There are times when doing some of the ordinary things in your everyday life get confusing or are difficult to handle. You may feel unsure of your ability to meet and greet people. Maybe shopping holds some obstacles for you. Or, you could be trying to find ways to have fun and be part of your community.

If any of these activities make you or your family member feel like you are maneuvering a complicated maze, LEARN may be the solution you are looking for. LEARN offers residential habilitation through a person-centered, strengths-based approach.

LEARN, a res hab program for people with developmental disabilities who live at home in Orange or Sullivan County, is available if you are enrolled in the Home and Community Based Service (HCBS) Waiver through the Hudson Valley DDSO.

LEARN will help you or your family member acquire, retain or improve the skills you need to be included and integrated into your community. Because LEARN is person-centered and strength-based, a professional assessment is done to determine your needs, or your family member's needs. This professional assessment focuses on you specifically and is used to set up an individualized res hab plan of services.

Some of the areas that LEARN can address with you, or your family member, are communication skills, self-help activities, safety issues, social and adaptive skills, spirituality, recreation, and behavior issues. If you need help with your daily living activities such as grooming, personal hygiene, food preparation, banking, shopping, or using the phone, LEARN can offer you help in and around your own home, your family's home, and in the community.

By providing qualified professional trainers, LEARN will help you, or your family member, establish short-term and long-term goals and objectives to get your personalized plan working for you. The professional will meet on a monthly basis with either your res hab worker, you and your res hab worker, or you and your family for training sessions that will address and help in implementing your res hab plan. In this way, your res hab plan is constantly being updated and modified -- keeping activities that are working, adjusting learning activities that need modification, and discarding practices that are not successful for you.

LEARN will provide professional trainers who can offer expertise in specific areas. These training sessions may be just for you, your res hab worker, or your family depending on the areas of daily activities that your plan addresses.

LEARN can provide the traditional residential habilitation in which one res hab worker is assigned to you or your family member to work with you to implement your person-centered plan. But LEARN is unique.

LEARN can also offer a variety of res hab workers who are specially trained in the areas of daily living that you want or need to work on, based on your personalized res hab plan. You may opt to use one res hab worker for your self-help and personal grooming work, and a different res hab worker to teach you social skills and communication interaction within your community.

LEARN will be able to help you arrive at a res hab plan that meets your specific needs. LEARN can help you master the skills you need to be an active and independent individual. Break through the maze with LEARN.

LEARN is a program of Family Empowerment Council, Inc.