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Deaf community calls for independent agency
Community Services for the Deaf, 211 S. Main St., offers a wide range of social services.
An exact number of potential clients in the Miami Valley is not available, but those advocating for changes in how the agency operates estimate it to be at least 45,000 in Montgomery, Butler, Clark, Darke, Greene, Miami, Preble and Warren counties.
To assist its potential clientele, Community Services provides interpreting services including help at meetings with doctors, lawyers and on the job. It underwrites counseling, mental health services and a deaf kids camp.
How the services are administered came under fire Tuesday during an animated, and at times emotional, three-hour meeting at Sinclair Community College.
Those advocating for changes — former Community Services employees, advisers and other critics — aired a host of questions about the agency. One of the critics, J. Michael Revis of Middletown, characterized them as "rumors" but listed them nevertheless as "discrimination of hiring, oppression towards staff, missing deaf kids funds and quality of services."
To that he added turnover and the hiring of unqualified staff. One staff member in particular came under repeated fire at the meeting for allegedly not being adept at sign language.
Revis and others promised to protest or boycott if issues aren't resolved soon. Former Community Services employee Michelle Anthony, who left the agency in May, called for the establishment of an independent agency for the deaf.
"It's time for us to run our own organization," she said. "We're trying to set up a new agency run by the deaf."
Bonnie Parish, executive director of Family Service Association, the nonprofit that runs Community Services as one of its programs, said the issue of independence for Community Services has been discussed and debated the past three years.
While critics allege the deaf program and its fundraisers subsidize the Family Service Association, Parish said the opposite is true. Auditors who studied the independence proposal predicted a stand-alone deaf services program would fold in three months, she said, given costs for insurance, official certifications and other organizational expenses.
"Every year has required (Family Service) to subsidize the program, one year to the tune of $116,000," she said.
She dismissed other allegations, saying that audits have shown no money is diverted or missing and that services are of good quality. Turnover, she said, amounted to seven employees in the past year, most with good reasons to leave such as going back to school.
She said seven full- and part-timers who work at Community Services are deaf, and 12 are not.
One idea to make the Community Services more of a cultural center is something that could be accomplished, she noted. "It's something we would help them do," she said.
Community Services for the Deaf, 211 S. Main St., offers a wide range of social services.
An exact number of potential clients in the Miami Valley is not available, but those advocating for changes in how the agency operates estimate it to be at least 45,000 in Montgomery, Butler, Clark, Darke, Greene, Miami, Preble and Warren counties.
To assist its potential clientele, Community Services provides interpreting services including help at meetings with doctors, lawyers and on the job. It underwrites counseling, mental health services and a deaf kids camp.
How the services are administered came under fire Tuesday during an animated, and at times emotional, three-hour meeting at Sinclair Community College.
Those advocating for changes — former Community Services employees, advisers and other critics — aired a host of questions about the agency. One of the critics, J. Michael Revis of Middletown, characterized them as "rumors" but listed them nevertheless as "discrimination of hiring, oppression towards staff, missing deaf kids funds and quality of services."
To that he added turnover and the hiring of unqualified staff. One staff member in particular came under repeated fire at the meeting for allegedly not being adept at sign language.
Revis and others promised to protest or boycott if issues aren't resolved soon. Former Community Services employee Michelle Anthony, who left the agency in May, called for the establishment of an independent agency for the deaf.
"It's time for us to run our own organization," she said. "We're trying to set up a new agency run by the deaf."
Bonnie Parish, executive director of Family Service Association, the nonprofit that runs Community Services as one of its programs, said the issue of independence for Community Services has been discussed and debated the past three years.
While critics allege the deaf program and its fundraisers subsidize the Family Service Association, Parish said the opposite is true. Auditors who studied the independence proposal predicted a stand-alone deaf services program would fold in three months, she said, given costs for insurance, official certifications and other organizational expenses.
"Every year has required (Family Service) to subsidize the program, one year to the tune of $116,000," she said.
She dismissed other allegations, saying that audits have shown no money is diverted or missing and that services are of good quality. Turnover, she said, amounted to seven employees in the past year, most with good reasons to leave such as going back to school.
She said seven full- and part-timers who work at Community Services are deaf, and 12 are not.
One idea to make the Community Services more of a cultural center is something that could be accomplished, she noted. "It's something we would help them do," she said.