Since 1959, nonprofit organization MARC has been empowering individuals with developmental disabilities in the Midland, Texas area.
MARC has grown into an organization respected for its advocacy and delivery of a wide range of programs for individuals with intellectual, developmental and cognitive disabilities. The organization also operates the Spectrum of Solutions standalone facility to provide one-on-one behavior therapy, music therapy, speech and language therapy and social skills groups to children on the autism spectrum.
Midland Times reached out to MARC Interim Executive Director Kayla Minchew to provide some insight into the program and the services it provides.
"The history of our organization started in 1959 as a daycare center for children with disabilities, because they couldn't go to public school," Minchew told Midland Times. "Since then, we have grown into a group home service, so we have 16 group homes throughout the community in Midland. We also have our vocational programs and let our clients go and learn how to be trained to go into the community and work in a regular, typical job."
"In 2012, our autism program was started and it grew and grew, so we did a capital campaign to raise funds; and we started our Spectrum of Solutions program, which is our program for children with developmental disabilities," Minchew said. "We provide a variety of different services and provide ABA therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy, social skills groups, and then we also have a child psychologist on our staff. So ultimately, I think our mission and our goal is just to empower the lives of the clients that we support. We want them to have a typical and functional life that any other typical person would have and whether that be jobs or independent living or just having an enjoyable life."
Minchew told Midland Times about how the program helped an individual who had trouble communicating to find a voice.
"This individual is somebody who was unable to communicate vocally or verbally," Minchew said. "Prior to him starting, he communicated through aggressive behavior, so he would push and hit and throw; and ultimately we figured out that he was just trying to communicate his wants and his needs to us, and we were able to get him started on a communication program on his iPad.
"Since then, he's now graduated from that program and using that iPad pretty independently and he's now in his group home using his iPad to communicate with his staff and his peers that were in the group home with him. So we’ve completely reduced his behaviors. He’s able to tell us his wants and his needs now, what he likes, what he sees, what he wants."
MARC's mission is to empower individuals with disabilities to live full and meaningful lives by affording them the opportunity to live, work and play in the community. MARC does this by offering highly personalized services to assist clients in making life choices based on individual interests and needs.
"There's a huge need for services like ours in the community and West Texas," Minchew said. "If it weren't for places like MARC, these individuals would be institutionalized or they would be homeless, so I think it's great that we have the opportunity to empower them to have amazing, great lives."