Out & About With . . . Parlando School for the Arts

Imagine!’s Out & About department was created in 1997 in response to the requests of community members with disabilities and family members who care for those with disabilities to have more options for community-based recreation services.

That “community-based” element is key - rather than scheduling activities in a segregated setting, you will find Out & About participants (both adults and children) utilizing recreation centers, bowling alleys, movie theaters, museums, and even amusement parks.

Of course, Out & About wouldn’t be able to provide those services without the support of the many, many community organizations that collaborate with Out & About to ensure that participants are able to receive positive instruction, within a therapeutic framework, to encourage growth, learning, community participation, socialization, health, safety, and the achievement of individual goals.

Today, I’d like to acknowledge Parlando School for the Arts for its support of Out & About. Parlando, housed at the Dairy Center for the Arts in Boulder, hosted three music classes for Out & About’s Summer Camp last year. They provided the classes free to Out & About. The classes were facilitated by Elle Tyler, piano facility member at Parlando. Out & About’s “Music and Movement” section of Summer Camp was definitely enriched thanks to Parlando!

Thank you, Parlando School for the Arts, for your support of the community and all of its members.

Bonus Parlando support of Out & About!

Out & About’s Centre Stage 2015 program is well on its way and the big performance is coming up! This year, the play is being directed by Kristel Brown of Parlando School of the Arts.

What: Centre Stage 2015 Production
Where: Broomfield Auditorium, 3 Community Park Drive, Broomfield
When: Friday, February 27th, 7:30pm

Not sure what Centre Stage is all about? Click here for more details! 

Imagine! Work Space Renovation

Imagine! is renovating its main administrative office building, located at 1400 Dixon Street in Lafayette, CO., starting February 23.

The motivation behind the renovation is so that we can create workspaces that will better serve our needs, and more importantly, the needs of those we serve, moving forward. We are excited about this renovation, but it will mean some temporary and minor disruptions.

We wanted to let our stakeholders know what to expect for the next few months:

Accessing Imagine! Employees 

All phone lines and email address of Imagine! employees will remain active.

Accessing Imagine! Meeting Space

If you have a meeting that was scheduled at Imagine!’s Dixon Street building or in the John Taylor Conference Center anytime from February 23 through June 1, the person(s) who scheduled the meeting will contact you with the new location. If you are not contacted or not sure who to contact, just call Imagine!’s main phone number at 303-665-7789.

Thank you for your patience and understanding during this time.

Technology Tuesday

A little more than a month ago, we let you know that students of Sri Kurniawan, Associate Professor at the Baskin School of Engineering at the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC), are collaborating with Imagine! by having some of her students help to create apps for Imagine! clients as part of a student project.

This is Imagine!’s second app development project with UCSC. Go Banana Slugs!!

Today, we’d like to share some specifics about this semester’s projects. This year we will be working with two teams to develop five HTML5 applications for people with cognitive disabilities. The general purpose of these applications is to provide access to, and teach basic educational/communication skills to, adults with disabilities in a way that is age appropriate and customizable to the interests of the individual. One of the goals of this project is to develop a database for each game to track the progress of the user over time. The apps will be developed to incorporate an errorless learning approach (meaning, users will always select the correct answers before moving on to the next question). Each application with have two different modes of operation, a teaching mode and a testing mode. The teaching mode is a practice mode where the user gets to play freely but is still within the errorless teaching approach. The testing mode is password protected and needs to be facilitated by an administrator. This mode records the user's results which can be stored, and then accessed and compared for data analysis at a later time.

This year we are working on a "concept" game, a basic sign language game, a "Simon" game for the visually impaired, and a basic object identification game.

In the "concept" game, users will be tested on their knowledge of which is amount is bigger, which is smaller, longer, shorter, fuller, emptier, etc.

The basic sign game will incorporate videos of basic sign language and asked the user to identify the correct photo/icon equivalent.

The object identification game will teach and test users on their environmental knowledge.

The Simon game will allow folks with visual and cognitive impairments to play games independently.

Imagine! is very grateful to the University of California, Santa Cruz for all of their work on these projects and for the development partnership to create solutions for the cognitively disabled. We’ll be sure to keep you posted on the progress!

Good News Friday!

Yes, February just started, but that’s not too early for the fine folks who work for Imagine!’s Out & About department to begin preparing for this year’s Summer Camp.

The video below will give you a preview of things to come.

Can’t see the video? Click here. 

Out & About’s Summer Camp Program is designed for school aged kids with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Summer Camp offers ten weeks of full days, from 8:00 AM until 5:00 PM Monday through Friday, and is available to children ages 7 - 21.

Activities include fishing, equine assisted opportunities, art exploration, swimming, movement, sports and games, gardening, as well as lots of scheduled field trips to local venues such as Water World, Elitch Gardens, and the Wildlife Experience. The goal of Out & About’s Summer Camp is to provide a sense of acceptance and self among peers, to enhance participant’s quality of life through the development of socialization skills and coordination skills, and to promote community integration.

For more information, please email Elena Ciaravino at eciaravino@imaginecolorado.org, or call her at 303-926-6457.

Out & About With . . . Growing Gardens

Imagine!’s Out & About department was created in 1997 in response to the requests of community members with disabilities and family members who care for those with disabilities to have more options for community-based recreation services.

That “community-based” element is key - rather than scheduling activities in a segregated setting, you will find Out & About participants (both adults and children) utilizing recreation centers, bowling alleys, movie theaters, museums, and even amusement parks.

 Of course, Out & About wouldn’t be able to provide those services without the support of the many, many community organizations that collaborate with Out & About to ensure that participants are able to receive positive instruction, within a therapeutic framework, to encourage growth, learning, community participation, socialization, health, safety, and the achievement of individual goals.

