Page 8-Sunday, April 8, 1979-The Michigan Daily baker (Continued from Page 7) Aulds and Verosko point to negati".e community reaction as another factor in placing John out. They say neigh- borhoods get angry when they think handicapped people are about to move in, especially if they know they're from Plymouth Center. Furthermore, if he's going to be placed in a group home in a regular neighborhood, one will have to be built or renovated to accommodate. handicapped people. Aulds took exception to what was said in Baker's record regarding his "disadvantaged" family. She claims this had nothing to do with his placement in Plymouth. In her opinion, John's family was not disadvantaged. Her opinion contradicts statements in John's record, which portray him as severely disadvantaged, culturally and economically. His house was described as "falling apart" and "unbelievably filthy." His mother was receiving Aid to Dependent Children, a form of Welfare. He was never taken out of this environment, never sent to school. Both parents were alcoholic. By almost any standard, John was disadvantaged. Verosko has been at Plymouth for four months and says he's seen great improvement in that time alone. He claims that in four months, the patient population has gone down by almost a hundred due to placement, and says that every child in Plymouth is on a placement list. "Sure, bad things happened in the past," he said. "There were bad people here. But we're moving in the right direction now; we're getting things done. It's not as simple as it looks. We can't just say, 'Okay, John shouldn't be here,' and whisk him out. But we're doing everything we can." When asked if Baker will be out of Plymouth in a year, Aulds replied, "Well, we hope." Aulds and Verosko cording to him, there are "all kinds of them," not only in Plymouth, but "all over the country, almost all of them poor." He said he's seen epileptic and blind people in institutions who were carelessly diagnosed as retarded because their disabilities prevented them from doing well on the standard IQ test. Whatever check mechanisms institutions use to separate the physically handicapped from the men- tally impaired appear to be rusty. Jan Hiipakka, special education teacher who works with "high fun- ctioning" people from Plymouth in Northville School's Special Ed. depar- tment, supports O'Malley's view. "John especially shouldn't be there, but I'd say the same about just about everyone in my class," she said. "You see," she explained, "a few years ago, Plymouth just started taking anybody, if there wasn't enough room for them anywhere else. That includes not only handicapped kids, but kids who were supposed to be put in juvenile homes. There's juvenile deliquents out there who are quite normal mentally." John's day-to-day life at Plymouth can perhaps be best described as "adequate." He is fed, clothed, and sheltered in a room complete with car- peting, TV, and stereo. But one visit makes it clear he'd be better off elsewhere.- Willis Hall, where John lives, is free from the heavy antiseptic odor one ex- pects at institutions. The walls are freshly painted, and the floor is clean. There's a bright green bulletin board on one wall where pink construction paper block letters announce, "Spring's Here!" On the other end of the bulletin board, fluffy multi-colored paper flowers are stapled to the green background along with a few photos of residents and a pamphlet that exhorts "Know Your Rights." hate those things. The paint's even wor- se." He gestured with annoyance at the tuna fish pink walls. "That's a ugly color. I wanted it painted tan or light blue, you know. But that's just the way it is. What I want doesn't matter. They painted it pink." He looked around the poster- decorated room and seemed to relent a little. 'It's not such a bad room. They gave me a stereo and TV. But I never get to make decisions." The attendants acknowledge that John's different; they don't lump him in and treat him the same way they do everybody else. John says they give him the keys to the building and let him move around with comparative freedom. "The other residents are looked after; I'm looked upon," said John, putting it more cleanly than I could have, When John talked about the other residents, he showed fondness and respect for them; his eyes began to show their characteristic warmth. He was reluctant to compare them to him- self, and to categorize them as "dum- ber." His sensitivity must stem from experience; he knows what it's like to be carelessly classified as "dumber." "I don't know if they're worse off than I am or not," he said. "I don't know how their intelligence is or how they are because a lot of them can't talk. They could be as smart as me and just not be able to say it in ways I can understand . .. Some people just turn off to them because they're retarded, but they can be communicated with ... If I got out, I'd visit them everyday. I'd never give up on my friends." He also expressed concern that some other residents aren't being given much help in developing their mental abilities. "I feel that they should be taught everything possible and not held back, no matter what their intelligence is," he asserted. After last year's furor over abuse at Plymouth, it may be surprising that John had good things to say about the staff. "Basically, I like the staff I work with," he said. "Sometimes they come in with an attitude-a bad one-but that's understandable. They have a hard job and they don't make the rules ... I've never been abused, and I don't think I ever will be." John stands out as bright to people he's worked with on a day-to-day basis. Norman Hajjar and Jane Gaitskill have worked as volunteers with him over a period of years, and they say he struck them as "different" right away. John's teacher also spoke highly of him: "The other residents have great liking and respect for him. If my kids are misbehaving he makes them toe the line in a good way. He teaches them a lot about morals and values just by example. He's always kind and gentle, which is even more remarkable con- sidering how bitter and frustrated he is about what's happened to him." Brian O'Malley describes John as "the Social Co-ordinator of Willis Hall," and John himself spoke of his abilities with the other residents. "The atten- dants let me help with the kids