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 Doris Burdman |
During the
1950's and 1960's, many Youngstown area women were involved in service
club activities. Each organization had at least one pet project. In most
cases, money was raised and donated to a project, and the group moved
onto its next cause. Fortunately for us, the Doris Burdman Service Club
was different. Doris Burdman and several of her friends used their dedication,
energy, community networking ability and numerous other talents to lay
the foundation of what was to eventually become Burdman Group, Inc.
The Doris Burdman Service Club, founded in 1968, was affiliated with the
Youngstown Federation of Women's Clubs. The emphasis of the club, following
Doris' interests, was primarily in the field of mental health. Doris had
given many volunteer hours of her time at Woodside Receiving Hospital.
During that time, she saw the great need to keep in contact with the patients
after they left the hospital. Adjustment outside the institution would
not be easily achieved without some form of assistance in the community
itself.
With the help of members of the Doris Burdman Service Club, Contact, Inc.
was organized with the purpose of serving formerly hospitalized mental
health clients. The group met twice a month wherever they could find room,
such as at the YWCA or St. John's Episcopal Church. Throughout this early
period, the group kept its dream alive of having a "contact home,"
a place where discharged mental patients could stay during their readjustment
period. In 1970, Doris and the club members approached the Mahoning County
Commissioners for the money to buy such a home. The Commissioners eventually
agreed, and the first home was purchased at 255 North Heights on the North
Side of Youngstown.
The new program was minimally staffed, and many of the Doris Burdman Service
Club members volunteered their time in many ways, such as working on crafts,
providing housekeeping, transporting individuals, and so on. During the
early years, there were only two employees: a director and a housemother
for the six women who lived in the facility. Later, a caseworker was hired
as the agency shifted from a volunteer association to a professional social
service agency.
In the fall of 1974, the State of Ohio approved funding to purchase the
present facility at 278 Broadway. Built in 1908, the new facility was
once the home of the Fred Tod family. It was later used as the St. Mary's
Home for the Aged. The building was purchased, renovated and equipped
at a cost of $247,000. Half of this cost was provided by the State of
Ohio and half by the Mahoning County Mental Health Board. The move from
255 North Heights took place April 15, 1975, and the new facility was
dedicated on June 15, 1975.
Also in 1975, the 255 North Heights facility was converted into an adolescent
group home and operated as such until the program was consolidated with
another youth home on Illinois Avenue in 1979.
In 1976, the Mahoning County Mental Health Board and the State of Ohio
undertook a new development in mental health care for the emotionally
disabled. The "annex" building, built in 1952, adjacent to the
Doris Burdman Home, was purchased for $50,000. The remodeling costs of
$300,000 were provided through county and state funds, and the new "Work
Skills Center" opened its doors in June 1979, providing seven clients
with vocational rehabilitation services.
The Work Skills program became known as the Work Enterprise Program and
over the next seven years grew steadily, eventually employing over 200
clients in a variety of community-based, transitional and sheltered work
settings. Veteran staff will remember the bakery that operated for seven
years in the area now housing our fiscal department. Many agency-run "enterprises"
were started and dropped as we tried to find the best approach to providing
the greatest amount of employment opportunity for the severely mentally
disabled. Lawn and grounds care, hydraulic jack repairs, sewing of log
carriers, making wooden toy soldiers, and even a joint venture with Goodwill
Industries called "United Industries," are now part of our vocational
program history.
Industrial subcontract services and janitorial services have remained
the two primary methods of "in-house" employment for agency
clients.
Our janitorial program has been able to grow through the assistance of
the Ohio Industries for the Handicapped (OIH). Since 1982, several large-scale
state-use purchase of service contracts have been awarded to Burdman Group,
Inc. Janitorial services are now providing employment in several buildings
on the Youngstown State University campus,(Meshel Hall, Stambaugh Stadium,
Beeghly Education, Beeghly Center, Williamson Hall) as well as some state
and county office buildings in addition to the roadside parks on Route
11 in southern Mahoning County.
Mahoning County's industrial program grew from 15 clients at the Broadway
Avenue location to over 100 in 1986 at the East Indianola Avenue site
of Northeast Industries. The subcontract division relocated its expanding
operation in December 1983, with the assistance of an establishment grant
from the Ohio Rehabilitation Services Commission. A similar subcontract
facility called Pine Industries opened January 1986 in Warren, Ohio, financed
by the Ohio Department of Mental Health, the Ohio Rehabilitation Services
Commission and the Trumbull County Board of Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health
that changed its name to Trumbull Lifelines in 2001.
