JUNE 2020 • LONGISLANDPRESS.COM 25
ACDS
PRESS BUSINESS
GROUP HOME HEROICS
When residents of Long Island
group homes for the developmentally
disabled were hospitalized for
treatment of coronavirus, a Plainview
based nonprofit’s staff stayed
with patients in 12-hour shifts so
they wouldn’t be alone.
The heroic feats were but some of the
notable efforts that nurses and direct
service providers from ACDS performed
when the COVID-19 pandemic
recently peaked on LI, resulting in
some serious cases among the 55
residents of the agency’s eight group
homes in Nassau County.
“You have got to be pretty special
to say, ‘I’ll take a 12-hour shift in a
COVID unit in a hospital so that the
resident says they have somebody
they know who’s there with them,’”
Michael Smith, who’s been executive
director of ACDS for the past 15
years, told the Press. “We had several
weeks of having to do that.”
Founded in 1966 as The Association
for Special Children and later changing
its name to the Association for
Children With Down Syndrome, the
agency now known as ACDS provides
much-needed services to children
and adults with Down syndrome and
other developmental disabilities. The
pandemic easily ranks as the biggest
challenge it’s faced in its half century
of existence.
The agency’s about 500 employees
provide lifetime services to more
than 1,000 people with developmental
disabilities and their families. It
has an early childhood education
center on Long Island encompassing
day care, center-based early
intervention and preschool special
education; a special needs preschool
in Westchester; eight group homes
and one transitional apartment; two
locations for its “Opportunities” day
habilitation program without walls;
a five-plus program for recreation
and respite that meets in various
sites throughout the community; a
sleepaway summer camp in upstate
Garrison; and brokerage/fiscal intermediary
services for families on LI.
L. to R.: Residential nurses Theresa Entler, her daughter Allison, and ACDS CEO Michael Smith.
Many of those services have been
disrupted by the crisis. Schools shifted
to remote learning. Summer camp
was canceled. Some of the group
home staffers had to quarantine in
the group homes for two weeks to ensure
isolation. More than two dozen
staff members — two of whom lost
husbands — had to self-isolate after
being exposed to the virus. Personal
protective equipment proved challenging
to acquire.
“Nobody prepared any of us for these
changes to our lives,” Smith says,
noting that no residents were lost
to COVID-19. “We were able to hold
it together.”
While stagnant reimbursement rates
and ever-rising costs challenged in
good times the agency’s ability to
maintain sufficient resources to
recruit and retain quality staff and
invest in innovative programs, it is
now issuing a special fundraising
appeal to defray the cost of hazard
pay issued to its staff.
The added expense to its $27 million
annual budget comes as ACDS
is in the process of finalizing the
purchase of the 47,043-square-foot
headquarters on Fern Place it has
leased from the Plainview-Old Bethpage
School District for the past two
decades.
“Neither the state nor federal government
is reimbursing us for hazard
pay, for these extra costs, which
by now are reaching hundreds of
thousands of dollars,” Stern says.
“We do have an appeal underway
to try to help us raise some money
to recognize the efforts and help us
with those unexpected costs.”
For more information or to donate,
visit acds.org
-TB
“You have got to be pretty special to say, ‘I’ll
take a 12-hour shift in a COVID unit in a hospital
so that a patient says they have somebody they
know to stay with them,’” says Michael Smith.
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