because they know I'm good at it. I've broken up fights between kids that attendants couldn't handle, just by talking to the kids." S JOHN TALKED about this, there was some pride in his voice. But it was the defensive pride of someone who hasn't been given much credit for his accomplishments. "I want people to appreciate what I can do," he said. "When I get out, I'd like to work with people who have problems. I think I'd be good at it, because of my experience . . . I don't feel at all ap- preciated here." Not feeling appreciated, "low self- image," "bitterness"-all these feelings must be part of the emotional baggage John will take with-him when he leaves Plymouth. When and if he does get out, he might never recover from his experience there. His teacher feels that although he'll probably be able to catch up with time, his ability to learn has been slowed. "If he'd been educated normally, he'd have the same abilities of anyone else," she asserted. "He's not mentally impaired, but when you get older, it's much, much harder to learn." Hiipakka went on to talk about how his social development has been slowed by his stay in Plymouth. "It's so hard to form social relationships there," she explained. "So many of the kids are belo'v his level mentally, there's such a high turn-over in the staff. And the behavior of the attendants is uneven. Some of them are good, but others are really bad." "What can you expect?" exclaimed Hajjar. "He only knows about the outlside world through Channel 7 News, Police Story, and The Flintstones .. . And as for the staff, most of them are nothing more than people who just stand around. What kind of role models can you have at an institution?" Hajjar mentioned a 16-year-old epileptic girl whom he thinks is misplaced at Plymouth. He said he thinks she's "being destroyed" by in- stitutional life, and by being labelled retarded. "She's really a great kid," said Hajjar. "One I told her that she was great and that she could do anything she wanted to do, and she kept saying, 'No, no, I can't do anything, I'm retarded.' Her attitude was that she was a nothing." This girl's self-image has been created for her by her placement in a home for the retarded at a young age. Such negative feelings can implode in a self-fullfilling prophecy of self-contempt and apathy. Even if she is placed out next week, she might never get over her poor self-regard, her feeling of being "a nothing." And John may never recover from the hurt of not feeling appreciated. Verosko insisted that John is an unusual case, that "there are only three of four people at the most" like him at Plymouth, a very tiny percentage. Only three or four like John isn't many, con- sidering Plymouth's 680 patients. But if only one person has been made to feel like "a nothing" due to his misplacement in an institution, it is a tragedy. *1,N ki I claim to be doing their best, but there The start obviously cares enough to are people who feel they're not doing try and make the place pleasant and at- well enough. Brian O'Malley of The tractive. But Willis Hall is still an in- Michigan Association for the Protection stitutional residence. The decor is con- of Retarded Citizens has taken a special crete and formica, the flourescent interest in John's case, and he doesn't lighting is relentless, and the building is think enough is being done. even more regimental than a low-cost O'Malley met John last December, on development, with long, narrow halls a visit to Plymouth. He saw John in the and rooms all roughly the same cubic hall, and started talking to him. He was size and shape. Meals and bedtimes are impressed by John's lucidity, and scheduled. For residents to go out any became sure he shouldn't be at place, they must have someone take Plymouth. "The only real effort to get them who's willing to go through the him out that I know of was back in '74,'' paper work of signing them out for a said O'Malley. "They were actually day, explain where they are going, and thinking about putting John in a house be back in time. on Cass Corridor, where John refused Aside from the physical aspects of to go. That was the last serious effort I life at Plymouth, John plainly doesn't know of." fit in with the people there. The other O'Malley did not, however, put the residents were barely coordinated blame on any one person, or group of enough to walk; they lurched and people. He blames the bureaucracy staggered, their curled fingers groping inherent in large institutions.-"There at anything in sight in an effort to are no wicked people at Plymouth," he steady themselves. Tangled half-words said, "but crazy things go on in in- and noises tumbled out of their mouths stitutions of that size. They have a life when they tried to speak, their eyes of their own. They're multi-million rolled uncontrollably, and drool ran dollar complexes and they feed off down several chins on to the floor. Some people like John Baker." of them are strapped in crash helmets so they won't hurt themselves when ULDS AND VEROSKO didn't they slam their heads against the wall, admit Baker to Plymouth. as they often do. One little girl was trip- Verosko in particular has been ping around with her pants around her there too short a time to be held respon- .ankles, unconcerned and unable to sible for John's situation. It must be retrieve them. According to the aides, frustrating dealing with these people can't eat or get dressed by bureaucracy and red tape of finding a themselves. They even have to be place that doesn't seem to be there. But supervised on the toilet, and if they ten years is a long time. If it is a aren't taken there in time, they'll non- question of building or renovating a chalantly wet their pants. Not everyone house, as Aulds suggested, that could- on the ward is this severely retarded, have been done by now, if it had been but most are. attended to when the first recommen- OHN WHEELS himself down the dations were made. . hall to his room briskly. As we O'Malley eaims thatJahn isn't the, .: enter. the, roomn,,hisfirst. vwrd only persoiwho's beenm ii pide ''Ac re, I ock'*AiC-'s'e'cheapcurtains. 1L V inside:, sunday magazine Co-editors Inanity as the social norm Owen Gleiberman Judy Rakowsky The Ramones: Hard-rocking pinheads Forecastin the Acader Awards Cover photo by Andy Freeberg I.- -' - -. a , . s: ss".a aa . es- ._f