Lu Picard
When Lu’s widowed father suffered a debilitating stroke in 1992 and came to live with them, she quickly recognized that he was becoming more depressed and angry, as he had to rely on someone else for his every move. Lu has a gift of being able to assess the possibilities, the potential of a situation. So, she looked at her Dad, and she looked at the family dog, Jules (short for Juliet.) The leash was in her hand. She pulled, Jules pulled, natural to both woman and dog. Within a short time, Lu had educated Jules to respond to her Dad’s tug by pulling him up to his feet. Then they would walk together. Or maybe Jules would retrieve a favorite magazine or just lie nearby, inseparable from Lu’s dad. To complete the picture that was forming in Lu’s mind, she found that her daughter, who had a learning disability, had no trouble in training Jules to do more and more things that would help her grandfather. In fact, the process was therapeutic and a great confidence builder. The stroke suffered by her father and the frustration her youngest daughter was feeling, drove Lu to find solutions. And, ECAD was born out of that drive, passion and need. Lu and her husband, Dale worked tirelessly researching, networking, following lead after lead to build ECAD into the organization it is now. Lu sees every placement as a remarkable success for the Client, the student-educator and the organization.
