State Rep. Paul Adams Visits NuPath

WOBURN:  was honored to welcome Representative Paul Adams (R) to its Woburn headquarters located at 147 New Boston Street, on July 26th.

Sheri McCann, President and CEO of NuPath said, “We’re happy that you voted for the Salary Reserve and our staff is very excited to talk to you.  We’ve had a number of Legislators in over the past several months, so we’re starting to get to know our Legislators in different areas.”

Representative Adams began by stating, “These things shouldn’t be just my priority, but everyone in the Legislature’s priority.  They are essential services and I’m happy to support them.”

Veronica Knox, a Relief worker, said, “I am a full time college student.  I began at NuPath in their service program. After I got my Associates Degree I was officially hired.  I am now pursuing my Bachelors degree in Social Work and I work 2 full time jobs during the summer to save up enough money to go back to school.  But at the salary we are at, it makes me wonder about my future in the field.  It’s hard just saving money during the summer to go back and thinking of paying off my student loans and everything.  But I love the field and I cannot imagine being in any other field.”

 “I’m glad you mentioned that,” Rep Adams said, “because after having taken a look at the budget for the last 2 years, I try to be as diligent as possible about going through the line items before I actually vote on them.  I’ve put in numerous requests to various offices, including the Governor’s office, and sometimes I don’t even get a response as to what those line items mean.  So, either I’m not hearing what they actually are or someone doesn’t want me to know or they just don’t know.  But I have a feeling this is a problem throughout State government, we’re spending a lot of money on things that otherwise might not be top priorities.  When you have a recession it forces you to prioritize on the things that are most important.  I think having a good look at the budget, knowing what we’re spending money on, and making sure it is prioritized for those who need it the most is a top priority. We go back for a supplemental budget 5 or 6 or 7 times per year.  There’s no reason we shouldn’t be giving a higher Salary Reserve to people who need it the most.  That is just my philosophy, just to let you know where I’m coming from.”

Continuing with the staff stories, Gabriel Anson who works in Residential said, “I’m in night school, I’m going for my Masters in Direct Care in this field.  We really work with this group and enjoy working with them, sometimes now in the summer, we’ll take them to the beach.  It is very good on that level, but the salary is tough because now I have to pay my school fees.  It is difficult.”

Ms. McCann stated, “We do new staff orientation about every 5 or 6 weeks, and each time I ask if anyone has 2 jobs and a few hands go up, then I ask does anyone work 3 jobs and the rest of the hands go up. They cannot continue to survive on the salary of this one job.”

Dan Lannan, Director of Day Habilitation Services, continued, “Just to give you a little more perspective, some people come in for 1^st shift (8-4) then will go to a Residential program (maybe not to NuPath), and do a shift from 4-11 there.  We’re so used to it that we go right into our story of one job to another, stopping home to take a shower then do an overnight.  It is common in our field.”

Nanci Feliz, from Day Services, told her story next, “I am a mother and a grandmother.  I started working here in this program in 2007 and I fell in love with the program.  I love my people, but like Sheri says, some of us have to work hard, 2 and 3 jobs, like me, I have 3.  The money we get from here isn’t enough.  It’s really hard for us because we have to serve the people that need “all” of our attention, they demand attention.  But how can we provide the best for them when we come here tired, full of problems.  I have a question for you, Representative Adams, What does it mean to you to be the eyes to see for somebody else?  What does it mean to you to be the hands that can feed somebody else?  What does it mean to you to be the legs that can walk for them? We are! We need your help.  I’m a citizen, I can vote.  I do vote.  That is why I encourage you, why I voted, we can decide your future, try to protect our programs.”

Sharon Pitts, Director of Health Services, said, “I came here 14 years ago to take the Health Care Supervisor position in the Day Hab when there were 14 individuals.  The most severely medical person then was someone with a seizure disorder, now we have 90 people in our Day Habilitation Program in Woburn and 45 in Westford, and an additional 45 in vocational. We have people with G-tubes (total care), which is most of the people there.  The staff really cannot support themselves.  Working is rewarding but it can be very frustrating.  Most people stay because they love it, but we really need to make sure that we get a raise, seriously. Everything’s gone up.”

Ms. McCann said, “People come to me and say, ‘why can’t you pay us more?’.  The answer is we have not received a cost of living increase since 1989.  Let me repeat that, 1989!  This means that for “Michael” back in 1989, we received $6,000 per year in the program to support him, and in 2012 we are still getting $6,000.  In that timeframe, aside from the cost of living going up on everything, Michael has aged and now has more medical issues and requires more care and costs more.  As new people come into the program, they do get a better rate, but all the individuals who have been in the program for years, are still at their original rate, without any cost of living increases.”

 “That’s right, that’s absolutely right,” stated Rep. Adams, “My thoughts on this, we have a budget that increases every year, spending more than we did the year before.  This year it is $32.5B, last year it was $31B, it continues to increase, revenues are at all time highs, yet we still can’t pay people who deserve it the most.  That is an equation that doesn’t make sense to me.  These are the battles that I think we are fighting and not just me, I think a lot of Representatives are.  This administration is not representing the interests of the people at multiple levels, and I think as long as we can get an explanation of where the money is going, then we can have a real discussion of where we think the priorities are; and we can start by putting our foot down with public support, I think, overwhelming support of this is where it should go, with NuPath being one example.  That’s one of my explanations.”

Ms. McCann further explained, “There are 185,000 human service workers in the Commonwealth, one in ten people are touched by Human Services, needing it to take care of a child, a parent, people with a disabled child, people who have a child with drug abuse, One in Ten!!  If you think about it, Human Service workers pay taxes, we buy food, we buy clothing, we vote, we are active in our community.  We are the backbone of this Commonwealth, and yet our people work two or three jobs and come to work exhausted.  We need to exert pressure on our legislature to understand what this means and what we contribute.  If we went away there’d be a major problem throughout the Commonwealth.

Ms. McCann then explained about The Caring Force (www.thecaringforce.org) which is a collaborative of all the Human Service trades and provider groups in the State.  “The goal of the Caring Force is to bring together all the people who care about Human Services, care about the people we serve and our staff, to influence policy in the Commonwealth.  Members get regular emails about the Caring Force. They get regular opportunities to interact with their Representatives and Senators. They know what’s going on all of a sudden because we have the communication potential to give them the information that they need in order to take action.  So, we think it’s going to be very powerful as time goes on.  We’re hoping all our State Representatives and Senators will join with us to care about Human Services and to act on their caring. We’d like to ask you to join with us.” (We welcome all to join, so go to www.caringforce.org/page/s/NuPath to sign up today!)

“Absolutely!!” Representative Adams replied and immediately put on The Caring Force Pin, created by individuals served here at NuPath.

Representative Adams then toured the newly renovated facility which boasts a Mail & Distribution Center; Art and Painting Studio; Hospitality Suite; Housekeeping Training; Property Management Business; Landscaping Business; Sewing and Textiles Workrooms; Health and Wellness Center; Career Development Classrooms; Café and Catering Training; Whole Life Planning Studios;  and Journey Productions Micro-business.  The new state of the art space is now providing unparalleled services to individuals served.

Representative Adams walked through the workrooms and was able to see firsthand some of the fabulous gift items being made which he then saw on display in the Mercantile, NuPath’s country store (open Monday through Friday, 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM). 

NuPath Inc. has been a leader in the human services arena for more than 40 years, providing a network of creative day services and residential options for people living with developmental disabilities, autism spectrum disorders and acquired brain injury.  For more information on NuPath’s programs and services, please go to www.nupathinc.org.