Making a new home at Paxton Ministries

By Peggy Mumper – Harrisburg (Pa.) BIC

“For some people, their whole selves have been defined by a mental health issue, and so much else has been sold short. They have been warehoused and seen as needing constant supervision and care,” explains Shelva Leep, the new director of community living programs at Paxton Ministries, a BIC-associated ministry based in Harrisburg, Pa., which provides housing and support for mental health and retardation clients from disadvantaged settings. “But many of them can recover, can marry, can have jobs. With some stability and support, I think we will be amazed at what these people can do.”

And in so saying, Shelva reveals a dramatic shift taking place in what healthcare professionals like those at Paxton Ministries are viewing as the best ways to serve mental health patients. Coupled with improved medication prescription techniques that have been developed over the last 20 years, huge strides have been made in finding out that many of those with mental and developmental disabilities are best served when they live in interdependence with others rather than in dependence upon a facility.

But unfortunately, many mental health facilities have not kept up with these advances. Even with heightened awareness of medication use, Shelva reports that “the system [of care] has created dependency, and clients have to rely on the system.” Thus, many are never given the opportunity to live as independently as they might be able. To remedy this, Paxton Ministries, along with the Pennsylvania State Department of Welfare, is re-evaluating its mental healthcare goals to better reflect their vision to help clients achieve recovery—not just reliance—in the least restrictive environment possible.

Up to this point, Paxton Ministries has served as a parent organization to Paxton Street Home (PSH), which provides housing and meals, supervises medications, and offers a social support network to its residents. Although the staff members of PSH believe these options will always be necessary for some, they also believe clients should be offered a wider range of alternatives. “Some residents don’t need to be here, and they are not well-served because they can do more for themselves,” says Chris Book, Executive Director of Paxton Ministries.

“We know that many of these people can create a ‘family’ system, can negotiate a group living situation, can offer peer-to-peer support,” Shelva adds. So Paxton staff members have studied and begun to incorporate the work pioneered by the Coalition for Community Living in its development of Fairweather Lodges. This concept of communal living in lodges was based upon the research conducted by Dr. George Fairweather in California in the 1960s. According to CCL’s website, Dr. Fairweather’s investigations found that “people with serious mental illnesses are less likely to return to the hospital when they live and work together as a group, rather than live and work individually.” The site notes that the lodge program helps mental health patients stay in community longer, provides them with more employment opportunities, and costs less than conventional treatment programs.

“For some of our clients, nobody has ever believed in them,” Chris says. “Now we think that as many as one third of our residents could be in a lodge setting.” So, for those PSH clients who opt to take part in the lodge program, the transition into a shared house will hopefully begin this year. The five to eight residents will be assisted in working out a community agreement or set of house rules by which they will all abide. Meal preparation and planning, as well as other household tasks, will be done by the residents as they pursue interdependence, which CCL’s website calls “a more mature stage of human development than independence.” Plans for job opportunities are currently in the works, and a capital campaign will be launched as residents for the first lodge are being selected.

A support person, who Shelva describes as “basically working himself out of a job,” will also be on hand at each lodge to help with the initial transition and other problems or concerns that lodge residents might encounter. The lodge will also always have access to support through Paxton Ministries. “Some may go in to a lodge and find it doesn’t work out for them, so they will go back to another setting. Sometimes there will be an ebb and flow in needs,” says Chris.
But, Shelva observes, even this is a very positive thing for residents. “We have removed the whole element of consequences for so long because we don’t want to watch people fail. [But we need to teach our residents that] it’s okay to fail. We just need to have support systems to help them manage these failures and consequences. So often, we just protect people from failing,” she says. “But then we’ve robbed people of so much of life.”

And it is this aspect of life—being able to make one’s own decisions in order to explore, and even fail at times—that makes the lodge plan so valuable for those at PSH, many of whom have not been given that opportunity before. “Lodge residents can make choices that are in their own best interests. We feel that this is also what God desires for his people in terms of human dignity and that it fits what Christ modeled in caring for others,” states Chris.
With this broader vision, Paxton Ministries seeks to model both to the church and the community new ways of meeting the needs of those with developmental disabilities or in need of mental health services. Chris and Shelva say they believe that the lodging program is an opportunity for others to become more educated about the needs of individuals who have developmental disabilities or who require mental health care.

“We believe this fits with God’s heart,” said Chris. “People shouldn’t assume recovery means total healing. Recovery means you don’t have to stay where you are. Recovery will be a lifelong journey.”

To support Paxton or to find out more about the ministry, visit Paxton’s website at paxtonmin.org.