Civitan Club member and director of development at the Orange Grove Centers Heidi Hoffecker told the club on Friday that no matter what happens with regard to prenatal testing, there will likely always be a need for the services Orange Grove provides to those with disabilities.
Ms. Hoffecker said, "There are lots of developmental disabilities that occur after birth."
She also noted that 13.8 percent of children from ages three to 17 have some type of intellectual or developmental disability.
She said from 1997 to 2007, autism diagnoses alone rose by 289 percent.
The center has managed to keep serving the disabled in spite of massive state budget cuts, partly thanks to generous community benefactors such as the Civitan Club.
With an 85 percent state-funded budget, Ms. Hoffecker described the continued functioning of the center as "no small feat."
In fact, over the past six years, the state department of intellectual and developmental disabilities budget has been cut by $57 million.
She said, "That affects any of the agencies that also serve the people that we serve."
Director of adult services Tera Roberts said, "There's almost 1,000 people we serve each day with disabilities."
She said, "We take those responsibilities very seriously."
She told the club that "Many of the nation's leading employers have what's called a business case for hiring employees with disabilities."
Ms. Roberts said, according to research, "People with disabilities have equal or better reliability and retention rates than their counterparts without disabilities."
She also said they have "equal or better safety records" and "require equal amounts of supervision" as those without disabilities.
She stated, "Companies are using their employees with disabilities to fine-tune their products for people with disabilities."