- Ongoing
- Active
- Achieved
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The Current
Curriculum for Recreation, Employment, New Skills, and Technology Historically, providing high-quality activities has been a priority for organizations, a task often difficult to achieve. Meaningful days filled with intentional activities are crucial for delivering high-quality services. We found that other curricula are either too expensive, designed for children and not respectful of our folks’ age…
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The GRACE Project
The GRACE Program was developed to meet the needs of our aging adults with developmental disabilities by allowing them to age in place as they enjoy the company of their peers and staff in an enriched and dynamic – yet slower-paced – lifestyle.
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Workforce Growth Project
A groundbreaking undertaking, generously funded by the Coleman Foundation, The Workforce Growth Project is an Intersect for Ability collaborative, multi-year project. Over seventy individuals from sixteen social service organizations have come together to tackle one of the industry’s most pressing challenges – recruiting and retaining dedicated staff. It is clear that the project is ambitious…
Check back soon! New projects are in the works.
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ABLE Program
Full Partner Agencies: Elim Christian Services The Autism Believing, Living, and Employing (ABLE) Program was funded by The Coleman Foundation during the first grant cycle (August 2009 – August 2010) and addressed all 3 of the focal areas (Staff Training and Retention, Life Stage Transitions, and Employment). Elim (lead agency for the program) realized tremendous…
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Adult Core Autism Training
Full Partner Agencies: Little Friends, Inc In the traditional education system much of the training and development focus is on teachers and service providers; what is lacking is a core training model for adult service providers. Recently, the Illinois Council on Developmental Disabilities convened a task force, the Illinois Direct Service Professional Workforce Initiative Steering…
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Advancing the Direct Support Professional Training Program
Full Partner Agencies: Misericordia Heart of Mercy High turnover rates among the Direct Support Professional (DSP) staff represents an enormous financial and operational burden to developmental disabilities agencies; however, the most serious impact of staff turnover is seen in the quality of care provided to individuals with developmental disabilities. This information is supported by the…
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Applied Behavior Analyst Practicum Program
Full Partner Agencies: Barbara Olson Center of Hope, Clearbrook, Easter Seals Metropolitan Chicago, Elim Christian Services, Little Friends Inc, Misericordia Heart of Mercy, PACTT Learning Center, and UCP Seguin of Greater Chicago. For individuals with developmental disabilities, processing a conversation, understanding a request or demand, communicating basic needs or wants, coping with day to day…
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Building Bridges to the Future
Building Bridges to the Future is an initiative program to assist families and professionals in transitioning students with developmental disabilities to the world of adult services.
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Building Supportive Workplace Cultures (BSWC) – Partnered with PHI International
Direct service personnel (DSP) are front-line professionals who interact directly and daily with people with I/DD assisting with the activities of daily living, serving as advocates for those in their care, and enabling these individuals to have the highest quality of life possible. Over the past serval decades, a high turnover rate in the number…
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CHOICE Program
Clearbrook, Park Lawn and UCP Seguin of Greater Chicago, members of Intersect for Ability’s network of agencies in the northern Illinois area, have successfully collaborated on projects funded by The Coleman Foundation in the past. These projects include Building Bridges to the Future, The GRACE Project, FIIVE, and Employment First: Bridges to Work Initiative. Each…
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DSP Recognition Week
The recruitment and retention of qualified staff, particularly with Direct Support Professionals (DSP), has become a significant issue for human service agencies in Illinois and across the country. Attracting and retaining a competent workforce is the number one, common priority among partner agencies. As such, brainstorming creative strategies and finding innovative solutions is an identified…
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Enhanced Medical Services
The Enhanced Medical Services (EMS) through Collaboration project is a a healthcare directory that identifies providers that have shown a commitment to serving people with disabilities. This directory includes insurance types accepted. The service providers listed are not specially endorsed by Enhanced Medical Services or any of its affiliates.
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Quality of Life Training Project
A quality of life (QOL) measure that helps articulate an individual’s, wishes, hopes and dreams is a critically needed tool to help service providers move away from a deficit based assessment system that creates goals, perhaps unimportant to the individual, towards a person-centered planning system that helps to truly understand what is important to individuals…
