Impassioned parents start nonprofit to serve disabled adults in North County

Lucile Lynch wasn’t the only one who had noticed. There was a lack of options after high school, along with roadblocks in the paths of the people whom she and some other parents loved and cared for who had intellectual or developmental differences. Yes, there were organizations providing services throughout San Diego County, but the demand for those services exceeded what was available.

“Kitchen table meetings turned into board meetings, and the board meetings turned into what Beacons is today,” she said of the founding of Beacons, Inc., a nonprofit based in Carlsbad that provides postsecondary options in North County to adults with a range of intellectual abilities. “I did this, personally, because of the struggles I had experienced fighting for ‘appropriate’ services for my son at educational institutions. I was eager to see what happened when my son and others were taught in a manner that used adapted pacing and hands-on, project-based learning, as opposed to worksheets, with high expectations and optimized learning settings.”

The organization (which began in those kitchens with Lynch, Mary Backer, Janet Schenker, Laura Makings, and Karin Barrows) opened its doors in November 2018 and created its own curriculum, which demonstrated the kind of growth that resulted in receiving state funding to expand their programming and provide a lot of it for free to participants. As demand for their services has grown, they currently serve about 100 people each year and are on their third expansion in five years, Lynch says.

Lynch, 62, lives in Carlsbad with her husband, Brian. They have twin sons, Chase and Wesley. She serves as president and chair of the board of directors, and took some time to talk about her work with Beacons, as well as its significance to herself and others.

Q: What has been your vision for Beacons, and how has that vision evolved over the years?

A: My vision has always been for Beacons to be an option exercised by choice that provides an exciting, innovative space for individuals like my son and his friends, their families, and our staff to learn, collaborate and socialize symbiotically. My overall vision has not changed that much, but how that vision is realized is constantly evolving based on the input of our trainees, their families, and our staff. Given the high unemployment rates, and the general lack of access to career and technical education and other vocational training in local educational institutions, my vision was initially to create vocational options to build bridges to employment and reduce the informational and skills gap. That vision evolved because the trainees’ new classroom and vocational skills gave them the confidence to pursue employment and higher education, but many trainees still wanted help. The request for more help to be successful in employment, educational pursuits and even in the community at large led to the creation of our one-to-one, highly customized Tailored Day service. Then, with the state’s rollout of self-determination planning, we then realized people needed better access to information about community options so that led to our self-determination division. We are now looking at development of a high needs division, creative arts division, social recreational division and, possibly, an assistive technology division. With our move coming up, we’ll now have the space to create and innovate even more.

What I love about Carlsbad...

South Carlsbad has a million wonderful community activities, such as outdoor concerts at Stagecoach Community Park, kayaking nearby at Lake San Marcos or Agua Hedionda Lagoon, hiking trails pretty much everywhere you look, beach sunsets to die for, and stores within a short walking distance from where we live so that my son can have independence and access to his community.

Q: Your bio says that you were previously a prosecutor, chief of staff for a state Supreme Court justice, interim superintendent for the San Dieguito Union High School District, and worked for an entertainment public relations and marketing firm, among other positions. What led you onto the path of supporting and advocating for people with disabilities?

A: My boys were micro preemies, with one weighing under a pound when he was born. I knew then we were embarking on a road less traveled. When I moved back to California in 1999, my son enrolled in an early intervention program, and his first year in the program, I think the preschool went through five speech therapists, sewage spewed out of pipes in the playground area, the playground equipment would get so hot it burned the children’s hands, mold was visible throughout the trailers, and the specialist on call in case his feeding tube came out was me and another parent because of the lack of trained staff. I knew then it was up to the parents to make the changes, so I got involved.

I needed to learn the system. I started out as the district’s parent rep to a consortium on special education and later became a member on the community advisory council executive board. I was appointed to a committee to collaborate with the district on solutions to empower families, resulting in a parent manual to help families navigate the special education world and onsite activities to increase awareness about disabilities. I reached out to families whose children were in my sons’ programs. Back then, there wasn’t social media or any directories available to bring special education families together, so we networked and started meeting at my house every other week through word of mouth. First it was five families, then it became close to 40. My early experiences, and the stories of other families, made me realize I could not be a bystander. I used my legal background to help inform families of their rights, wrote petitions and letters documenting the problems to reveal the inequities, and helped with their individual educational goals to access more individualized services. Unfortunately, as the years passed, the stories grew, so I continued with my work. Families sharing their stories, and my own experiences with my son, gave me the strength and passion to follow this path.

Q: Beacons provides training and services for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the areas of education, employment, housing, health and fitness, and self-advocacy. You currently serve as a mentor Beacons’ PathFinder and Tailored Day programs. What are each of these programs?

