About Us
Family of Agencies
A Short History of the SARAH Family of Agencies
SARAH Tuxis Residential Services was created in 1990 as the result of the reorganization of SARAH. (Shoreline Association of Retarded & Handicapped) The SARAH Board, faced with rapid organizational growth, wanted to find a lasting way to maintain the agency's 30 year tradition of excellence. The SARAH Board of Directors therefore recommended, and the SARAH membership approved, the division of the large multifaceted agency into three separate agencies. This created one agency providing employment and day program supports and two residential agencies providing housing supports to persons with disabilities. SARAH Inc. was to be the vocational agency and SARAH Seneca and SARAH Tuxis were expected to be the residential agencies. When the division occurred it provided for three separate Boards of Directors. In many cases, these directors were SARAH members whose adult children were participants in the various SARAH programs. The expectation was that the agency divisions would create a larger base of family and citizen input into agency governance. The picture above is the three agency's first headquarters at Park St. Guilford, CT.
SARAH Tuxis began by supporting 24 people in 6 group homes. The agency employed just under 40 staff and had a budget of approximately $1,450,000. Nineteen years later we serve over 100 people. A total of 40 people live in 11 group homes. Thirty more live in supported living settings. In addition to these residential settings, we also support persons living with their families. Further at any given time, we support a number of younger families with our school advocacy services. We now employ over 200 staff and have a budget over $7,000,000.
Early in our history, SARAH Tuxis fully embraced the notion of "Person Center Planning" and "Individual Supports". Gradually, the State of Connecticut began converting its funding to the Medicaid waiver. This change allowed the agency to actively engage in developing its philosophy and practices of "Building Creative Supports ....one person at a time". Today, the agency is one of the State's largest providers of individualized supports. For the last several years the agency has evolved past it's initial mission of providing residential services and has emerged as a provider of service of choice. Sometimes these are residential but they may also be very individualized "day supports" or not quite day or residential supports.
