One look and you would melt at the sight of this little boy. He is 18 months old but still small enough to hold easily in your arms. His eyes are light blue. His hair is caramel colored.
The boy has Down's syndrome, a form of mental retardation. He can't stand yet. He has trouble with language.
But, oh, did he grab my pinky finger when I offered it the other day. Smile? You bet. And when I left his classroom at the Discovery Learning Center in St. Petersburg, he waved good-bye, just like any other child.
Yet he is not like any other child, and the center is not like any other day care center. It is part of PARC, the Pinellas Association for Retarded Children, and caters to children up to 3 years old who are developmentally delayed or disabled.
These are not good days at PARC. These are not good times for agencies across the state that care for the developmentally disabled, period.
Like the others, PARC is reeling from cuts suddenly made this fall in what the state pays the agency to care for developmentally disabled adults. (Despite its name, PARC cares for all ages.)
But there's more.
PARC is also being squeezed by federal and state governments to change treatment plans for children like the little boy I met. And that's costing the agency even more money. The state, under pressure from federal officials, is slowly moving to keep developmentally delayed children out of places like the Discovery Learning Center, even though it is staffed and equipped specifically to handle them. The state wants the children returned to what it calls the "natural environment" - either homes or ordinary day care centers.
Here's the rub: The children at the learning center get intense daily therapy to help them overcome their delays. The people who run the center fear that if the children are at home or in an ordinary day care center - if such a place would even take them - they won't get the care they need.
Working parents would be unfairly forced to shuttle children from appointment to appointment for therapy. Or, therapists would roam from client to client to provide services now centrally offered at PARC.
Elaine Harris, director of Discovery Learning Center, says all this is happening because the state is trying to help more children without spending more.
Centers such as PARC were already having to ask for handouts in the private sector.
"We haven't had a change of rate in many, many years," Harris said, after taking me on a tour of the center.
No surprise there.
The policy changes are already under way. The care for that little boy I met is not fully covered by the state, Harris said. The state will pay for his therapy, but not for spending his entire day at Discovery Learning Center.
That's how the state saves money.
That's how PARC gets hurt.
The balance of the child's bill is paid from funds PARC gets from the community, sources such as United Way, the Juvenile Welfare Board or private donations. PARC has plenty of other uses for that money.
I checked with the Department of Health, which runs the program that covers the kids at the Discovery Learning Center. Monica Rutkowski, bureau chief for the agency's early intervention program, didn't deny that the state was caring for more children with less money - 39,000 children at last count. When I asked if that might compromise the care of needy kids, her answer was an abrupt "absolutely not."
Being forced to dip into other funds to pay for the care of little ones at the Discovery Learning Center is costing PARC $20,000 a month, a chunk of change it cannot afford to lose over the long haul. So PARC has begun looking for new ways to raise money.
Every idea is on the table. Asking corporations to sponsor classrooms. Opening a private school for autistic children, who would be charged tuition.
It's a heck of a reward for an agency that has tried to do nothing but good in Pinellas for the last 50 years.
