Steering a Troubled Disability Agency

Thompson's agency has more than 200 employees and oversees about 90 residential and day program contractors and about 2,000 people who live in 360 group homes and some apartments.

She is working on several levels to achieve improvements, including hiring an expert to help the District get Medicaid funding for many of the costly services it now pays for with local money. She is beefing up case management and other internal oversight. And she hopes by August to move agency employees from three dreary, dilapidated buildings around the city -- one of which has no elevator for disabled clients -- into a single downtown office complex.

Thompson, 52, a sixth generation Washingtonian, has a degree in speech pathology. She left graduate school at Howard University to help the Washington Hearing and Speech Society with special education programs at St. Elizabeths Hospital and Forest Haven, then the city's institution for the mentally retarded.

Later, after marriage and three children, including a son with a developmental disability, Thompson worked in the group home system. In 1998, after her boss was convicted of Medicaid fraud involving the company's activities in Ohio, Thompson and a partner took over four group homes the firm had in the District. There were serious problems with care and upkeep at the homes, but Thompson said they "got things fixed and certainly made people's lives better."

After a divorce and a new marriage, Thompson began work for the mental retardation agency in 2002. With her unique perspective as an agency manager and former group home operator, she was a valuable resource two years later when the deputy mayor for children, youth, families and elders assumed operational control of the agency. She was named interim administrator in April 2005 and appointed outright by Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) in December, at a salary of $105,000 a year.

Thompson's energetic, hands-on approach has pleased many advocates, group home operators and relatives of those with disabilities. They praise her commitment but say problems persist no matter who is at the agency's helm.

"We've had a revolving door scenario to fix a broken system," said Mary Lou Meccariello, executive director of The Arc of the District of Columbia, which provides a range of services to the developmentally disabled. "There are long-standing issues that would challenge anybody."

Sandy Bernstein, of University Legal Services, which represents former Forest Haven residents, said Thompson's need to get so personally involved in daily operations, including attending some individual service plan meetings for clients, "shows how dysfunctional the agency is."

And because decision-making for services is spread out among several agencies, including the Department of Health and the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, she said Thompson "lacks the authority to control everything that affects the people the agency is responsible for serving."

Thompson said the authority is "very fragmented," which is why she reports to a deputy mayor to help cut red tape. The agency recently brought in a chief operating officer to concentrate on day-to-day operations so Thompson can focus on strategic planning.

"A lot of people don't realize what it takes to support people safely," Thompson said. "It's a hard job, which doesn't mean it shouldn't be done right."