PdC’s Knapp Pioneered Group-Home Setting
By Tom Sheehan of Lee Newspapers
Originally published in the LaCrosse Tribune and Wisconsin State Journal, June 19, 2005
ln 1972, l3-year-old Lori Knapp was among pioneers in the developmentally disabled community who made the move from a state institution for the developmentally disabled to a residential setting, according to Gerry Born, chairman of the Wisconsin Council on Developmental Disabilities.
Knapp, now 45, moved then from Central Colony in Madison to a group home started by her parents, Dennis and Bette, in Prairie du Chien, said Lori’s brother and guardian Don Knapp.
Lori had lived eight years at Central Colony, which is now known as Central Center for the Developmentally Disabled. But her parents weren’t satisfied with the care, Don said.
The Knapps wanted an alternative to the only two living arrangements available to parents of the developmentally disabled at the time – at home with family or in one of three state centers for the developmentally disabled.
Thirty-two years later, Don Knapp heads Lori Knapp Companies, a Prairie du Chien-based company that runs 30 group homes for the developmentally disabled in four Wisconsin counties.
Community placement was such a new idea when Lori moved that there was no formal process in place to guide the transition. Central Colony staff helped narrow down a field of candidates who would make the move with Lori. But final selection of seven other children who would make the move was up to Bette, Don Knapp said.
Over the years, homes run by Lori Knapp Companies in Crawford County alone have become home to 57 former state center residents, said Kelly Gochenaur, an administrative assistant at company headquarters in Prairie du Chien.
A few of those residents may have returned to the centers over the years, but the vast majority of placements have gone well, Don Knapp said. The effort is considered so successful, Crawford County no longer has any of its citizens living in state centers for the developmentally disabled, Don Knapp said.
Parents often resist having their children removed from a state center, but typically appreciate the move afterward, he said. County courts have the final say on protective placements in Wisconsin.
“I’ve been to a lot of court hearings, and every hearing I’ve gone to, parents have tried to fight community placement in the community because they didn’t understand,” Don Knapp said.
Larry and Nancy Engel of Markasan are among parents who initially opposed the idea of moving their 40-year-old twin sons from Northern Wisconsin Center for the Developmentally Disabled in Chippewa Falls into a Knapp run group home in Prairie du Chien about a year ago. They had no choice but to make a move, as the state worked to close down Northern Center.
The Engels are now glad that their twins, Don and Tom Engel, made the move, said Nancy Engel, who makes the trip from Markasan, Wis., to Prairie du Chien to visit her sons about three or four times a year.
“We felt they were safe up there (at Northern Center). But now, where they are, they really enjoy it,” Engel said of the two-story home her sons now live in together with 24-hour-a-day assistance.
The home has been “plexiglassed” to protect breakable objects, such as televisions and windows. Tom and Don can be extremely active, and they were too much to care for at home when they were younger, their mother said.
Don and Tom can both walk and can communicate their needs in a variety of ways, including some speech, sign language and gestures. Don, who hadn’t learned to write while at Northern Center, can now write his name and, is learning to write numbers, Nancy Engel said.
Developmentally disabled people often do best in the least restrictive environment, which almost never is an institution, Knapp said.
Knapp-run homes don’t accept developmentally disabled people who are considered a danger to themselves or to others or if they’re so medically fragile they can’t be served by a local hospital if needed, Don Knapp said.