Agency Closing Programs for Adults

No longer providing services

 

 

 

LAKELAND, Fla. -- For years, Florida Baptist Children's Homes has provided services for adults with developmental disabilities.

The organization, known statewide for its programs to house and counsel troubled youth and children caught up in the state's foster care system, operates an adult group home and a day training program at its statewide headquarters in Lakeland.

It is just the sort of community-based support championed by lawmakers who, more and more, look to non-governmental solutions to house and service Floridians with autism, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome and other handicaps.

Yet as legislators grapple with ongoing budget shortfalls that keep as many as 20,000 developmentally disabled people on a waiting list for services, the Baptist organization is bowing out of the picture.