Written by Mark Emery, CEO of Imagine!, with the creativity of Fred Hobbs. This blog is meant to discuss ideas of interest in the world of Intellectual Disabilities in Colorado and beyond. The blog is a “safe zone” where discussions are open and honest, and new ideas and new ways of looking at things are encouraged.
They’re at it again! My two favorite cartoon characters just can’t stop talking about conflict free case management. This week, their discussion revolves around the roles of a case manager, and how those roles relate (or don’t relate) to conflict of interest.
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 Alchemy of Movement for its support of Out & About. Alchemy of Movement has been have been so open, flexible, and welcoming to Out & About staff and participants. Out & About used the space for their Centre Stage for Kids practice for the past school year. Out & About-ers really enjoyed the relaxing environment and the hospitality the owner Lucy has extended to the group.
On behalf of all of Imagine!, thank you, Alchemy of Movement, for your support of your community and all of its members. We greatly appreciate all they have done in the past year, and we look forward to more connections in the future.
For more than five years, Imagine! has collaborated with the University of Colorado to create assistive technology for individuals we serve. Each spring and fall, students in Professor Melinda Piket-May's freshman engineering class work on adaptive equipment projects to meet the needs of a specific individual or individuals.
The latest batch of projects is complete, and we will be sharing some of them with you over the next few weeks.
Check out this project made by the students, a “Feel the Beat” Sound Vest, designed so individuals who are hard of hearing can experience music through a vibrating sound vest.
Imagine! provides many services to people with disabilities in our community. One of the services we provide is the opportunity for individuals to learn to express oneself through arts of different mediums.
We also believe in supporting those artists who wish to take their art to a professional level.
Today I’d like to share a couple of examples of how we are doing that, and encourage you to support these artists as well.
Imagine! CORE/Labor Source Art Instructor Bridget Carroll developed a class, 'Art at Work,' where advanced artists are encourage to create, market, and sell their art to their community and beyond. The Imagine! artists have shown their art in local coffee shops and galleries and have seen great success, but they wanted to expand their audience. Like many professional artists, the Imagine! artists asked for support in selling their art through an online venue. Their art is now for sale online through an Etsy account (click here to check it out). You can search by specific artists on the top left section of the website or just skim through the page. The artists are extremely proud and they encourage you to check out their new website! Check out two of the many works available on the site below.
The artists are offering a 20% discount when you use the coupon code 'iloveimagineart' at check out to celebrate the grand opening of their online shop.
And Mandy, who lives in Imagine!’s Bob and Judy Charles SmartHome in Boulder, has been self-publishing books for some time now. Many of her books are holiday themed. Click on the images below to learn more about the books (and please consider making a purchase if you are so inclined).
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 Broomfield United Methodist Church for its support of Out & About. Broomfield United Methodist Church has allowed Out & About to use one of their classrooms for a variety of classes, as well as to use the church as our one of their Summer Camp base sites for a few years now. They are always very warm and welcoming to the Out & About group.
Thank you, Broomfield United Methodist Church, for your support of our community and all of its members.
My two favorite cartoon characters continue to discuss conflict free case management. This time, the discussion revolves around an alternative solution to what has been proposed so far – a choice of case management agencies.
Can’t see the video? Click here.
This week’s Technology Tuesday is another exciting edition of “Chris’s Corner,” featuring a musical update from Chris Baumgart, Imagine!’s Assistive Technology Specialist.
Chris’s Corner
Another day in the corner.
And again, welcome back, fellow corner-ians. This installment of the corner is a continuation of our exploration into the realm of MIDI technologies, and their uses. If you’re unfamiliar with MIDI technologies, and/or this is your first visit to the corner, fear not! Follow the links below to previous editions to get caught up. And don’t fret. We’ll be right here waiting for you when you get back.
Everyone here? Great!
In this week’s Tech Tuesday, we’re following up on another application for MIDI over WiFi. As I mentioned in February’s edition, one of the challenges that we may run into when using MIDI over WiFi is something we call “latency.” Put simply, latency is the delay between the time a user sends a signal (by touching a button for example), and an outcome is produced (such as an instrument sound).
There are certainly methods that we can use to minimize latency, but it is very challenging to eliminate it entirely. This brings us to a different method: samples. Instead of using MIDI signals to trigger single notes, we can use these signals to start and stop any number of rhythm loops. This is exciting, because the loops will synchronize with the MIDI clock.
More on the MIDI clock: imagine that the software receiving any incoming signals has a built-in metronome, and will only allow loops to be triggered exactly when the metronome ticks another beat. Sound exciting? It is! In this way, even if a user triggers a loop that isn’t quite on the beat (or that trickster latency causes the signal to be a bit behind), you’d never know it, because the MIDI clock is on the case! Now by employing the skills and methods we’ve discussed in previous editions, anyone who wants to be a DJ can be.
