North Jersey state center resident won't be silent about relocation [video]

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Thomas E. Franklin/Staff Photographer

Wendy English, 51, is a longtime resident of the Woodbridge Developmental Center.

In spite of her crippling cerebral palsy, Wendy English can make her own legal decisions, vote in local and national elections, and communicate with the help of a specially programmed iPad that utters phrases she has chosen when she taps the screen.

Thomas E. Franklin /Staff Photographer

Wendy English using a chart and iPad to communicate. She has little muscle control, so speech is difficult.

But she cant control the thing she deems most important to her life: the decision to remain in her longtime home.

English, 51, is one of about 1,000 people with developmental disabilities the state is moving from its institutions in an effort to phase out a treatment model that in recent years has become a prime target of state and national efforts for change. State officials say people like English could have a better life in smaller, privately run homes, which happen to cost less to manage.

English, however, doesnt see it that way. She doesnt want to move from the Woodbridge Developmental Center, one of the two state institutions slated for closure and her home for the past 18 years.

It is a message she delivers with painstaking care. Although English can understand everything that happens to her, she has little control over her body and speaks in guttural utterances that are difficult for even those closest to her to understand. Though haltingly delivered, her words offer a rare personal insight in a debate that has been dominated by state officials, advocacy groups, and caretakers and relatives who say they know whats best for New Jerseys 40,000 people with developmental disabilities who depend on the state and federal government for their daily care. The debate seldom includes the voices of the disabled themselves. English is not only capable of speaking for herself, but is also in charge of her medical and financial decisions.

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North Jersey state center resident won't be silent about relocation