ANNIE’S PAGE
Frances Hampton has made many positive impacts on the people she's supported in her career.
First Inductee for Annie Sullivan’s League's: Frances Hampton
By Craig Escudé, MD, FAAFP, FAADM
For more information on Annie Sullivan’s League—or to nominate a colleague for this award —click on: https://helenjournal.org/august-2024/helen-journals-newest-feature-annies-page
“I really did not know what I was doing. It was my first job straight out of college. I had never worked with someone who could not talk or walk, but I learned quickly. I didn’t know what to do, so I prayed, “Just show me the way.” Two days later, it hit me: Number 1. Learn everybody's name. Number 2. Learn their parents' names.”
Frances Hampton started her career in social work in 1981 with her first job out of college, working for Hudspeth Regional Center, a congregate living program for people with severe and profound levels of intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) in central Mississippi. Like many who have worked in the field, she had little training or true understanding of how to best support people with IDD. But that would not hinder Frances. She would spend the next 36 years ensuring that people with IDD had the same opportunities as everyone else.
“Frances was thinking in person-centered ways before person-centeredness was cool... It was Frances’s kindness and obvious love for the people that she supported that helped bring everyone who worked there on board.”
“I recall my first Valentine’s Day party there. Earlier in the day, people were outside in shorts and T-shirts, and those were the same clothes they were wearing for the party that evening. I thought to myself, “When I go to a party, I go out and get myself a new dress.” And for the next event, every person had a new dress or a suit. “You could see the smiles on their faces and the faces of their parents.”
Frances made many positive impacts on the people she supported in her career. She recalls early on that no one who had a feeding tube could go home for the weekend. “That just simply would not work.” “We began training parents on how to use and care for the tube, and before you knew it, people were going home with their tubes, and everything went fine.”
Frances always made a point to include parents and families in everything she could. She knew the value of a strong family and wanted the people she supported to have as many opportunities to be with their families as possible. The daughter of a Choctaw Native American mother and an African American father, she watched her well-educated mother bring people to their home who could not read or write. Her mother would read to them, assist them in completing forms, and teach them. She carried her mother's compassion into her career, changing the lives of not only the people she supported, but also other staff.
“In the beginning, other staff were skeptical of what I was doing. When I said, ‘Oh no, they are not going to wear these raggedy socks,’ some staff wondered why it really mattered. But I told them, ‘What if this was your brother or sister or aunt or uncle? How would you want them to dress?’” After a while, people understood that Frances was not doing this for Frances but for the people in support.
Frances was thinking in person-centered ways before person-centeredness was cool. She recalled how everyone would go together in large groups to the same outings and events. But she noticed that some people seemed to like some events better than others. She began to take notes and would tailor events to each person’s likes. In another example, she noted that one person particularly loved to sit out on the back porch, so she got him a nice outdoor lounge chair and a pair of sunglasses, and they would sit out there as often as they could.
“I could not have done what I did without the entire team,” she says, giving credit to everyone who worked with her. It was Frances's kindness and obvious love for the people that she supported that helped bring everyone who worked there on board. “It took about two years, but eventually, everyone took pride in the work that they did and saw the value of each person they supported.
“The staff was just as excited to see people dressed up or enjoy themselves as I was. We worked as a team, and it made a difference in the lives of everyone there.”
About the Author
Craig Escudé, MD, FAAFP, FAADM 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, and the host of the IDD Health Matters Podcast.
HELEN Journal salutes Frances Hampton, LSW as the first inductee of the Annie Sullivan League. Thank you for your work and the positive effect you have had on so many people.