The Arc-JCCGC is known by many for providing individual advocacy that supports those we serve to access resources, navigate challenges, and achieve their goals. Over the course of our 65-year history, we have also fought to establish, expand, and protect the rights of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), helping shape the disability rights movement here in Jefferson County from its very beginnings.
Explore the stories below to discover how our chapter has advanced the rights of the people we serve.
The Right to Live in the Community
When parents formed our chapter of The Arc in 1961, options were limited for their children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Living, working, and receiving support in the community felt far out of reach. Instead, many children with IDD were cut off from the community—committed by their families into state homes for people with disabilities, like the Arvada-based Colorado State Home and Training School (the Ridge Home), which swelled to capacity and kept a long waiting list. In the meantime, families who kept their children at home faced a lack of support—from local schools that refused to enroll their children and from employers who would not employ them.
The Right to an Education
In the 1950s and 1960s, it was common for public schools to refuse to educate children with IDD—particularly moderate to severe IDD. Here in Jefferson County, special education classes were usually reserved for students with physical disabilities or students with IDD who had achieved qualifying IQ scores. This left many children excluded from public schools—but chapters of The Arc across the nation, including ours, were working hard to spark reform.
The Right to Wellbeing
Today, part of our work centers on preserving access to Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS)—Medicaid-funded programs that help people with disabilities receive care and support in the community, as opposed to in an institutional setting. This work is nothing new for our chapter. As early as the 2000s, The Arc-JCCGC was educating elected officials and voters on the importance of adequately funding these programs.
The Right to Respect
Our name, logo, and tagline are often the first things a person sees when he or she encounters The Arc—and just as our work has evolved since The Arc was first established, so too have these three elements evolved into what they are today.
Founded in 1950 as the National Association of Parents and Friends of Mentally R* Children, our parent organization has undergone multiple name changes since its founding. Previous iterations of The Arc’s name included the r-word, which in the early ’50s, was a medical term. But over time, some started using the word as an insult that demeaned and disrespected people with IDD.
