LSI emphasizes developing close one-on-one relationships with the people they serve. Photo by Dave Barnum.
Lincoln
Street, Inc. (LSI) got its start in 1979, when parents recognized a gap
in residential services for their intellectually disabled children and
went looking for alternatives. They soon realized that the best approach
was to band together, roll up their sleeves, and open their own
community-based home. And that’s precisely what they did, in a house
they built on Lincoln Street in Springfield.
Since
then, LSI has grown from its initial charter of serving medically
fragile, intellectually disabled children to become a full-service
agency. A diverse group of staff and contractors provide a full gamut of
supports and services to a wide-ranging complement of citizens, from
young adults to seniors and everyone in between. Some of LSI’s services
have been fine-tuned to include innovative supports for high school
graduates who have autism spectrum disorder, as well as other services
that offer empathic, end-of-life care for people who’ve been served for
many years. “Add to those our very strong employment program and our
ever-expanding residential supports, along with our focus on
communication supports,” notes Cheryl “Sherry” Thrall, LSI’s longtime
executive director.
Cheryl Thrall, executive director of Lincoln Street, Inc.
Sherry
has led LSI since 1986. Over the intervening decades, she has guided
the organization to grow and evolve in ways that the original founders
might not have imagined were possible when the agency got its humble
start.
Steady, Meaningful Growth
Lincoln Street, Inc. is headquartered in Springfield, Vermont. Photo by Dave Barnum.
LSI
now occupies a modern, spacious administrative office on River Street
in Springfield, as well as satellite offices in White River Junction. In
addition to its growth and expansion in Windsor and Windham counties,
the organization has also broadened its reach through strategic
collaborations. For example, LSI and Upper Valley Services are the two
founding member organizations of ARIS Solutions, created in 1996. ARIS
Solutions serves as the state’s fiscal agent for a wide variety of
Vermont-based programs and provides business office services for an
assortment of nonprofit organizations.
“We’ve
just celebrated our tenth year of partnership with the
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, the Hartford (Vermont) School
District, and the Vermont Developmental Disabilities Services Division,”
Sherry points out. “This collaboration is supported by both Vermont and
New Hampshire divisions of Vocational Rehabilitation. Our connection
with Project SEARCH at Dartmouth-Hitchcock, for example, is in direct
response to the needs of the young people we support, to help them enjoy
satisfying, well-paying careers.”
LSI recently arranged an on-site flu shot clinic
for staff, clients, and their families.
Project
SEARCH, Sherry explains, is an internationally recognized program for
assisting developmentally disabled youth, helping them graduate from
high school with marketable employment skills by completing classroom
work and internships within the hospital setting. “DHMC is a wonderful
partner,” Sherry notes.
Sherry
says that LSI’s steady growth has been fueled by the organization’s
ironclad commitment to its original mission. “Since we opened our doors,
the culture here at LSI has been one of listening and learning,” she
explains. “We take our direction from the people we serve, their
families, and our sense of current best practices. And that’s been
unwavering over the past four decades.”
LSI’s
board of directors is partly comprised of family members of the people
the organization serves, along with one member who is a direct recipient
of LSI services. Sherry also works with a team of executive advisors,
adults who are receiving services from LSI who counsel her on everything
from new program model design to staff training.
Sherry
notes that LSI has grown to incorporate a cadre of dedicated, highly
trained staff and contractors, every one of whom prides him or herself
in, as Sherry says, “The value of the relationships they form with the
people they support, and the assurance that every one of them has a
sense of ‘inclusivity’ at their jobs or out in the community.”
As
to LSI’s flying-under-the-radar label, Sherry says that, to an extent,
it’s a desired result of the agency’s work—a natural outcome of its role
in the community. “We’ve always described ourselves as one of Vermont’s
best-kept secrets,” she says. “And that’s not unintentional. We believe
that when an agency like ours is providing the best developmental
services, then the staff and its support team ought to be somewhat
invisible. We try and weave our supports into the fabric of the
community, and that should be a given—not a remarkable exception.”
The Comforts of Home
Another
critical collaboration that LSI has engaged in for many years is its
Vermont Comforts of Home (VCOH) program. Sherry describes VCOH as being
focused on serving older Vermonters and people with disabilities,
helping them find home providers—homeowners who are willing and able to
open their homes to others in need of a welcoming, comfortable place to
live. “We worked with the Upper Valley Services organization to create
this unique service, and each organization—LSI and UVS—now operates the
program separately in their respective regions,” she explains. Sherry
says that such a family-based level of care can make a tremendous
difference for the people involved, and help them enjoy happier, more
fully realized lives.
Home
providers working in the VCOH program receive tax-free payments for
care, and LSI and other organizations ensure that they are fully trained
and supported to administer the very individualized care the people
served require in their day-to-day lives. “In this program, adult
children living with an aging parent can also be compensated through
what is termed a tax-free ‘difficulty of care’ payment,” Sherry says,
and training and support are provided by LSI’s team of Service
Coordinators and nurses. “It can be a very workable, successful, and
satisfying alternative to nursing home care,” she says.
“The
outcome for everything we do is to help others develop their vision of
the life they wish to lead, being supported by who they choose,” Sherry
says. “To live in that way—meaningfully—should be something that’s
attainable by everyone. With this and every other service we offer, it’s
our mantra to say ‘your voice, your choice, our supports.’"
Lincoln Street, Inc.
374 River Street
Springfield, VT
(802) 886-1833
