After a public hearing on Jan. 13, Fairfax County’s Health Care Advisory Board approved McLean Bible Church’s plan to build a 70-bed respite care facility for children who have serious disabilities.
Another 100 children with special needs would visit during the day for before and after-school care and therapy.
And 100 more would receive early intervention therapy and participate in social and recreational play with their “neurotypical peers” during the daytime, also.
Not more than 70 would stay overnight, giving their parents and caregivers relief from the stress of round-the-clock care at home.
They would be housed in a new building proposed for a five-acre site west of McLean Bible Church that would otherwise be the site for nine single-family houses.
McLean Bible Church already sponsors a five-hour respite period on one Saturday a month.
It is staffed by volunteers, who play with the children and provide close supervision in ratios as small as one to one, with health care professionals to attend to any physical needs they might have.
Susan Carey, whose four-year-old son, Luke, was diagnosed as autistic last summer, visited the Center for the first time last Saturday.
“It is unbelievable,” she said. “I just learned about this. It is one mile from my house.”
“I don’t feel alone any more. I can see the silver lining in the clouds.”
In addition to his autism, Luke has food allergies that prevent him from staying in conventional church nurseries, where volunteers pass out wheat-based foods like Vanilla Wafers that can cause reactions. “It means he can have virtually no food,” his mother said.
Last week, she took her old daughter, Isabelle, for a haircut and new shoes while Luke was entertained by two volunteers at the Bible Church.
“Her hair was in her eyes,” she said, but the demands of caring for Luke, driving both children to school, and working in the District of Columbia, when her husband was out of town on business made for a very busy life.
Asked how much personal time she has in her schedule, Carey answered “Zero.”
Another child who was visiting the Respite Center on Saturday, seven-year-old Marshall Williams, has had 16 different brain surgeries in his brief life, several performed by renowned Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon, Ben Carson.
On Saturday, McLean Bible Church Access Ministry Director Diane Anderson asked Marshall what his mother was doing while he was staying there.
“Laying in bed,” he said.
On April 3, the church is scheduled for a hearing before the Fairfax County Planning Commission on an application to amend a special proffer condition under which it wants to build the Respite Center, to be styled like "a Vermont Inn," Anderson said.