plan, working with parents, developing
individualized placements, and developing a capacity to make
compromises and solve problems. (JDD)
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this document has been
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THE CLOSING OF LACONIA: FROM
THE INSIDE OUT
COMMUNITY AND POLICY
STUDIES
"PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS
MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY
4
TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES
INFORMA.ION CENTE '
.RIC)"
riEST Est v
THE CLOSING OF LACONIA: FROM THE INSIDE OUT
Julie Ann Racino
POLICY STUDIES
COMMUNITY AND
Syracuse, New York
1993
This is one in a series of qualitative case studies on state
and national practices in deinstitutionalization and community
integration and the changes that will be necessary to promote
the full participation of people with disabilities in all
aspects of community life and daily policymaking. The research
for this study was conducted in Fall 1991 through Summer 1992
in the state of New Hampshire. The author particularly extends
Crocker their
Watson
for
Doug Richard
thanks and
to
contributions to this case study.
When people understand these are the right things
to do, even if it comes at a personal cost, they
don't stand in the way.
1
Institutional Superintendent
- Ray Bardley
,
1991, Laconia Developmental Services (LDS)
On January 31,
closed its doors making the state of New Hampshire the first one
in the United States without a public institution for people with
developmental disabilities. This is part of the story of two
people, Ray Bardley and John Simmons, who worked from within the
institution to close it and the personal struggles and professional
dilemmas they faced.
Ray, who was institutional superintendent at the time of the
closure of Laconia, returned to New Hampshire from his supported
employment agency director role out west. He had worked as a
community services planner in New Hampshire in its development
stages and decided to come back for this role based on the
suggestion of his previous secretary.
at Laconia in August
John Simmons arrival
a
1988
"was
After a tumultuous period with one of
wonderful stroke of luck."
his board members, John departed from his position as one of the
Because he was the
state's 12 area agency executive directors.
"valued person in the system you hate to see leave or hurt," he was
hired to work part-time at both the state division office and at
Laconia in a flexible role.
This case study, which is based on semistructured interviews
1
Ray Bardley and John Simmons are pseudonyms, which are used
due to diversity in the opinions regarding the use of actual names.
1
within
with these two talented and committed individuals and others
on what
they
learned,
their perspectives
shares
state,
the
including how to pay attention to all of the people involved,
whether they are the staff members or the residents who lived there
during the closure process. As one of many diverse stories that
Laconia closure,
form a composite picture of the inside view of the
it is particularly meant to be shared with those who are working
within for change.
INTERNAL CONSIDERATIONS IN INSTITUTIONAL CLOSURE
There are probably as many different ways to examine the
internal experience of the closure of Laconia as there are people
an
the
Through eyes
of
who were
the process.
involved
in
administrator working within the institution, four major areas were
particularly critical in the internal process of closing Laconia:
revisions in the personnel system, caring for and about staff
restructuring and reorganizing the institution as it
members,
quality during
and maintaining institutional
became smaller,
closure process.
Revising the Personnel System
From an administrator's view, the closure of an institution
is a tremendous personnel job with the lives of many people, both
staff and residents, affected by the decisions that are made.
Several critical strategies were used which affected how the
These
personnel system operated during the closure process.
included: taking direct control of the personnel system, investing
2
and revising the performance
in staff values based training,
outcome system.
Taking control of the personnel system
When one of the first building closures at Laconia occurred,
the institutional management team met to discuss the staffing
40
decisions that had been made. At Laconia, as in many institutions,
the staff members from that building had been reshuffled to other
buildings and locations within the institution, so no actual staff
reductions had taken place. As Ray shared,
I said, well, I guess we can talk about reducing the staff
because that building closed and there (were) so many people
My managers...weren't up to this...
associated with
it.
Everyone played dumb. What happened to the staff?..Of course,
what happens in a lot of large organizations. People had been
moved around and buried in different sorts of ways. Literally,
twenty people had been buried (in obscure job roles).
In response to this situation, Ray decided to take direct control
of the personnel system, so that no decisions for the rest of the
closure process were made without his involvement. As he said:
The next day, I took personal control of the whole personnel
system and that was the smartest thing I ever did because no
in terms of terminations, discipline,
personnel decision,
anything, could be done without my involvement...Eventually,
I was able to loosen up on that, but we revamped the whole
personnel structure.
Thursday morning personnel management
established
also
He
a
meeting, which came to be known as the "cut and slash committee",
where the hard decisions regarding staff reductions took place
The participants
included
the
under himself,
direction.
his
personnel team, and two business office personnel. These meetings
3
by the program staff who did not feel
were viewed with suspect
While
represented, even though Ray said he was a program person.
strategy, Ray described the emotions that
an effective management
decisionmaking that occurred:
were involved in the
People used to think we
Those little cut and slash meetings.
in an aloof, unfeeling manner
sat up there and kind of
whatever...
destroyed people's lives by laying them off or
in there.