A: PathFinder is a vocational training program that consists of four-month vocational training workshops in the spring and fall, and shorter eight-hour workshops in the month of July for vocational exploration. Fall and spring workshops include creative design, customer service, entrepreneurial skills, and office skills. The vocational workshops teach things such as basic workforce technology skills, digital illustration, entrepreneurial skills, hospitality skills, interview skills, job search skills, person-centered life planning, restaurant skills (including opportunities to earn a food handling license), self-advocacy skills, teamwork, website design, workforce accommodations and accommodation advocacy, workplace rights, workplace soft skills, and more. All lessons are progress monitored to ensure growth in both knowledge and skills. Job placement and job development is also included. In July, we offer shorter workshops to explore skills in a variety of areas from video game design to painting. PathFinder also has a subdivision called Explorer, which we launched in April 2022 to make the content of PathFinder more accessible to individuals who needed more time to learn the skills then what the four-month workshops offered. In just a short time, the Explorer team, led by a former special ed credentialed teacher, has been able to find employment for around 50 percent of its trainees.

Tailored Day is a highly individualized service where a trainee works one-on-one with a specialist to develop skills, areas of personal interest, and community connections. There really is no limit to what Tailored Day can do. It’s like having your own personal trainer in areas such as education, employment, community exploration, volunteering, and self-advocacy. Tailored Day can provide job coaching, job development, community-based exploration, entrepreneurial support, and much more.

Q: You also have parent training workshops. Can you talk about why it’s been important to you to provide training for parents?

A: The disproportionate rates of abuse, isolation, incarceration, and unemployment for those with developmental disabilities, coupled with the lack of transportation options and affordable housing, keep me up at night because, as a mother of a son with challenges, these issues are very personal and very real to me. I firmly believe that by empowering other parents and our adult children with training, information, resources and connections, we can collectively chip away at some of the prejudices, perceptions, and problems while providing much needed support to one another.

Q: What’s included in the training for parents, and how did the organization decide on what would be best for parents to learn?

A: We have done workshops on educational practices and laws, self-determination planning, transition planning and more. We create workshops based on our own experiences as parents to share what we have learned, and based on the input we get from our trainees and their families. One of the areas parents and trainees have asked for help on is social security and SSI, from a parent perspective, and how employment affects benefits. We have also been requested to do more hands-on, person-centered planning as groups and we’ll probably do that once we move to our new space later this year.

Q: Can you share examples of issues you may have initially thought were important to address, but feedback from the individuals and families you serve pointed you in another direction?

A: I really wanted to create an option at Beacons that enabled our trainees to earn a high school diploma because community colleges don’t really have the staffing ratios or materials to enable the individuals we serve to do that. Many individuals with intellectual disabilities are not given the opportunity to earn a diplomas in their K-12 districts because of how the school district diploma pathways are structured, so many students earn a certificate of completion instead of a diploma. We know that high school diplomas can dramatically increase a job seeker’s eligibility for a job, as well as their self-esteem. I also would really like to create an assistive technology training division to work with individuals with cognitive and physical challenges caused by developmental disabilities, aging, or military sacrifices. But, for now, the input is that there are more pressing needs. I trust our board and the families we serve. When the time is right, it will happen.

Q: What’s been rewarding about your work at Beacons?

A: I have the benefit of working with people committed to changing people’s lives for the better, and that includes our trainees’ commitment to changing their own lives. Not too long ago, a parent came up to me and shared how if someone had told her a year ago that her son would be making posters using graphic design, she would have thought they were crazy, but that he now loves creating and designing. That was an incredible share. Another young woman had a dream to work with children. After two years working with our incredible staff, she is now working at the amazing Bitchin’ Sauce child care unit. Our staff and our trainees are playful, creative, and passionate about what they do. It’s a joy to hear their stories every day.

Q: What has this work taught you about yourself?

A: I need less sleep than I thought.

Q: What is the best advice you’ve ever received?

A: A dream written down with a date becomes a goal. A goal broken down into steps becomes a plan. A plan backed by action becomes a reality.

Q: What is one thing people would be surprised to find out about you?

A: When I first moved to Carlsbad, I worked for Kevin McClory, who worked with Ian Fleming to bring the “James Bond” books to the big screen. He was the producer of “Thunderball.” I had piles of copies of screenplays in boxes until recently.

Q: Please describe your ideal San Diego weekend.

A: Hanging out with my family playing a game or doing something else together. As I get older, I value the time with those I love more and more, and yet I seem to have less and less time to be with them. I need to work on that.