Staff Writer

Matthew Winters understands the values of friendliness, courtesy and good manners in everyday life.

“If you treat people kindly, then you will be treated kindly,” Winters said.

Winters’ work emphasizing those values was recognized at Town Hall last Friday with a legislative sentiment from State Rep. Sean Flaherty (D-Scarborough).

 Winters, 34, is a developmentally disabled Scarborough resident who served two years on the community lead team for Community Partners Inc., a Biddeford-based nonprofit agency that helps ensure adults with developmental disabilities lead full lives at home and in society.

He was elected by his 22 peers at the Portland branch of the agency and used his two-year term in part to organize a 2009 conference at the University of New England, said Margaret Cardoza, a self- advocacy coordinator at CPI.

During the conference Winters awarded his peers for their good citizenship, friendliness, self-advocacy and achievements and also arranged a presentation by Christine Latini, an expert on etiquette.

“He has connected with many people and many behind the scenes appreciate him. This is a chance to show our affection,” Cardoza said at the Town Hall ceremony.

Winters has thrived at CPI Portland, where adults with developmental disabilities work or volunteer at food pantries, homeless shelters and with Meals on Wheels, said his mother, Kathy Winters Quimby.

“It has made him more confident and given him the skills to live independently,” she said.

The community lead team Winters worked with from 2007 to 2009 was designed to allow those receiving support from CPI to help determine how programs are operated, Cardoza said.

Winters was nominated by his peers to serve with three others receiving CPI support, Cardoza said.

“It felt good, I was surprised to be nominated,” Winters said.

While many adults and children with disabilities in Maine once spent their lives in the state-run Pineland Center in New Gloucester, they now are more visible and accepted in society. This delights Cardoza.

“We have broken through the threshold, people know it’s not contagious, it is not going to hurt,” she said.

The Pineland Center opened in 1908 and by 1960 had 1,300 residents. It closed in 1996 when  Maine was under a federal order to develop more community-oriented programs for its handicapped citizens.

 Federal Judge George Singal lifted the order last month because of the state’s progress in creating community-based care and support services.

Doug Watson, director of vocational services and community inclusion efforts for the Biddeford CPI office, said the work is an about face from practices in place fewer than 20 years ago.

“It is a real evolution of thinking,” Watson said. “We think support, not services.”

CPI now has a $15 million annual budget funded largely by MaineCare and federal Medicaid money, with offices and group homes throughout York, Cumberland, Androscoggin and Kennebec counties.

The agency supports about 200 adults and operates about 40 residential sites. The residential sites can house one or two adults or are group homes for three to six adults.

CPI works with adults who experienced a disability before age 18, Cardoza said. Those disabilities include IQ test scores of 75 or lower, diagnosed adaptive behavioral conditions or a catastrophic brain injury.

Amy Safford, manager of development and community relations for CPI, said the range of disabilities extends from moderate cognitive disabilities where someone cannot drive or needs help crossing a street to more severe disabilities that require specialized health care.

Closing institutions such as Pineland and court decisions requiring public schools to provide more special education services have led to a philosophical shift, Watson said.

“We are seeing skills and gifts instead of deficiencies,” he said.

What is also seen, according to Cardoza, is how many people in society are affected by developmental disabilities.

“People are safest when they know and are known by people who have their vested interest at heart,” Cardoza said.

Staff writer David Harry can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 219