All these years later, Carrol Stephens still remembers her son Scott’s junior prom.
That night, in May of 1983, Scott and his friends made it home safely. It was the next night when a car accident would change things forever.
"When we arrived we were told that Scott had suffered traumatic brain injury and was not expected to live the night,” Carrol said.
Scott has defied those dire predictions. This year, he’ll turn 50.
Strapped into his wheelchair, a pair of round glasses perched on the end of his nose as he focuses on a puzzle piece, Scott still has a boyish look.
He has required care his entire adult life, but, as his family discovered decades ago, living arrangements for people with significant brain injury are limited.
"His options were living at home, isolated with Mom and Dad until we were no longer able to take care of him, or an institution or a nursing home," Carrol said. “I can just remember breaking down and saying, 'This is not for Scott.'"
Thousands of people living in Massachusetts nursing homes are not elderly or sick. They have brain injuries. Carrol created another option. Along with her late husband, Doug, Carrol founded a nonprofit called Supportive Living and, in 1997, opened Warren House on a residential side street in Woburn.
Scott lives here in his own apartment. It’s one of 15 units in a built-in community with round-the-clock staff.
It’s exactly what Carrol wanted for her son. But it was only the beginning. Supportive Living now has three other residences — in North Reading, Rockport and Lexington — 45 units in all. They’re funded through government housing and disability subsidies and offered on a first-come-first-serve basis.
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Even people who don’t live here may benefit.
A gym in the basement of the Lexington facility is open to nonresidents. People typically confined to wheelchairs are raised to their feet and supported as they walk on a treadmill or pedal a stationary bike.
The gym is also a lab of sorts where researchers track how exercise impacts people with brain injuries. There’s evidence it improves physical health, but what staff here are especially excited about is the possibility that it also increases cognitive ability.
"If our participants are up, walking, lifting weight, using TRX, stretching, standing — whatever it might be — their brain has to work to do it," said Peter Noonan, Supportive Living’s executive director. "And as their brain is working, it’s bringing back some of the function that were once thought lost forever. Do people with brain injuries have the ability to progress? People with brain injuries absolutely have the ability to progress and we don’t know how far."
Consider Scott, who for twenty years after his accident, didn’t say a word, telling me about his work.
"I can’t work more," he said.
Scott — who designs business cards, among other things — can only work three days a week in order to keep his disability benefits. He says he enjoys work and would like to work every day.
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The accident that changed Scott’s life inspired another dream, one his mother Carrol says is now realized.
"My goal was to create an organization that would have a strong foundation and would be there for many many years after I passed away," she said. "And I believe we have it."
