Bayou Land Families awarded federal grant

Kim Detillier, whose adopted son is autistic, has more than 20 years experience in navigating the muddled health-care system. As the executive director of Bayou Land Families Helping Families, Detillier is able to help other families with disabled or special needs relatives cope with their challenges.

The Thibodaux-based non-profit organization is a family resource center with nine staff members, who provide literature, guidance and moral support to families who deal with the challenges of disabilities.

“Everybody who works here has a family member with a disability or a special need, so we’ve been through the system ourselves, and we’re showing other families how to go through the system,” Detillier said. “It’s really easy to talk to somebody who truly understands where you’ve been instead of somebody who read it in a book and learned it in a classroom.”

Bayou Land utilizes its $400,000 annual budget, mostly comprised of state grants, to educate families on state and federal programs that could provide relief and on how to advocate for the health-care issues themselves.

It was announced last month that Bayou Land would continue to receive a three-year $95,700 federal grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as part of $4.9 million in similar funds dedicated by the Affordable Care Act for family-to-family health information centers nationwide.

“Bayou Land Families Helping Families is performing a valuable public service helping individuals with disabilities or special needs and their families,” Sen. Mary Landrieu said. “Their mission, to provide information and referral, education, training and peer-to-peer supports, deserves the federal funding they have been chosen to receive.”

The federal grant is available to one health information center in each state, most of which are non-profits. The Louisiana grant will be divvied amongst the other nine centers in the state so that comprehensive service can be provided, Detillier said.

“In order for me to provide state-wide coverage, I rely on my sister agencies,” Detillier said. “I have a memorandum of understanding with them, and for the services they provide, they bill me.”

Bayou Land provides services in seven parishes: Assumption, Lafourche, St. Charles, St. James, St. John the Baptist, St. Mary and Terrebonne.

For families who cannot make the trek to Thibodaux and are ignorant to the existence and purpose of Bayou Land, the center holds community outreach programs. Strapped with laptops, wireless cards and printers, the staff takes to the streets to provide information to those who need it.

“We have an educational conference every year,” Detillier said. “We have a developmental disabilities conference every year. We have a child abuse conference every year. We have at least, four to five health fairs every year.

“We serve seven parishes, so we go to the families because the families can’t come to us,” she explained.

The executive director has been with Bayou Land since its inception in 1992. She started out as a part-time staffer, and was promoted to executive director six years ago following the retirement of her predecessor.

Bayou Land, which Detillier said services 3,000 families per year and 150 new individuals per month, does not provide financial support, except in rare circumstances.

The little money that is given to families is done so through gas cards, meal vouchers and go-phones, as financed by approximately $2,000 per year in donations, she said.

In addition to being a family resource center, Bayou Land is the Family Voices state affiliate. Through the program, Bayou Land advocates for individuals with health-care needs.

Behavioral issues are on the rise in the area, and because they are marked by mental symptoms instead of physical, society isn’t always aware that it’s an illness instead of an action, Detillier said.

“They just look like they don’t listen, bad parenting, not paying attention, and that’s the hardest thing for the families to deal with, especially in school situations and out in the community, socialization skills,” Detillier said. “That’s on the rise, and I think that’s the hardest thing, because those are the services that are cut first.”

Bayou Land is watching the state Legislature chip away at a $1.6 billion budget deficit with caution but not inaction. While they cannot lobby, either the lawmakers or the families they serve, they have sent advocacy alerts, including the phone numbers of state representatives and senators, to the families and warned of potential cuts.

Detillier said Bayou Land is also working to document the work it has done, from the families’ perspectives.

“We’ve been asking families for their stories, to let us know how we assisted you,” she said. “We’ll be keeping files on that, and I want families to say how important we are to them. If they ask about what we do and how we do it, we’re going to show them.

“Every year, we’re nervous at budget cuts. This year, especially, but we will still keep providing services to families. If we have to write, dig, hunt and scrape, we will not let these families down. We can’t.”

Kim Detillier, executive director of Bayou Land Families Helping Families in Thibodaux, stands in front of the facility’s lending library. The non-profit organization provides information, including loaned literature, to families who are coping with special needs or disabled relatives. ERIC BESSON