Volunteers are a huge part of Imagine!’s success. In the fiscal year 2013-14, 409 people volunteered for Imagine!, providing 12,261 hours of service. The estimated value of those volunteer hours to Imagine! during that time is $275,025.45!
Volunteers bring much more than monetary value to our organization. Imagine! is a community-based organization, and we can’t do what we do without the support of our community. Volunteering offers a great opportunity for our local friends and neighbors to experience first-hand the vital work Imagine! employees do, and just as important, to see the amazing contributions that individuals served by Imagine! bring to their communities every day. Imagine! volunteers frequently become donors to our organization, and many end up working for us full time!
So today, I’d like to highlight (and thank) just a few of the many volunteers who have made a huge difference to Imagine! and to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities living in Boulder and Broomfield counties.
Zoe Polk has been sharing her creativity and compassion with Imagine! for nearly two years. Zoe has volunteered with Imagine!’s CORE/Labor Source program, working to support staff members and students in their art, creative writing, and music classes. Zoe has also volunteered her creative talents by creating beautiful centerpieces for Imagine!’s annual fundraising event, the Imagine! Celebration.
Leona Stoecker is an incredible Imagine! ambassador. Leona regularly brings local business and community leaders, as well as individuals from around the world to tour and visit Imagine!’s Charles Family SmartHome in Longmont. Leona is an Emeritus member of the Imagine! Foundation Board of Directors, and is recognized by all for her infectious enthusiasm and passion supporting the Imagine! mission.
Elizabeth Straka volunteers with Imagine!'s Out & About program. Elizabeth has worked with participants and staff in Out & About’s Children’s After School program during bowling outings and with Centre Stage for Kids rehearsals. Everyone appreciates the caring energy that Elizabeth brings as a volunteer, and the kids really respond well to her. She is playful, attentive, and is always willing to help where needed. In the picture above, Elizabeth is on the left wearing a black top.
The Rusk family (Kristen, Serena, Isabelle, and Jason) volunteers at Imagine!’s Bob and Judy Charles SmartHome in Boulder every Tuesday night for board game fun! Residents truly enjoy the regular good and kind-hearted vibe that the Rusk family brings each Tuesday night. Staff members at the home shared that “each resident has a blast when the Rusk family visits, because of their enthusiasm and genuine interest when chatting about what is new in each of the resident’s lives.”
By the way, are you or someone you know interested in volunteering for Imagine!? If so, contact Imagine!’s Volunteer Coordinator Elizabeth Hill at 303-926-6460 or ebaumann@Imaginecolorado.org.
Finally, enjoy the video below about volunteering at Imagine!.
Imagine! Behavioral Health Services (IBHS) provides evidence-based behavioral services
in a variety of settings through education and collaboration.
IBHS team members have long used the latest in technology to help in delivering meaningful and impactful services. Today, they share some online apps that they have found useful in their work.
Description:
Autism iHelp is a vocabulary teaching aid developed by parents of a child with Autism and a speech-language pathologist. Autism iHelp was inspired by the need for specific language intervention tools for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder focusing on their unique strengths and difficulty with expressive vocabulary.
Autism iHelp - WH?'s consists of questions paired with appropriate real world picture responses.
This app includes several photos and questions chosen based on established expressive language milestones.
Autism iHelp - WH?'s address a very specific area of higher level language need in the Autism population. Through routine learning, children learn labeling of concepts. WH ?'s require incorporating more abstract thought and generalization in regard to the learned concepts. Children with Autism often have difficulty with this particular skill, and Autism iHelp - WH?'s apps are an excellent way to target a vital educational benchmark in a mobile capacity.
Additionally, you are able to track your child's gains through progress reports that average the last three performances of each learning enhancement activity.
Description:
Splash Math is a collection of fun and interactive math problems. The app reinforces math concepts with self-paced and adaptive practice anytime, anywhere (works on iPad, laptops and desktops).
Description: Fun with Directions is designed to provide a fun and engaging way to practice listening, following directions, colors, spatial concepts, auditory memory and auditory processing. From the simplest of directions (“Touch the cat”) to the more complex (“With your orange crayon, color the large one that is a furry pet and likes to chase mice”) individuals can grow and learn with this game over time. Colorful, vivid art and animations against a white background combine to create a complete game experience without visual clutter. Sound effects and surprises keep the game engaging!
Included are ten concepts: Give, touch, open, close, top, middle, bottom, push, color, erase.
Features include settings for data collection, individual (up to 75users) vs. group play, automatic advance or manual advance to next direction, touch/drag OR touch/tap option, text on/off, (to practice reading vs. listening) selecting specific concepts, and the desired level of play: easy, intermediate, and advanced.
An added bonus that is included in this app is the optional “Superstar Direction” which allows additional practice for remembering (“What did you have to do?”) but also expressive language. The response is recorded and played back. Superstar Directions can be set to a variety of intervals or turned off completely.
