A San Antonio nonprofit serving children with special needs and complex medical conditions recently completed renovations to its 106-year-old residential home in the Monte Vista neighborhood.
Respite Care of San Antonio celebrated the much-needed interior upgrades to its Davidson Respite Home, which houses special needs children who have been removed from their homes due to abuse or neglect.
The nonprofit operates an $8 million budget and has over 100 employees. It was started nearly 40 years ago by two San Antonio families who had special needs children, with the idea of offering temporary relief, or respite, from the demands of their caregiver roles.
“Respite care was born to create that relief from caregiving with a focus on families that may not be able to afford those services,” said Rebecca Helterbrand, the nonprofit’s president and CEO.
How it all started
When registered nurse Marie and her husband Dr. Paul Smith struggled to keep up with the demands of taking care of their special needs daughter, they moved back to San Antonio to get help from family.
“She uprooted her family and came back to San Antonio, thinking, ‘If I have family in town, I can work, I can contribute to my community, I can be a great parent,’” Helterbrand said. “She realized that wasn’t possible even with family support, because the needs of a special needs child are so immense that she just needed more support than what even a family member could provide.”
The Smiths started recruiting the help of the McAllister family, well known in the special needs community in San Antonio, giving each other a break by trading off care for their special needs children on weekends.
In 1997, the Davidson Family helped the nonprofit open its first residential program for special needs children from the foster care system, repurposing a 106-year-old home on Belknap Place in the historic Monte Vista neighborhood. The nonprofit operates another residential house across the street called the Najim Family Respite House, which is designated for older kids.
The nonprofit serves up to 30 children from 6 weeks to 17 years old between the two homes.
‘Intense medical neglect’
The Davidson home’s interior was in dire need of renovations. It hadn’t been updated since it was gifted to the nonprofit in 1997. Respite raises a quarter of a million dollars for the renovations, which added Texas-themed murals to the children’s living spaces and removed lead-based paint from the walls, among several other upgrades.
“It’s really designed with the child in mind to reduce the trauma that they’ve experienced and create a healing, hopeful environment, down to color selection, overall look and feel,” Helterbrand said.
Respite works with SJRC Texas, which oversees children who enter the foster system in Bexar County, and the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services to place eligible children from the foster care system into their homes. Respite always brings siblings along as well, even if they don’t have special needs. The largest sibling group they’ve served was made up of eight children.
Children in the Davidson home have family-style meals together around a large table, serviced by a commercial kitchen upstairs. Children also have access to medical care at an onsite medical clinic staffed by UT Health San Antonio nurses through the university’s Wellness 360 pediatric care program. They also have a behavioral health center staffed by professional counselors.
“[The children] often have had such intense medical neglect that we’re doing a ton of work to bring them up to the standards of care that they are deserving,” Helterbrand said.
In addition to the residential homes, Respite operates preventative care programs through its preschool in partnership with Christ Episcopal Church. The nonprofit also runs its longstanding respite care program with services available seven days a week to give parents a break from their caregiving duties.
And, Helterbrand said, the nonprofit is nearing completion of construction of a new space where they will pilot a “Crisis Nursery” intervention program designed to prevent children from being removed from families.
