ISELIN, N.J. — For a young man with autism, bipolar depression and handful of other medical conditions that require constant monitoring, 18-year-old Aidan Burke is always smiling, his mother says.

He’s willing to eat the healthy meals that are planned for him, enabling him to lose more than 100 pounds. And although he is nonverbal, Aidan is learning to communicate using a “talker,” a tablet-like device with pictures, his mother, Johanna Palestini Burke said.

These positive changes in her son’s life can be attributed to the patient staff at his group home in Sicklerville, where he has lived since 2018, and the skilled professionals at the Durand School in Woodbury, Palestini Burke said.

That’s what made the announcement six weeks ago that her son’s group home is closing so terrifying, she said.

Oaks Integrated Care intends to close five group homes in south Jersey serving 24 children and young adults with developmental disabilities, “due to staffing challenges faced by our agency,” Oaks spokeswoman Denise Soto wrote in an email.

Oaks had intended to close the homes by the end of this month, but will keep them open until everyone is placed, the company said.

Since the announcement was made almost two months ago, officials from Oaks and the state Department of Children and Families say they have been searching for a new provider to assume control of the properties, with no success yet. It’s more likely these residents will be sent to different facilities, which may also disrupt where they go to school if they are relocated far away.

Palestini Burke said she fears how her son will respond to new surroundings and staff. The Kearsley group home supervisor “loves him like he was his own son,” she said.

“Aidan will absolutely regress in all his behaviors and accomplishments he has made to date,” she said.

Palestini Burke is an attorney from Hawthorne who specializes in cases involving people with disabilities. It wasn’t long ago that she and her family were in crisis like so many of her clients.

“Aidan got to the point he would attack me and go after his brother. He had been doing that for several years,” she said. “I was in denial. No mother wants to place their child.”

Suzanne Buchanan, executive director of Autism New Jersey, a research and family advocacy organization, said she hasn’t heard about other group home operators shutting down. But difficulties filling jobs working with people with challenging behaviors, and getting paid for little more than minimum wage, is nothing new.

“The job can be physically and emotionally demanding. You need the right motivation, energy and skill set. And maybe after a few years, they move on,” Buchanan said.

Shutting down a program will undoubtedly cause upheaval, she said.

“Our immediate reaction was sadness for the children themselves. Their lives and routines — everything going on in their day — their whole world will be turned upside down again,” Buchanan said. “Families are in crisis prior to a placement like this.”

Families are already on a waiting list for housing. More closures “extend the wait times,” Buchanan said. “We certainly don’t have the capacity we need in the state. It’s a national problem.”

Oaks closed two group homes for youth in 2021 — the Perkins home in Edgewater Park and Fish Pond 1 in Glassboro, the company confirmed.

“The group homes were closed due to pandemic-related staffing challenges. We worked with our state partners and families/guardians to identify placements for each resident,” Soto said.

At the time of the Perkins home closure, local police and the state Children and Families department were investigating a report of a staff member assaulting a 22-year-old resident in May. Edgewater Police did not respond to a call and email seeking comment on the status of the investigation. The state declined to comment.

Oaks informed the state it wanted to shut down the five homes by Jan. 31 because they did not have the “middle management and clinical staff” necessary to oversee “the provision of care,” Children and Families spokesman Jason Butkowski said.

Oaks intends to close the Archertown group home in New Egypt, Fish Pond II and III in Glassboro, Kearsley in Sicklerville and Perkins, which reopened for adult clients after the contract for youth ended over the summer, Butkowski said. Oaks will continue to hold a state contract for three other group homes serving 15 youth and young adults, he added.

Various state agencies and the New Jersey Ombudsman for Individuals with Intellectual or Developmental Disabilities and Their Families are “develop(ing) a plan to move forward with the least disruption possible,” Butkowski said.

Whenever 16-year-old McKenna Cree is relocated from the Archertown group home, it will be the fourth time she has moved since 2015, her mother Michelle Cree of Toms River said. Two of those moves occurred just last year, when Oaks closed Perkins and Fish Pond I, she said. She recalled that Fish Pond I shuttered “on the heels of a (state) investigation,” but she didn’t know the details.

“It’s immensely stressful. This has made her more anxious,” Cree said. The process of having to adjust to new bus drivers, aides and other professionals make her “more behavioral,” which for McKenna means she can be more aggressive with others and more likely to try to hurt herself, her mother explained.

“There were some great staff at Oaks that she spoke highly of,” Cree said. “They are working very hard and working a lot of overtime because of (staff) shortages.”

The state has found a new home for McKenna: a group home called Crossroads located in Cherry Hill. Crossroads has promised to provide McKenna more behavioral therapy — services Oaks did not provide consistently, so Cree said she is hopeful this will be a better fit for her child. But there are trade-offs. It’s farther from home, which will make visiting harder.

The move is on hold until this latest wave of coronavirus cases recedes, Cree said.

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