| Our Mission |
Fairbanks Resource Agency is a non-profit Alaska corporation dedicated to assuring that Interior Alaskans with disabilities and their families have equal opportunity to be fully integrated into the community where education, employment, housing, recreation and family support services are available in the same places, at the same times and with the same respect afforded any member of the community.
| Over the Years |
For over 45 years, Fairbanks Resource Agency has been providing services to individuals with developmental disabilities and their families living in Fairbanks and other Interior Alaskan communities.
In 1967, Dr. John Noyes, a physician at the Tanana Valley Clinic, responded to the plight of a man who he felt deserved the same rights and privileges that the rest of us enjoyed.
The man had lived most of his life in a state institution in Oregon, where he was sent — along with many other Alaskans with disabilities — to receive support services. However, when Alaska became a state, the contract for these services was canceled and the man, along with others who had been in the Oregon institution, was sent home. Some of the individuals were sent to Harborview, a newly constructed facility in Valdez; others were sent to live in their home communities. However, many communities, including those in Interior Alaska, had no place for individuals with disabilities to go to and provided no support services to them.
In the 1960s, a growing movement advocated taking people with developmental disabilities out of large, restrictive institutional settings and returning them to their own communities. Dr Noyes was one of many people throughout the country who believed in the rights and abilities of people with disabilities to live and work in their own communities, and, together with six other concerned members of the Fairbanks community, he formed the Fairbanks Rehabilitation Association.
After 20 years of helping Alaskans with developmental disabilities, the association decided it was time to change its name to better reflect its broadening scope of services. In 1987 Fairbanks Rehabilitation Association became Fairbanks Resource Agency. By then, FRA was providing supported employment services throughout the community and in its own small business; respite care and family support services to families of individuals and developmental disabilities; and a program to help individuals with disabilities live independently. In 1983, FRA began its Senior Services program, offering care coordination, an Adult Day Center, respite care, and other services for those experiencing Alzheimer’s disease or related dementia (ADRD), and seniors over 60 with frail or disabling conditions. FRA is in compliance with HIPAA (the federal Health Information Portability Accountability Act).
FRA employs over 300 full- and part-time employees providing care in client homes and working throughout the Fairbanks community: the main FRA administrative building at 805 Airport Way, the Senior Services Adult Day Center, and the 10 accessible residences/complexes.
FRA receives funding from both private and public sources and has an active Board of Directors. Proceeds raised benefit the people who choose to use FRA support services. Click here to learn about the many ways you can contribute to FRA.