Those were awful meetings...There was crying
Investing in staff values based training.
Laconia was
The original design of the personnel system at
punitive, capricious
viewed by one of the administrators as "a very
This resulted in a lot of time being invested in
type of system."
about the way
appeals meetings with the labor board down in Concord
employees were treated.
of the
One strategy considered to be an essential part
institutional closure process was to revamp the disciplinary
counseling as
structure, making it less punitive with training and
this new focus on
the responses to disciplinary issues. As part of
training, huge amounts of money were invested in values based
training in areas such as PASS or PASSING, which are founded on the
principles of normalization. "This theme was woven into all aspects
everything."
of training, including driver's ed(ucation), nursing,
management,
At one time, over 70 staff, including all of the top
had attended
the middle managers, and even some direct care staff
this training. As Ray describes the effect this had on one woman
who was very "client-oriented,
4
I sent her to Kentucky and she couldn't believe that I would
She was always client oriented
send her for PASS or PASSING.
and had good values system. It was just who she was and she
came back and she said "I understand now" and she quit; she
retired.
As John echoed, "I just think that was very, very critical to help
institutional staff understand" why they were working to get people
out of the institution. This effort was so successful, that in
1991, the key leadership in New Hampshire's Alliance for Values
As Ray
Based Training,
employees.
former
were institutional
explained, the staff "were doing what was expected of them, and
when we changed those expectations and gave them some training and
some values, a lot of people changed. (Federal ICF-MR surveyors
said they had) never seen such high quality institutional staff and
that was because of the training."
Revising the staff performance outcome system.
Although the personnel system was revamped to become more
focused on staff development and training, by 1988, performance
standards were raised, deficiencies in staff performance were made
known to other staff members, and a series of steps to respond to
disciplinary issues were put into place. The performance standards
were not about quality per se, but about doing your job, meeting
objectives within a certain timeframe. If people were consistently
appearing on the deficiency list, "a disciplinary process (would
begin) which started with counseling, questioning, asking if they
We
needed more training and support, and could get very serious.
ended up terminating a few people."
5
Caring For and About Staff
Probably more than anything else, the personnel changes and
strategies were all based on principles of valuing and caring about
and for the staff. Specific strategies included: creating a future
the
appreciating
employment,
in
fairness
professionals,
for
environmental context of the staff's work, and finding people jobs
and staff support.
Creating a future for professionals
One of the creative ideas that Ray had early on proved to be
critical in gaining the support of key professionals and managers.
equipient
This was the development of a "cutting edge" adaptive
center on the grounds of the institution, which is now a state
support center. Through creating a future for the professionals,
they stayed:
year with
problem after
first
the
had very
little
We
professional staff because I created a future for ots, pts,
speech pathologists... It is the adaptive equipment center,
which is now a state support center. We had no problem.
Key managers who would be necessary throughout the process
their jobs.
were told that every effort would be made to preserve
and
An effort was made to ask them what they wanted in the future
is
to make arrangements to see if that could happen for them. Ray
satisfied that "all of them really ended up doing exactly what they
asked for, except for one, and she kept changing what she wanted
okay...They knew I meant
so it was hard to orchestrate, but she's
that. I went and...orchestrated it for everyone..."
S
Appreciating the environmental context of staff's work
Unlike the negative images often portrayed of institutional
staff, the administration believed in them, recognizing that staff
members needed to adjust to their environment.
When given the
opportunity to do "wonderful things" like going down to Dunkin
Donuts with one of tha residents for coffee or going out to buy
clothes, "they just loved it." As Ray explained, "And as it turns
out, there are a lot of people here who are very good people, very
committed, very dedicated to what they are doing, but have never
been given the tools or the information to do anything other than
what they are doing."
Ray explained that many of the long time staff members who
came to the institution when they were younger could not at first
believe the conditions in the institution or the way that people
41
were living. He said, "They said...I couldn't believe what I was
seeing. But this is...what everybody is doing and eventually, you
adjusted to it." Ray said he understood that it was hard, if not
41
impossible, for people to hold beliefs that are incompatible with
their personal experiences in their environment. In line with human
nature, the staff members adjusted to what many originally felt was
41
an abnormal environment and over time came to see that as routine.
Instead of portraying the institution itself as a bad place,
though, Ray described the problem more in terms of dormitory living
41
as a permanent lifestyle for people. As he said:
I simply said look you have thirty people living in a group.
I used to live in college in a dorm and I couldn't hack it
because of the number of people there. There is no way that
30 people can live comfortably in normal ways in groups of 30.
7
10
