During a bad economy, many people suffer. But there are those who can neither understand what is happening or cope with it: the disabled.

Our son Sean is a deaf/blind adult. He lives at home with us, his parents, as he always has. He requires 24 hour a day supervision. He suffers from seizure disorder and is developmentally disabled. He does not talk at all. He laughs, he cries, but he doesn’t talk. He is totally deaf. His residual vision is so poor that he can’t see anything unless it’s pretty big, or very brightly colored. He is also a fit healthy 29 year old with a lot of energy. He is the sweetest guy you could imagine.

The Sean Project is our grandiose name for something that we have been trying to do with Sean for the last few years. Keeping Sean challenged and learning can be a challenge in itself. So Nancy and I hit on the idea of having Sean work with horses. We’ve chronicled our progress on The Sean Project blog.

For the last ten years, we have been assisted in Sean’s care by Denver Options, which has provided 30 hours of care a week. For the last 8 years, Sean has had one stable caregiver - Doc Davis. Aside from us, his parents, this is the longest relationship he has had with anyone. He has been making great progress, he is healthy and outgoing and much of this is due to the continuity of good care. Before Doc, his caregivers changed every few months, to Sean’s great distress. As the concept is almost impossible to explain to him this as resulted in months of stress in the past.

In early May, Sean’s caregiver attended a meeting at Denver Options in which he and other caregivers were informed that due to budget cuts, the state is changing their rate of pay. The pay cuts talked about were huge. Caregiviers do not make much money. Doc is fortunate in that he is able to live by doing the work that he loves. He has several clients and he hardly takes time away from them. If that wasn’t enough, there was talk of having to throw clients together into group settings. And all of these changes are being rushed into effect.

It has taken years to find and stabilize care for Sean. Sean needs one-on-one care because he is deaf-blind. He can’t interact with groups of people. He can interact with a single person at a time, and it has to be a person that he likes.

This news has been devastating for our family. That’s why we are asking friends and concerned citizens to speak out. On this site we’ve included some ideas of what to do and who to contact.

Many disabled men, women and children can’t write letters or go to meetings or blog. But we can. We are their voice. We are Sean’s voice.

Thank you for your help.

Mick Wenlock

Sean on Video