ANNIE’S PAGE

By Craig Escudé, MD, FAAFP, FAADM

For more information on Annie Sullivan’s League—or to nominate a colleague for this award — click here.

Margaret Elizabeth Zaso: Supporting People with IDD Comes Naturally

“I want people to leave me feeling like they can do something they haven’t thought of before or did not think they could do.”  -Liz Zaso, MS, QP

Margaret Elizabeth Zaso, who goes by “Liz,” is a case manager with The Arc of North Carolina whose passion for supporting people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) shines through with every story she tells. She works in the Charlotte, North Carolina, area, supporting people by helping ensure they receive the benefits they qualify for, assisting with prior authorizations for medical services, and facilitating clinician visits, among many other things. But, it’s the relationships she develops with people she supports and their families that make this “the most favorite job I’ve had.”

Working to support people with IDD came naturally to Liz as she grew up in a family of people who worked with people with disabilities. Her mother, a psychiatric nurse practitioner; her father, a CEO of a residential center for people with IDD; and her brother, a behavior analyst, all helped to foster a sense of understanding that people with IDD are people just like anyone else. Liz recalled a story where she went to a sleepover at a friend's house, and her friend’s brother had Down syndrome. She could not understand why he wasn’t out doing things with others like everyone else. “It just did not make sense to me that because he had an intellectual disability, he wasn’t a part of the social scene that everyone else was. “

Liz thought she would be a special education teacher. She graduated from college and later pursued a master's degree in rehabilitation counseling. She began working in dual-diagnosis homes (people with IDD and mental health conditions) and loved it.

“When asked what we can all do to improve the world for people with IDD, Liz recommends that we challenge people and their families to ask, ‘Why not?’ Why are we NOT doing this or that if it is something that a person wants to do?”

Liz speaks of how she loves to plant seeds in people about how they can do things they were told they could not do or thought they could never achieve. She recalls one person that she worked with when she was working as a vocational rehabilitation specialist who wanted to be a barber. Her first thought was, “Why hasn’t anyone helped him become one before?” She immediately went into action and helped him get into barber school. He is now a successful barber, cutting hair at this uncle’s barber shop.

When asked about some of the challenges she sees in the field of IDD supports and services, she related how difficult it can be to find a physician, and especially a dentist, who is willing to provide healthcare to people with IDD. While relating the story, she named a specific dentist and a family physician that she works with regularly but also said that the fact that she knew them by name signals how few there are who are capable and willing to see people with IDD. The result is that everyone gets referred to the same healthcare providers, and the clinicians can get easily overwhelmed. She is a strong advocate for improving training opportunities for clinicians to meet the healthcare needs of people with IDD better.

When asked what we can all do to improve the world for people with IDD, Liz recommends that we challenge people and their families to ask, “Why not?” Why are we NOT doing this or that if it is something that a person wants to do? “We should continue to push the limits of what they thought was possible.”

With great pleasure, we welcome Margaret Elizabeth Zaso as the newest inductee into the Annie Sullivan League.

About the Author

Dr. Craig Escudé is a board-certified Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American Academy of Developmental Medicine and President of IntellectAbility. He has more than 20 years of clinical experience providing medical care for people with IDD and complex medical and mental health conditions. He is the author of “Clinical Pearls in IDD Healthcare” and developer of the “Curriculum in IDD Healthcare,” an eLearning course used to train clinicians on the fundamentals of healthcare for people with IDD.