Three generations of work in IDD.

A lot of agencies work to manage behavior. We work to understand it. The difference matters: when we treat a person’s behavior as an authentic, real signal of an unmet need, the placement starts working in a way it doesn’t when behavior is something to suppress.

In practice, this means our care coordinators get curious. They ask what a client is trying to achieve, what they’re trying to avoid, and what healthier ways exist to meet the same need. It means our host home providers receive elevated training for the level of support our clients require — particularly clients coming from regional centers or institutions, where behavioral patterns formed under conditions that no longer apply.

Placements that stick aren’t accidents. They’re the result of listening first.

Grace Mountain is the third generation of a family commitment to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The work began with Christina’s grandmother and has been carried forward in the family ever since. Christina and Ian Thomson bring 30+ years of combined experience in IDD services to that lineage — experience earned across multiple states, now focused on Colorado’s Denver metro.

When they founded Grace Mountain Agency in October 2020, they saw a pattern: case managers with hard-to-place clients didn’t need another agency that took the easy placements. They needed an agency that took every level of need — and treated each one with the same care.

Today, Grace Mountain operates as a Colorado Program Approved Service Agency (PASA) under the HCBS-DD waiver, serving adults 17+ across Arapahoe, Douglas, Denver, Jefferson, and Adams counties — with Grand Junction coming soon — through Host Homes, Personal Care Alternatives, and Family Caregivers.

Christina serves as CEO and personally takes every new-client intake call before handoff to a Care Coordinator. Ian leads operations, growth, and new ventures.