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Covenant Shores Wins National Award
By Colette Claxton
MERCER ISLAND, WA (August 21, 2003) - Dishwasher Emir Grcic thought he was
just doing his job when he taught a disabled student how to load and run
the industrial dishwasher at the retirement community where he works. As
it turns out, Grcic was participating in a program that won both state
and national awards.
The job training program for disabled students at Covenant Shores
Retirement Community won the 2003 National Organization on Disability
Award from the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging
(AAHSA), a trade association representing 5,600 senior service
providers. The program also received top honors in the same category
from the Washington Association of Housing and Services for the Aging
(WAHSA).
Covenant Shores received the WAHSA award at the organization's annual
conference in Spokane last weekend. The AAHSA award will be presented at
its annual meeting and exposition in Denver, October 26-29.
For its award-winning program, Covenant Shores partnered with the
vocational-development program at Mercer Island High School, which has a
transition program to help moderately to severely disabled 18 to 21 year
olds gain employment skills. Covenant Shores found food service,
housekeeping, laundry and clerical jobs that would match the students'
skills and give them resume-quality work experience. The students, like
Scott Wells (pictured right) worked up to six hours a day, five days a
week, during the school year.
"We looked for jobs with skills that could be transferred to other
industries," explains Covenant Shores Social Services Director Jean
Henkels-Lee who helped spearhead the program. "One student loves to sort
and organize. We put him to work doing laundry for residents of our
skilled nursing center, replenishing the linen cart, organizing the
linen room. He had the linen room straightened out in a matter of hours.
Martha Stewart would have been proud."
The students could learn the skills in the school setting, but there are
advantages to being on the job, said a teacher who works with special
needs students.
"Learning to be appropriate and develop social skills with coworkers is
paramount," says Sue Jobe, the Mercer Island High School special
education teacher who runs the program. "The Covenant Shores staff
really welcomed and enjoyed our students. They appreciated their
contribution. This kind of experience is how we're going to make strides
toward accepting diversity in the workplace."
While Covenant Shores personnel appreciated the students' efforts, along
with the state and national recognition, they also say the benefits
worked both ways. Reliable and hard working, Emir Grcic is also quiet
and reserved. When he was paired with a student,
Henkels-Lee says, "He started demonstrating leadership we hadn't seen
before. He was impressed with the student's ability and gave him lots of
positive reinforcement. They developed a nice camaraderie. It was a very
positive work experience."
To win at both the state and national level, the Covenant Shores program
had to provide an innovative and concrete way to assist those with
disabilities. It also had to be a program other WAHSA or AAHSA members
could replicate.
"We'll be glad to work with any other provider to explain how we got the
program started and made it successful," says Covenant Shores Campus
Administrator Anne Arakaki-Lock. In the meanwhile, the community is
planning to replicate the program itself next year and is considering
expanding the opportunities available to gardening and
landscaping.
Covenant Shores is one of 15 not-for-profit retirement communities
nationwide that are administered by Chicago-based Covenant Retirement
Communities Inc. on behalf of the Board of Benevolence of the
Evangelical Covenant Church. For more information about Covenant Shores,
call 206-268-3000 or visit www.covenantretirement.com. For more about
the award-winning work program, email Henkels-Lee at
JTHenkelsLee@covenantretirement.org
Copyright © 2008 The Evangelical Covenant Church. |