Today, April 10, is National Siblings Day, honoring the relationships of siblings. This day is of particular importance to Imagine!, as siblings often play incredibly important roles in the lives of the people we serve. You will find Imagine! siblings among our staff members, on the Imagine! Board of Directors and the Imagine! Foundation Board of Directors, and of course advocating for their brothers and sisters at Imagine! every day.
To recognize National Siblings Day, Lou Ella Price, who works for Imagine!’s Innovations department, wrote the essay below about her unique experience as a sibling of a woman with intellectual disabilities. Lou Ella’s words are touching and inspiring, and I am pleased to share it with you today.
Lou Ella (top) with her sister Merribeth
Over the past year I have been fortunate to work with several advocacy efforts to support siblings of individuals in our community. Siblings are such an integral part of a person’s life who experiences a disability. Whether older or younger, they are at times the silent strength, fun, diversion, and driving force for their disabled brother or sister. They help leave the wheelchair skid marks on the wall, instigate a water fight that ends in rolling on the floor in laughter, and spend the day drawing funny faces to bring out the smiles when all there are is tears. What can be said about siblings is that they are an amazing support system that sometimes works so well that they blend into the background when so much is going on.
When my sister was diagnosed with developmental disabilities, we lived in an area that did not provide much support for families, let alone siblings. It was often a struggle just to find a doctor who understood my sister and what her needs were, and often the needs of the family were not even a part of the equation. I remember sitting in doctor’s offices while my mother talked with the doctors and feeling as if I had become invisible in the process, yet knowing that any decision made would impact my life as much as my sister’s life. The next surgery, therapy, or treatment gave me the same fears and doubts as my mom and sister. I sat in every waiting room along with my mom and sister, visited every specialist, made every trip to the emergency room, and fought every struggle with my sister.
There is a certain sense of powerlessness that siblings can feel because they are, at times, not included in the processes, and understanding the processes is very key to siblings later becoming advocates and guardians for their siblings. As parents become older, siblings can be that natural source of support, guidance, and care that is critical for continuity of care. However, many siblings that I have had the honor of meeting in the last year have expressed not feeling prepared or feeling lost in the process which has left them feeling alone yet again.
So, in honor of April 10th being the National Siblings Appreciation Day, I encourage everyone to reach out to the siblings of the families you support regardless of their age or level of involvement and thank them. Thank them for being that amazing support system that blends into the background, thank them for caring, and thank them for being involved. Also, let them know that there are resources and support systems out there for them. Siblings of individuals with disabilities should never feel alone, and they should celebrate their uniqueness.
And in honor of all of the siblings who work within the Imagine! network, thank you!
My two favorite cartoon characters are still discussing Conflict Free Case Management in Colorado, its implications, and its unintended consequences.
Today, their discussion topic is the apparent random interpretation of “conflict of interest.” Why are the concerns about conflict of interest, and the suggested fixes, being applied so selectively and narrowly? It seems a bit arbitrary. Let’s hear what our friends have to say.
Today’s Technology Tuesday is another edition of “Chris’s Corner,” brought to us by Imagine!’s Assistive Technology Specialist Chris Baumgart. Today, Chris introduces us to the latest member of Imagine!’s Assistive Tech team.
Chris’s Corner
Yep. Still in the Corner
Welcome back, fellow Corner-ians. For this installment of my corner, I’d like to introduce you to John Boggs, the new Assistive Technology Teacher at the Boulder hub of Imagine!’s CORE/Labor Source department. You may have seen him around before, as he transitioned into CORE/Labor Source from Imagine!’s Charles Family SmartHome.
John’s background includes performance and musical composition, and he is combining his love of the arts with his passion for technology to explore the many ways those two elements can work together to improve the lives of individuals with developmental and intellectual disabilities.
Below you see him setting up Gerald’s communication device for Adaptive Orchestra (left), and working with another client during our Assistive Technology Lab with an app called OSMO.
For more information on both of those activities, check out these links:
In addition to what you see above, John will also be teaching Assistive Technology classes such as Foundations of Communication, Intermediate Communication Skills, iPad Navigation Skills, and much more. For more information on what John is doing, feel free to contact him, or check back here.
For this Good Friday edition of Good News Friday, I thought I’d keep it simple. April is National Poetry Month. In honor of this month, Erica Sisavat, who teaches a poetry class for Imagine!’s CORE/Labor Source department, shared the following poem, which blossomed from the imaginations of Neal and Autumn, who are students in Erica’s class. It is another example of the abundance of talent among the individuals served by Imagine!. I hope you enjoy it.
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 Longs Peak United Methodist Church for its support of Out & About. For the past several years, Out & About has used Longs Peak United Methodist Church as a base site for its Summer Camp activities. They have always been very open and welcoming to Out & About staff members and participants.
Thank you, Longs Peak United Methodist, for your support of your community and all of its members.
