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| Mary Ellen Sousa (far left) and staff helped Chris (holding keys) become a homeowner in 2000. |
It all started with one.
Mary Ellen Sousa vividly remembers the first person Creative Support Alternatives ever served back in 1992 — a transition-age student with a developmental disability hoping to leave her group home and attend community college. Sousa and her colleagues successfully helped the young woman gain entry into the dorms at San Diego State University.
This year, Creative Support Alternatives, which operates as part of SDSU’s Interwork Institute, is celebrating 30 years of providing supported living services and independent living services for people with developmental disabilities. Over the past three decades, the agency has supported about 150 individuals and expanded beyond San Diego County into Northern California’s Gold Country.
The key to its longevity has been never deviating from its original person-centered mission — to assist people as they navigate moments ranging from mundane to monumental.
“We never wanted to be the McDonald’s of community living,” said Sousa, a Creative Support Alternatives’ director and co-founder. “We wanted to be a really good example of quality, person-centered support.
“And I hear it all the time from families. I was recently leaving the home of a guy who we just started with and his dad hugged me and said, ‘You guys aren't like the agencies we've known in the past.’ That’s the ultimate compliment.”
The people whom Creative Support Alternatives serves become like family, often staying with the agency for years, if not decades. One person they still assist started with the organization in 1993.
The assistance comes in many forms, from daily needs and errands to helping people navigate the purchase of an accessible vehicle, become a homeowner, get married or cope with the loss of a loved one. You name it, they’ve done it all. The goal is to provide flexible support that will allow people to live life on their own terms, in their own homes and communities of their choosing.
Director Kristoffel van de Burgt, who leads Creative Support Alternatives’ San Diego operation, is the “newcomer” on the leadership team. That is to say, he’s only been with the agency for 22 years.
“I first started doing this type of support working in group homes in New Jersey, and they didn't have programs like this,” van de Burgt. “It was always group situations. When I came out here, it was refreshing to see that you really could be person-centered.
“I’ve helped people go through all sorts of things that you would never think about. I helped someone go through a divorce. That’s just part of life, and that’s really what the program means to me — just helping people with wherever their life is going to take them, whatever their journey is.”
Sousa, who since 2007 has directed services in rural Calaveras, Tuolumne and Amador Counties, previously taught graduate-level courses in the Department of Special Education alongside professor Ian Pumpian — her collaborator in creating and finding the grant funding to launch Creative Support Alternatives. She calls the early days of the agency “the Wild West,” as they worked to build a program from the ground up, learning as they went.
“As a former special education and transition-age teacher in Maryland, I saw that the options for kids after they graduated from high school were either crap or nonexistent,” Sousa recalls. “We wanted to be an alternative and because of the affiliation with San Diego State — and because we were naive enough and passionate enough — we thought, ‘Hey, we can do this.’
“I think that our culture is absolutely woven in and that’s the key to me. It’s keeping the control in the hands of people we serve and their families and those who care about them.”
That culture and a dedicated team has guided Creative Support Alternatives well through expansion, leadership changes and significant state regulatory changes. And it’s what paints a bright picture for what the next 30 years might bring.
“I think the future is good,” van de Burgt said. “We’re very fortunate to have a lot of people who enjoy working for us and being there with people. The people we support and our employees are easily the most important part of the organization. They’re the ones out there doing the groundbreaking things.”
To learn how you can support Creative Support Alternatives’ work through philanthropy, please contact Megan Beardsley, director of development, at mbeardsley@sdsu.edu or 619-594-2277.