Agency serves as model for special needs advocacy.

Byline: TIM CHRISTIE The Register-Guard

Terry and George Kimball grew so frustrated with the treatment that their autistic son Jack received during his kindergarten year at a Springfield elementary school that they talked about hiring a lawyer.

Jack and another autistic child were isolated from the rest of the kindergarten class, and the parents tried without success to get Jack integrated into the rest of the class, Terry Kimball said.

"I was beating my head against the wall and getting nowhere," she said.

Then a friend suggested the family call Direction Service, a Eugene nonprofit group that helps people with special needs children navigate the complicated, often confusing maze of government and private support programs and services.

A Direction Service case coordinator named Andrea Watrud steered them to another school in the district that was more amenable to new ideas for disabled and special needs students. She held meetings with the school principal and teachers, and helped forge an education plan for Jack in first grade.

"She kept us out of an adversarial relationship with the school district," Terry Kimball said. "Andrea was the person who said, `The school district wants a good outcome, you want a good outcome. You can work together and here's how you can do it.' '

This week, Direction Service is marking its 25th year of helping local children with autism, learning disorders and physical and mental disabilities.

"We advocate for a mix of services that gives kids the best shot at succeeding and families the best opportunity to live the sorts of normal lives we all aspire to," said Executive Director Marshall Peter.

Staff members help broker agreements when parents and schools aren't seeing eye to eye, for example. The organization has spawned a counseling program and has become a national center for resolving disputes involving special education children.

Along the way, it's helped about 6,000 Lane County families.

A different approach

Direction Service began after a think tank hired by the U.S. Education Department issued a national report in 1974 on programs for families with disabled children.

The report found that parents were overwhelmed by the tangle of agencies representing federal, state, county and private interests, Peter said.

In 1976, the Department of Education asked for proposals to create a model project to help parents make sense of the system. Richard Zeller, at the Northwest Regional Resource Center at the University of Oregon, wrote a grant that led to the creation of Direction Service and four other parent-assistance centers in the Northwest.

The Eugene agency started out with five employees working out of an office at the UO. It moved to a small house in an alley at 17th and Moss, then to several elementary schools before settling at its current spot - 3411 Willamette St. at the former Dunn Elementary School.

Peter, fresh out of graduate school, was one of the original staff members.

"Looking back, we had no idea what the problem was," he said. "Initially, it was overwhelming. I don't think we had any idea what we were up against until we said, `OK, let's start.'

"When we first went out and started meeting with families, we really began to understand what a mess it was."

Staff members were determined to take a different approach to helping families, and to recognize parents as experts on their children, he said. "We structured everything around what was convenient for families," he said.

Turning points

The agency survived a scare in 1982, when it was told that funding for its sixth year had been eliminated as the Reagan administration cut federal social service budgets. Soon, 22 of 25 federally funded parent-assistance centers around the country failed.

Direction Service quickly incorporated as a nonprofit agency and appealed to the Eugene, Springfield and Bethel school districts for money. The districts agreed to fund the agency, recognizing special-needs students did better in school if they got help at home, Peter said.

The next year, the Lane Educational Service District, which provides support services to the 16 school districts in Lane County, provided funds to Direction Service.

Another turning point came in the early 1990s, when the Oregon Research Institute studied the mental health of parents of special needs children. The researchers found the parents were two to three times more likely to be depressed than the general population. So, Direction Service created a separate counseling agency, Peter said.

Then, about eight years ago, Direction Service made a "major midcourse correction," Peter said. The agency began to take a less strident and more collaborative stance with school officials, he said.

Part of the shift was the result of experimenting with conflict resolution strategies and part of it came from several personal experiences that convinced Peter he needed to change himself.

He said he found he could be overbearing with school officials, sometimes leaving them in tears, when advocating for families. "I had become increasingly strident and mean-spirited," he said.

Another impetus for change occurred after he and his wife hired a team of attorneys to fight Portland school officials to get services for their daughter, who was profoundly disabled and being treated in a Portland hospital.

The dispute was settled out of court, but the "blood lust and fighting" left Peter with a bad taste in his mouth.

Direction Service began taking a more conciliatory approach in its dealing with schools, he said.

Four years ago, the agency won a Department of Education grant and was selected as the National Center for Dispute Resolution in Special Education.

The center, known as the Consortium for Appropriate Dispute Resolution in Special Education or CADRE, gives technical assistance to state education departments and parent-assistance centers.

Real help available

Jim Fanning, principal of Guy Lee Elementary in Springfield, where Jack Kimball is finishing second grade, said Direction Service does good work.

Its staff has been helpful and productive when working with parents on individual education plans for special education students, he said. The federally mandated plans outline the needs of children who qualify for special education services. Under federal law, all children are entitled to a "free and appropriate" public education, and the plans are meant to ensure that happens.

Direction Service officials help parents understand the education jargon being used, ask questions parents sometimes wouldn't think to ask and reassure parents that school officials are doing all they can, Fanning said.

"They look for solutions," he said. "I think they've been helpful."

Terry Kimball agreed. She said case coordinator Andrea Watrud ran the last meeting to plot an education plan for Jack.

"I can't tell you how great Andrea has been - how useful, how helpful, how productive she has been," Kimball said. "It's been amazing."

DIRECTION SERVICE

Staff: About 25 full- and part-time staff.

Case coordination: Helps about 400 families a year.

Counseling: Helps about 300 families and individuals through its counseling center.

Budget: $1 million annual budget; half of that is a federal grant that pays for CADRE, its dispute resolution center; the rest comes from local and federal grants and agencies.

Celebration: Dinner and Monte Carlo night Friday at the Eugene Hilton. Robert Pasternack, assistant secretary in the U.S. Education Department, is the keynote speaker.

More information: 686-5060; www.directionservice.org

CAPTION(S):

Terry Kimball helps her son Jack, 8, on a computer in the library at Guy Lee School in Springfield. Kimball was aided by a Direction Service case coordinator to work with schools and develop an education plan for Jack.