CHILDREN HAVE A POTENTIAL at Barksdale Air Force Base

 It’s the middle of July, and that means it’s the middle of Disability Pride Month. This commemorative month is in July because July 26th is the anniversary of the Americans with Disability Act (1990), which protects the rights of Americans with disabilities to ensure Americans can experience the talents of people of all abilities. It’s a perfect time to look back on a pioneering program in US education and military family history, Project CHAP, Children Have a Potential. CHAP, which was announced in a letter sent to all Air Force commands in October, 1961 by Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force, General Curtis LeMay.

Project CHAP, later known as the CHAP Program, is notable because, as with school desegregation, for example, this military mandate led the country in a new progressive direction. CHAP predated the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (Public Law 94-142), or the EHA, of 1975. The EHA guaranteed a free, appropriate public education, or FAPE, to each child with a disability in every state and locality across the United States. Prior to CHAP, accessing services for handicapped military children had extra challenges because many of the public programs that did exist prior to 1975 had residency requirements that miliary personnel couldn’t meet, and private programs were often cost-prohibitive.

The United States Air Force was the first US military branch to implement such a program, and Barksdale AFB in Bossier City, Louisiana was only the second base to get its program in place. Offutt Air Force base in Nebraska had a pilot program known as “Children Unlimited” that was an early prototype of CHAP, and Barksdale’s plan that was laid out in December of 1959 was very similar.

With the coordinated effort of civilian medical specialists and Barksdale, hundreds of children were evaluated in CHAP clinics. That help was necessary since, though it was well-staffed with general practice physicians, the Base hospital didn’t have the specialists on its regular staff to conduct such evaluations. From early in the CHAP program, six specialists from the greater Shreveport community aided the staff at the Barksdale hospital, including an ophthalmologist, two orthopedic surgeons, a neurosurgeon, a speech therapist and a psychiatrist. After evaluations, children were referred off-Base as needed for treatment. Their parents could meet monthly on Base for lectures by specialists and subject authorities and provide support to each other. If a parent became assigned a transfer to a base where medical help or special schooling was not available, they could request a more appropriate transfer to meet the needs of their child.

The CHAP program at Barksdale also provided a 6-week summer day camp where children took swimming lessons several days a week, could watch movies, learn songs, reading, crafts, play Bingo, go bowling and have dances. The day camp had a league of teenage volunteers to help each child participate to the fullest extent possible. A photo that appeared in the Shreveport Times by noted local photographer Langston McEachern of a CHAP summer dance was captioned: Happiness is helping others and the faces of the counselors at Barksdale Air Force Base’s Children Have a Potential Program reflect the same joy as can be seen in the faces of the handicapped children they are assisting.”

If you have any information, stories, or photos about the CHAP at Barksdale or other special stories about life on Base or in Bossier, we would love to see them or to copy them, with permission, to add to the History Center’s research collection. Please come to the History Center to do research or see our exhibits at 2206 Beckett St, Bossier City, LA. We are open M-Th 9-8, Fri 9-6, and Sat 9-5. Our phone number is (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org

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Images: 

• Photo that appeared in the 16 July 1967 Shreveport Times by noted local photographer Langston McEachern of a CHAP summer dance with the caption: Happiness is helping others and the faces of the counselors at Barksdale Air Force Base’s Children Have a Potential Program reflect the same joy as can be seen in the faces of the handicapped children they are assisting.”

• Photo from the  23 July 1965 Barksdale Observer of officers of the Non-Commissioned Officers Wives Club presenting a check to the base chaplain for Barksdale’s CHAP program for handicapped children.

Article by: Pam Carlisle