Under Clark’s leadership at the Kern Regional Center, a new, comprehensive vision was realized for clients – assistance in life-long case management, assistance in finding and using community resources, community resource development, a series of prevention programs, community education and outreach, parent support services, program evaluation and quality assurance. “But we still have a lot of work to do,” he said, “to give these folks with mental retardation, autism and other developmental disabilities an opportunity [to experience more] positive things in their lives.”
For the past 25 years, Clarke has been in charge of the center, located in Bakersfield, California. Before joining the program, he was an academic. “I was a young, brash Ph.D. opportunist,” he said with a chuckle. “I worked at universities around the country for ten years. I thought I wanted to be a college president,” he added, “but I didn't get a lot of traction, partially because I was so young.”
The former professor noted that sometimes a career can lead to satisfaction in terms of having a big house, a trophy wife and plenty of ‘yes’ people around. Since then, he said, and because of his daughter, he embarked on a career that enhanced his family, friends and his community. Today, he is helping to keep his organization at the forefront of innovative support and services to individuals with developmental disabilities.
"Informational and parental support in a disabled child’s life is very important,” said Clarke, well aware that people with developmental disabilities are frequently overlooked and misunderstood within their own community. So now, he combats the ignorance and lethargy within his own community. “We started a self-determination pilot. It includes regional therapy and a traditional case management model,” he added. “Every client has a service coordinator who works with the client and family.”
He acknowledged that his center provides a unique service. “We have been able to take 150 adult clients in the last four or five years and help them to improve their employment status enough to file for federal tax returns.”
Utilizing the services of the center, Clarke interacts with all types of disabilities in Kern County, including a campaign of community awareness that he established, consisting of local activities, events, and seminars coordinated by the center in conjunction with the H.E.A.R.T.S. Connection and the Rotary Clubs of Bakersfield.
From his standpoint, fostering a public understanding of the diverse demographics that comprise the community of the developmentally disabled is indispensably important. “One of the real problems is that we’re neither fish nor fowl. We’re not private and we’re not government,” Clark explained. “The private folks look at us the way the government looks at us, and the government looks at us as being private. And the government has a control mentality. And that leads to bumps in the road, especially when financial times are as rough as they are now,” he added. “But we looked at that as an opportunity to make things better.”
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