Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 16, 1993 TAG: 9303160043
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-4 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ROBERT RIVENBARK SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
FINDING LEISURE DIRECTIONS
AGENCY FOR THE RETARDED has changed its name to reflect society's better attitude.
The New River Valley Agency for the Mentally Retarded just became Leisure Directions, a name change that Executive Director Jane Willis called symbolic of society's improved attitude toward the disabled.
"We're helping disabled people find direction in their leisure lives," she said. "That involves integrating them into the community, in keeping with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1991, which moves our society toward inclusive living for retarded people on all fronts."
The name change, Willis said, is part of a national movement seeking to eliminate terms that stigmatize the retarded and substitute value-free terms such a "handicapped," "disabled" or "people with special needs."
Leisure Directions offers a more precise indication of the agency's educational, social and therapeutic recreation programs, she added.
These include a Summer Enrichment Program for school-age children and an adult bowling league that pairs disabled people with community volunteers.
In adopting the new name, Leisure Directions' board of directors sought to underscore the agency's changing mission, Willis said. In the 1960s, when the agency was founded, society excluded the disabled from public schools and the mainstream.
During this period, the agency was an advocacy group that lobbied local, state and national governments for improved treatment and services for the disabled.
The 1970s and '80s saw changes that brought the disabled into public schools and daily life. During these decades, the agency gradually shifted its emphasis from advocacy to services not covered by occupational therapy programs.
Willis said the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act shows society's readiness to embrace the disabled as full-fledged members of society. That readiness prompted the agency's board of directors in 1989 to begin exploring names to underscore that change.
"We first decided on the word `directions' because that's what we offer, either by helping people access programs in the community or by providing an activity and then bringing in people from the community," Willis said. "Later the board settled on `leisure,' to emphasize the kinds of services we offer."
Leisure Directions' clients and their families like the new name because it doesn't stigmatize the disabled, Willis said. She also looks for long-term benefits, saying that in years to come people will know the agency only by its new name and will feel much more comfortable about using its programs and services.
Willis isn't concerned that Leisure Directions might be confused with a travel agency.
"We get our clients through community service boards and mental retardation services, not through someone looking up our name in the phone book," she said.
Leisure Directions is moving April 1 to a new office at 118 N. Franklin Street in Christiansburg. The office will offer an access ramp for disabled clients.
For further information call 381-0310 in Christiansburg.