‘One-of-a-kind’ center offers individualized care for special-needs adults

Clawson — Twenty years ago, Marilyn Joseph felt like she had nowhere to turn to find compassion.

Today, all she needs to do is look around her.

Joseph, along with fellow co-founder Trudy Koci, established Mary’s Children Family Center 20 years ago in Clawson, in the former convent on Guardian Angels Parish’s grounds.

The center serves as a care facility and school for young adults with brain injuries that limit their physical capacity to move around and communicate with others.

The day facility is open five days a week, equipped with a 2-to-1 student-to-caretaker ratio, with staff that monitors and assists the students throughout the day.

“Marilyn has a daughter who was in a car accident and suffered a brain injury,” said Christine Lynch, Mary’s Children director. “Trudy Koci had a son with a brain injury, and they



were both looking for a program with a low caretaker-to-patient ratio, because kids needed specialized care.”

After looking throughout the tri-county area, finding facilities with 6-to-1 ratios, Joseph and Koci decided to start their own, Christ-centered facility. Twenty years, and $1.6 million worth of renovations to the former Guardian Angels convent later, Mary’s Children Family Center now has 30 students and 15 caretakers.

“We call them students, because they’re learning; we have set goals for them to work toward,” Lynch said. “We find it’s also a ministry for staff and caregivers. We’ve experienced positive unintended consequences since we’ve started.”

The 2-to-1 ratio, along with the spiritual development students receive at Mary’s Children, makes the center one of a kind in the tri-county area, according to Joseph.

“Spiritual needs are so important for people to be a part of life,” Joseph said. “The students make beautiful cards for Christmas, and we sell them at craft shows. We have wonderful families that care for these people with severe injuries, but they need help as well.”

Part of Mary’s Children’s success is that it serves a demographic that’s underserved in Michigan. State-sponsored special education in Michigan goes up to 25- to 26-years olds for students who haven’t finished high school. If a young person becomes mentally hindered after turning 18, there is no type of state assistance.

Mary’s Children serves those who fall through the cracks of the state’s system, working on communication, mathematics, reading and comprehension skills with the use of assistive technology.

“We’re very big on students communicating with the use of eyes gazing or assistive technology,” Lynch said. “Some go for more switched-based communication, to where they are running their own program by pressing a button or a switch. If you can’t tell people what you want, we find it difficult in caregiving.”

Caregivers help students operate the switches and buttons of the devices, but Lynch insists it’s the students who are making the decisions.

“These students are really smart, some are incredibly intelligent,” Lynch said. “They can do what we can do, they just do it in a different way.”



Mary’s Children Family Center has 10 staff members and volunteers. The students pray the rosary every day in the old convent’s chapel and have access to prayer books and pictures of the saints. But working with the students benefits the staff spiritually and emotionally as well.

“I have an autistic brother, so I see the experience in working here helps me at home with him,” said Victoria Tisdelle, Mary’s Children program leader. “It’s great to see all the technology helping people. The technology they have here is just amazing.”

Even more important is the personalized care each patient receives, Tisdelle said.

“This is prolonging life, this is pro-life,” Tisdelle said. “There’s so much more you can do when you spend more time with each student. I can reach a lot of their goals — it’s always repetitive — but we’re able to do that. We’re giving them the ability to communicate on a daily basis, and that makes all the difference in the world.”

For Joseph, Mary’s Children Family Center is a “God-send,” offering a unique, caring environment hard to find elsewhere. In the center’s 20-year history, her daughter has thrived, even writing and publishing poetry.

“We know that this center was needed. We looked everywhere, and there was nothing like this for young people,” Joseph said. “We did find other programs, but none that accepted someone like her, they just weren’t patient enough.”

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Mary’s Children Family Center

To learn more about Mary’s Children Family Center or to donate, visit maryschildrenfamilycenter.org.