By the fall of 1987, state and federal funding bodies were looking for
different ways to provide vocational services, and the late 80’s saw a
steady decline in the use of the "sheltered workshop" approach
in employing the disabled. Burdman Group, Inc, is one of 14 non-profit
organizations funded by the Ohio Rehabilitation Services Commission in
September 1987 to initiate the new concept of "supported employment."
The new model was designed to integrate handicapped workers with non-handicapped
employees in a natural work setting, rather than in an institutional location,
such as a workshop where the disabled largely interact with only other
disabled individuals. Our vocational programs stress community-based jobs
for the clients. Much of our marketing effort is geared toward getting
employers and clients to accept this approach to rehabilitation.
The residential program was always centered on the Doris Burdman Home
facility. However, other residential developments have taken place over
the years. The organization operated the Adolescent Homes from 1974-1981.
The Reagan administration's cuts in social services and Ohio's economic
troubles in 1981 forced the realization that the agency could not adequately
support youth programs as well as those for adults. Consequently, by September
1982, the agency dropped its youth programming and focused solely on housing
and vocational needs of the adult mentally ill. Burdman Group also manages
the Drop-in-Center whose goal is to facilitate socialization and recreation
to individuals who have limited access or resources to such activities
in a clubhouse atmosphere. Activities and events that are made available
to the Center's members are: daily refreshments; open discussion; reading
material, such as books, magazines, newspapers; television and movies;
board games, card games, bingo; birthday and holiday parties; brunches
served by civic organizations; informative speakers; field trips and picnics;
and second-hand clothing selection.
Burdman Group, Inc. formed an affiliate non-profit corporation in 1983
named, Riverside Manor, intending to construct HUD-financed apartments
for the mental health clients. The Department of Housing and Urban Development
approved an application in October 1986, but it was not until February
1990 that the project was able to reach the initial stages of closure.
Construction began in the spring of 1990, and occupancy took place for
20 persons on January 1991.
During the summer of 1991 Burdman Group, Inc. completed plans to take
over domestic violence programming in Mahoning County. Sojourner House
opened its doors in September 1991, offering shelter, counseling and case
management services to area victims of domestic violence. Earlier in 2001,
Sojourner House added a judicial advocate and domestic violence specialist
to its staff. The program celebrated it’s tenth anniversary and changed
its name to Sojourner House Domestic Violence Programs in September and
in October opened a satellite office in Sebring to serve victims in southern
Mahoning County.
The summer of 1992 saw the acquisition of Veritas House, a 15-unit independent,
dormitory-style-housing complex for mentally disabled individuals. The
building is the former St. Dominic's convent on E. Lucius Avenue.
Burdman Group, Inc. entered a unique partnership with the Ohio Rehabilitation
Services Commission in October of 1993. The program was called Pathways
and operated in both Trumbull and Mahoning counties. The objective of
the Pathways program was to obtain a contract with the Ohio Rehabilitation
Services Commission to obtain funds to employ vocational rehabilitation
counselors to provide services and purchase needed services for consumers
to help them obtain employment. The goals of Pathways were to reduce the
waiting lists of consumers with severe mental disabilities for employment
and to increase the employment rate of consumers with severe mental disabilities
within the local community. On June 30, 2001 Pathway’s funding throughout
the state was terminated. All of the program’s employees were placed in
other positions.
Riverbend Center, an eight-bed residential treatment center, opened in
March of 1994 in Warren. An additional wing, housing four more beds to
primarily serve mentally ill adults with substance abuse problems, opened
in the fall of 1996.
Adjacent to Riverbend Center's West Market Street facility is Campbell
Apartments, a twenty- (20) unit independent apartment complex for individuals
with mental illness. Each unit has one bedroom, a living room, kitchen
and bath.
Early in 1998, Crossroads, a twelve-bed residential facility for persons
with serious mental disorders, opened in Warren. The residents are supervised
twenty-four hours a day. Staff monitors the residents’ medications along
with daily functioning activities.
With the start of the new millennium, Northeast Industries began diversifying
its services by working with Mahoning County individuals striving to get
off welfare by obtaining employment. In the fall of 2001, Pine Industries
followed suit by beginning a program that targets Trumbull County’s at-risk
high school youth whose family and personal history point to a path of
public assistance because of poor vocational goals. Northeast and Pine
Industries are both Bureau of Workers Comp providers.
If there is anything that is consistent throughout our history, it is
the fact that things are constantly changing and evolving. Sometimes this
is through our own doing, but most often, it is the result of new directions
taken at state and federal levels. In order to survive and grow in the
last 30 plus years, Burdman Group had to implement new procedures and
programs both at the service and at administrative levels. In 1970, our
annual budget was only $36,000 with two employees. Today, the budget is
nearly six million with over 200 employees.
