Making a Difference: Meet Shawn Fulton-With SelfAdvocates of Indiana(SAI)

Maria Smietana

Nothing about Shawn Fulton’s life has been easy, but when asked where he gets his unwavering positivity and high-energy approach to his work, he’ll say “I don’t know, that’s just me. I always tell everybody anything is possible, but you are the one that has to make it possible.”

Born in the 1970s in the humble industrial town of Marion, IN, Shawn grew up very poor. “We lived in a very small house and heated with a kerosene heater that sat in a corner and had aluminum foil behind it,” he recalled. At age 4, he fell down a set of stairs and, most likely, suffered a traumatic brain injury. He doesn’t know if he ever got a real diagnosis, but throughout his childhood, it became increasingly obvious that he had learning disabilities. Pinpointing exactly what those were and the resources to treat them were still out of reach in most small school systems during the time he was growing up.

At age 12, Shawn had his next near-death experience. While watching television during a thunderstorm he was struck in the face by lightning, which left him with a scar on his nose and permanent damage to his eyesight. That was on top of undergoing three kidney surgeries and three bladder surgeries, all before the age of 15.

After he graduated from high school in 1992, Shawn found work with a water softener company and was doing fine until he fell victim to a Halloween prank that would change his life forever. The prank involved a dare to grab a butcher knife from another kid’s hand. Two of his fingers were nearly severed, and although they were successfully reattached, getting back the functional use of his hand would take a lot longer. During his recuperation period, he was placed in a sheltered workshop—agencies where people with intellectual and/or physical disabilities work in an enclosed environment doing simple, repetitive tasks. He couldn’t have known it then, but he would remain there long after he had regained use of his hand. In all, he spent 20 years of his life there, doing simple things like folding shipping boxes for Amazon or putting seed into bird feeders.

But the agency would also be the place where Shawn would have his first encounter with people who would eventually open the door to a whole new way of life for him.

“I got into Self Advocates of Indiana (SAI) by accident, really” he said. “I didn’t know anything about self-advocacy until Michelle Piercy and David Sprell got me to come to one of the local [SAI] meetings. They saw something in me that they probably shouldn’t have dragged out, because after that meeting, they never could get me to shut up,” he said with a wry chuckle. “I was very opinionated and back then, and I voiced my opinion in ways that I probably shouldn’t have. I actually owe them everything for where I am today, because if I wouldn’t have gotten into the local self-advocates group and started advocating at the local level, I wouldn’t have been able to get to the state level.”

Shawn’s first steps into self-advocacy were small, like asking his workshop agency to replace the old pop machines, which were always breaking down. “There was also a 3-4-foot-wide space between the door and the awning, which would fill with snow and ice [in the winter],” he recalled. “We wanted to make sure nobody would slip and fall going from the vans to the building, so we advocated to get the awning fixed. And then we got a lot of help [to] get a lot more stuff changed for the good at that agency.”

It didn’t take Shawn long to go from working on self-advocacy projects to serving on the local SAI board. “I worked up the chain from sergeant-of-arms to vice president to president,” he said. I helped do fundraisers for community projects like tornado relief here in Indiana.”

Once Shawn went to his first state-level self-advocacy board meeting, he says he was hooked. “I got into doing stuff with the state self-advocacy group and, oh, boy, it took off from there.” One of the first initiatives he worked on was My Life My Choice, “where we went into nursing homes to try and get people with disabilities out and help them to live in the community.” He would learn that disabled individuals were often dumped into nursing homes by their families, who couldn’t or wouldn’t care for them any other way. The initiative was stalled by the pandemic, but Shawn hopes it can resume this year. “Hopefully, we can get more people out of nursing homes that don’t need to be there,” he said.

Opening doors for others soon left Shawn with two crucial epiphanies regarding his own life: “Self-advocacy at the local and state level helped me get to the point where I knew I didn’t want to be in an [agency workshop] anymore,” he said. “And I also knew that my dream job would be to work for the Arc of Indiana (SAI’s parent not-for-profit organization).”

their decision-making capacity by choosing trusted supporters to help them make choices.

One of his key mentors was a woman named Betty Williams. “She and the founder of SAI, Darcus Nims, were my biggest influences because they were the ones that kept saying, ‘You can do anything you put your mind to,’” Shawn recalled. When Betty became ill and then passed away, it created the job opening that Shawn had dreamed of. “Now I go all over the state and talk to self-advocates about what is possible,” he said proudly. “I tell them my story, how I started out in the workshop and where I am today, working for the Arc, as the education and training coordinator.

Since starting with the Arc, Shawn has worked on numerous projects, including Indiana’s Supported Decision- Making law, which allows disabled individuals to retain

In general, much of SAI’s current work focuses on providing the disabled population with opportunities to live more autonomous lives and to prepare them for employment outside of the workshop setting. Along with that is an ongoing fight to eliminate so-called Section 14(c) certificates, which allow some employers to pay disabled individuals less than the minimum wage.

Shawn is stalwart in his belief that anyone can work. “They just need a little push to get there or to find what they are passionate about,” he said. “The Arc of Indiana gave me a chance to shine, and I will never let them down. I’ll keep working until every person with a disability gets a job that pays minimum wage or more so they can live their best life.”

The mission of Self-Advocates of Indiana / The Arc of Indiana is to advocate, educate, celebrate, and empower people with all disabilities to become more effective decision-makers, and have more independence, and promote employment for all. To learn more, visit www.arcind.org.