CINCY SWISH HOW TO
CINCY SWISH PROFESSIONAL

CINCY SWISH HOW TO

'We have to figure out what people are good at and how to train them,' she says. Ultimately, more infrastructure that includes job training and access to transportation is needed. But the state is moving too slowly and the wait list is too long, Sjoberg-Witt says. Such institutions are called Intermediate Care Facilities, where disabled people live with other disabled people.Īt least 40,000 people have asked for home- and community-based services that would help them live independently. Kerstin Sjoberg-Witt, director of advocacy for Disability Rights OhioĪccording to a Disability Rights Ohio fact sheet, the class-action lawsuit states that by using public money to segregate people with disabilities within institutional facilities, Ohio is in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, as well as the Supreme Court ruling in Olmstead v. 'The lawsuit is about fixing the system at the statewide level, so that individuals as well as their families, can say what they want to do in their life,' says Kerstin Sjoberg-Witt, director of advocacy for Disability Rights Ohio. The organization filed a lawsuit against the state of Ohio last March in efforts to see more disabled people integrated into society with jobs and a supportive lifestyle. It's an approach that Disability Rights Ohio is also happy to see.

CINCY SWISH PROFESSIONAL

Says Vogt, 'It's the greatest professional accomplishment of my career.' Thirty-five have also found jobs with help from the organization. Now they have about 100 developmentally disabled clients who are discovering their interests, developing friendships and finding support in their communities. Starfire eventually discontinued the day program in September.

'With some mentoring and some values, we would have to think about people differently,' Vogt says. They began working with one person at a time, learning about their interests, skills and goals. We were getting in the way of that relationship.'īased on that realization, Starfire decided to gradually eliminate the day program. 'We started asking, what if we're accidentally replacing community?' Vogt says.

Parents still openly wondered: 'What's going to happen to my adult child when I die?' Starfire's executive director Tim Vogt says that at that time, his team began noticing that they weren't really helping disabled people with their lives outside of the day program. Instead of keeping 150 adults in a day program or workshop where they might take a class like yoga or art, Starfire began helping participants integrate into their own lives, one by one. He was one of the first individuals to receive help from the Starfire Council when in 2009 the organization changed the way it was helping developmentally disabled adults. He's already an assistant coach for the Cincy Swish, a premier youth basketball team, and he serves as head coach for Swish Spirit, a team of disabled kids who love basketball. Mike Holmes dreams of being a head basketball coach for a high school girls team.

Cincy swish