 Today, I’d like to acknowledge Growing Gardens for its support of Out & About. Out & About has been partnering with Growing Gardens for many years to host a facilitated gardening class. Participants learn about all things gardening, including composting, bugs, planting, and eating fresh veggies. Participants always seem to be smiling at Growing Gardens, and they have fun while learning.

Thank you, Growing Gardens, for your support of your community and all of its members.

Time To Celebrate?

This past Sunday, 114.5 million viewers watched one of the most exciting Super Bowls in history. In the midst of the drama, there was a lesson to be learned.

When the Seahawks had the ball on the 1-yard line of the Patriots with about a minute left in the game, a touchdown and a victory for Seattle seemed to be a foregone conclusion. Television cameras looking at both sidelines appeared to confirm this – the New England sideline looked stunned and morose while the Seattle sideline was jumping up and down joyously.

But sometimes in sports, celebrations take place a little too early.
  Can’t see the video? Click here.

If you don’t know by now what happened next during Sunday’s game, then here’s a hint: when the final whistle blew, it wasn’t the Seahawks who were celebrating. They got a little too excited a little too early.

The tendency to celebrate prematurely isn’t only something that happens in sports. We all probably have a memory of our lives of when we got excited about something before it actually happened, and the lingering memory of how crushing it felt when it didn’t come to be.

It happens at organizations like Imagine! as well. Because of the nature of what we do, however, we must be extra vigilant in guarding against the thinking that something is completed when it really isn’t. We offer services for real people with real challenges, and we can’t afford to celebrate success too early.

Whenever we implement a new program or change the way we do things, we must make sure we “close the loop.” We must review what we have done and explore what we still need to do. We need to continually ask questions such as “Is this the best we can do?” or “What have we learned?” or “What needs to be adjusted?” or “What’s new and better?”

This process needs to be built in whenever change is occurring, and it needs to be continuous. In our field, very little remains static, and the answers to questions such as the ones above questions will likely change over time. If we’ve already celebrated, we may miss those shifting answers and environmental factors, to the detriment of our organization and those we serve.

 Time will tell if the Seahawks will recover from their heartbreaking defeat, or if they will heed the warning about jumping the gun when it comes to celebrating. There’s no reason we at Imagine! can’t learn and apply that lesson immediately, however. We just need to be careful not to host any congratulatory parties when we do.

Then again, what do I know?

Technology Tuesday

Leah and Alex

Today’s Technology Tuesday is going to be a little different than some of the others in that, rather than focusing on specific technologies, we’d like to share information about an individual working for Imagine! who is truly blazing the trail when it comes to incorporating technology into our services to improve the self-reliance of the individuals we serve.

More than seventeen years ago, Alex Andrews brought his curiosity and creativity to Imagine! to support people with intellectual and developmental disabilities to achieve their full potential. Long before technology was viewed as a viable support in our field, Alex was using his knowledge to wire devices to teach basic principles of cause and effect, so that individuals with significant disabilities could control and manipulate lights and sound by simply tapping on his or her chest, or by brushing his or her fingers up and down the front of his or her body, taking that critical first step toward independent decision making. Since then, Alex has pursued grant opportunities to improve and increase the access to technology so that individuals can learn, live, play, and work in their communities.

Today, as a Direct Support Provider (DSP) and technology architect, Alex is working locally and nationwide to create assessments and screening tools to assist people experiencing a disabling condition to identify technological solutions to increase independence, health, and safety throughout the community, at home, and at work. Alex’s latest venture has brought his knowledge into his home, where he and his wife support Leah as host home providers. Through a combination of low and high tech solutions, Leah uses an iPad to complete activities of daily living, and to prepare her for what she loves, which is heading out to her job in the community.

Here’s what Leah’s dad, Doug, had to say about the progress she has made since Alex began providing services, and how technology has played a role in her successes:

Alex’s work with assistive technology is being applied to Leah’s living situation. Alex remodeled a portion of his house to provide for Leah and future client(s). He has wired the environment that Leah now lives in to support her specific needs (with ‘sound prompting’ and communication systems). In only a few weeks, Leah is now waking up, starting her morning routine, contacting Alex and Diana when she completes her routine all without any personal contact. The same applies to her routine when she comes home from her ‘day program’ and for her evening routine. She is also learning to pack her bag with appropriate clothes and items she needs to visit us on weekends. All of these are first time events! 

Alex has devised a method that allows prompting and supervision to be applied less and less as Leah progresses toward the goal of handling tasks without any prompting or support. She has already made measurable improvement toward performing daily routines independently. In addition, at her recent IP, Leah’s attending support group watched a video of Leah working with a prompting system to make oatmeal for herself in a microwave oven with no help. These professionals, (not to mention Leah’s parents), were overwhelmed to see Leah demonstrating such independent skills. It was clear to all that Leah was so proud of what she had accomplished. 

Although Leah has a wonderful support group, it is without question that Leah’s growth, independence, and joy has advanced due only to Alex’s exceptional vision and caring. His drive to never stop looking for solutions and his knowledge of how to approach these challenges using any and all simple manual solutions or technological solutions is known to many. I personally have seen the effect that his effort has had on my daughter and it has been significant and has been witnessed by everyone that works with Leah. 

Leah is showing an ability to provide for herself in many ways that would not be possible without Alex’s influence. I no longer allow thoughts of what Leah can’t do thanks to Alex. Also, my wife and I have both learned a great deal from Alex about how to be consistent in our support for her. He is always willing to share his knowledge without hesitation. He has greatly improved my life and the life of my daughter. 

Imagine!’s well-deserved reputation as a leader in incorporating technology in services to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities is largely due to creative and dedicated employees like Alex. Thanks, Alex, for your efforts!