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Agency Profile

Since its incorporation in 1977, The Glades Area ARC has provided a broad range of services to address the needs of people with mental retardation and other developmental disabilities who live in western Palm Beach County. Services have adapted to meet emerging needs and changing opportunities. For example, The Glades Area ARC Developmental Preschool was operated from 1977 until a Federal statutory change required public schools to meet this need in 1994, at which time the preschool was closed and The ARC advocated successfully for the inclusion of these children into the new Pre K-2 program. The agency's adult programs in the early years (Education, Training & Therapy, Adult Day Training, and Sheltered Workshop) operated within a conceptual framework of segregating the affected population at "Centers". Services are now focused on community-integrated services to the greatest degree possible and desired by the individual program participant.

The agency's programs and services have evolved into a continuum of effort beginning with the Homebound Infant Intervention Program for infants and toddlers until three years of age (when the school board assumes its statutory role), and continuing as the ARC's programs help young adults leave the school system and find their places, to the degree they desire, in the everyday community. These programs for adults include Supported Living, Supported Employment and Community Inclusion, programs designed to assist individuals become as independent and contributing a community member as they are capable and wanting to be. In-house programs focus today on inclusion and consumer self-determination, with sheltered activities as stepping stones to the community.

In recent years the advent of federal welfare to work programs have impacted employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities who reside in the area. Palm Beach County has enjoyed very low unemployment and entry level positions are largely unfilled and available. The Glades area continues to shrink, however, maintaining high unemployment exacerbated by greater numbers of candidates seeking entry level positions as a function of disproportionately high levels of individuals at or near the federal poverty level seeking to transition from welfare to work. Greater competition for these positions requires greater supports from programs like the ARC's Supported Employment program for individuals with disabilities to have the opportunity to attempt to succeed.