APpreciate it!

This recurring column will showcase the special, tough and/or adoptee-centric actions from adoptive parents that we know or know about.

Today we feature adoptive parent Teri Russo of Staten Island. She founded Down Syndrome, Inc. in 1972. It is a  100%  volunteer organization. It has no payroll and all costs are funded  through contributions by Teri and the community.

According to the website, ” Teri is the mother of four sons each with Downs Syndrome, and each of whom she adopted while infants or toddlers. Teri’s boys range from age 21 years to 42 years.

In 1972 Teri formed the DSF and established the Down Syndrome Learning Center at an abandoned VOA fresh air camp in Tottenville. The Learning Center included an infant stimulation program, pre-k, kindergarten & graded elementary classes, as well as a full recreation program & sleep away camp. The program provided music therapy, reading classes, wood shop, speech therapy (at Rutgers University) and day trips. DSF also continued their programs after the children reached the age of five, even though city, state & federal money no longer paid for their education.

DSF got involved with the Boy Scouts and the Special Olympics, first as a training club then joining Staten Island Special Olympics, an activity that continues to this day. DSF has certified coaches in a number of sports and its young people have excelled in many venues. Many of DSF’s original students still compete in the Special Olympics even though they are into their forties.

DSF continued at the Tottenville site until 1990. When the owners took back the property that DSF occupied, Teri turned the main floor of her home into classrooms & continued the education program there. In 1995, Teri was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and had to close the school because her disease was affecting her performance. Nonetheless, Teri and the DSF continue to advocate for proper placement with the NY City Board of Education or day habilitation programs. DSF remains active in the SIDDSO Regional Council, and Teri serves on the Planning Committee for future development of the Willowbrook Property. Teri and DSF have provided emergency housing in her home as the need arises, and has had ten individuals stay with her at various times over the past 15 years. DSF continues to counsel families and women in crisis, especially pregnant women being coerced into aborting their fetus with Down Syndrome, averaging four cases per year. DSF also continues to provide ongoing support for families who have had children in their programs over the past 40 years, and average up to three calls per day. ”

Planned Adult Housing

“DSF is working with United Cerebral Palsy of New York (“CP”) and the NY State Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities (“OMRDD”) to establish group homes for Staten Island Residents that will be a real home, not just an institution where a person with Downs Syndrome can live out his or her life regardless of age or infirmity. DSF first presented this idea to OMRDD twenty years ago and has been actively pursuing this for more than five years. DSF has elected to partner with CP to run the homes once they are established because CP has years of experience, and has been very successful in running medically fragile group homes. This project is to construct a new two story six bedroom home intended to become the first CP operated group home as described above.

This first home is now under construction on vacant land adjacent to Teri’s home that Teri has donated to DSF. Known as “Teri’s House”, the home will be a six bedroom, six bathroom “home” designed to accommodate and care for up to six full time residents, including residents that require critical, 24 hour care, together with staffing to operate the home. Teri’s House is being built to the rigorous NYS Group Home standards such that, upon completion, the new home is expected to be leased to CP who will operate the home as a group home and have the ability to place additional residents as space becomes available. The home will be placed in a trust and, upon the death of the death of the last Russo, title will pass to CP and the home will continue as a CP group home for up to six New York State/City residents under the care of CP.

The second home is planned for the site of the Russo’s current home. Once Teri’s House is c completed and occupied, that property will be cleared and plans created for the second home which will be build to the same NYS standards and become another permanent group home for Down’s Syndrome adults. Teri has already identified residents for that home as well. ”

Recent Article

“A native Staten Islander, she is a veteran, having served in the Navy as a Corpsman administering to returning wounded veterans from Vietnam in California. Always a humanitarian, she started the Down Syndrome Learning Center here in 1969 and in 1973 it grew into a foundation. Teri was the first Lesbian to adopt a child in New York State in 1975. When mothers gave birth to a child with Down syndrome and did not want the child on two occasions, she brought the child home from the hospital and became their mother. She adopted another son with Down syndrome from Willowbrook State School. ”

Fundraiser

“An awards breakfast is scheduled for Sunday, Oct. 14 in The Staaten, 697 Forest Ave., West Brighton. Doors open at 9:30 a.m.

Tickets for the breakfast are priced at $25. for children and $35. for adults. There will be raffle baskets to win and a 50/50.

To make a reservation, mail a check made out to the Down Syndrome Foundation, 74 Pleasant Plains Ave., Staten Island, NY 10309.” or see http://www.terishouse.org/

Fundraiser to help Staten Island advocate for those with Down syndrome

[Staten Island Advance 9/16/12 by Jim Smith]

REFORM Model Behaviors: Fighting for therapies and interventions; supporting other parents; and planning and paying it forward for special needs adoptees when they become adults.

 

We appreciate it! We hope you do too.