Free That Went Well: Adventures in Caring for My Sister by Terrell Harris Dougan Page A

didn’t want to send these grown children to live in the state institution after all these years in the community.
    What we needed was a sheltered workshop for adults, such as the Flame of Hope workshops that the Kennedys had founded afew years before. We organized ourselves and researched the Salt Lake community for buildings no one wanted anymore. We found an elementary school that was being closed, and asked the school district if we could use it if we maintained it, and they agreed. For money for maintenance and staff, we asked foundations, individuals, the Junior League. We had a plan in mind: start the program, then get the school district to take it over. Why would they do that? Because in our plan we had in mind passing a law that guaranteed free public education to all Utah’s children, mentally disabled or not. But we kept that part quiet for now. First things first.
    We opened Columbus Community Center, a sheltered workshop for teens and adults with mental disabilities, on June 6, 1968. As I drove to the center, I learned that Bobby Kennedy had died from the gunshot wound he had received the day before. Wiping my tears and blowing my nose, I arrived at the room where our first clients sat around a table, working on a craft. Two were in wheelchairs. I looked carefully at all of them, trying to see their leader. “Hello, guys!” I said to them in a high, patronizing voice you use for little children. “Are you having fun here?”
    They looked up at me blankly.
    “Where is your, um, supervisor?” I asked a very large young woman in a wheelchair.
    “You’re looking at her,” she answered levelly.
    She should have thrown something at me for being so stupid, but she just smiled and held out her hand and introduced herself. I apologized to her, and she waved it off. Then she introduced me to the first clients. They each shook my hand and smiled. This was a good sign. They were busy, they had someplace to go every day, and they would make new friends.
    The man we had hired to run Columbus Community Center was Glenn Latham, who went on to become one of the best behavior modification specialists in the country. One of the first clients, Jerry Deming, was a thirty-five-year-old man who did not speak and was so hyperactive he tried to climb walls and curtains. Glenn found out from Jerry’s mom what Jerry loved most, which was Junior Mints. His mother took him into Glenn’s office, and Glenn watched him bouncing off walls. Glenn caught Jerry sitting still for one second and popped a Junior Mint in his mouth. Jerry jumped up, jubilant, and ran around the room again. Glenn waited. The moment Jerry got tired and sat down for a second, another mint was put into his mouth. This made Jerry experiment a little. He ran around the room once and sat down. He got a mint. He jumped from his chair and sat down again, fast, and got two mints. Chewing thoughtfully, he simply looked at Glenn and waited. Three more mints.
    By the end of the day, Jerry had stopped running and climbing. That afternoon, when Mrs. Deming came to Glenn’s office to see which padded cell he’d had to leave Jerry in, she found Jerry sitting quietly in Glenn’s office, his legs crossed, reading a magazine. The magazine was upside down, but Jerry was totally quiet and calm.
    It took Glenn Latham twelve minutes to change Jerry’s life. And no, Jerry didn’t overdose on Junior Mints. The intervals between bad behaviors became longer and longer, and eventually he switched to tokens, which could be exchanged for goodies from the Columbus “store.” Glenn went on to do the same thing with hundreds of others like Jerry.
    What we learned from Glenn Latham was this: Catch peopledoing something right, reward them, and you will have them in the palm of your hand.
    I brought that little trick home with me. When Paul helped me clear the table, I said, “Thank you so much, honey. That really helps.” He did it more often.
    My daughter Marriott was four at the