Life’s WORC Day Hab support area families

Imagine being a single parent, working two jobs while raising three children, including one with a mental disability. Diane Jamison doesn’t have to imagine it because she lives it.
But thanks to Life’s WORC, she and her son Rondel Jamison are so much better off than they were ten years ago.
This year Life’s WORC is celebrating its 40th anniversary of providing services that facilitate an independent and productive life experience for those with developmental disabilities and autism in its permanent resident group homes and in day habilitation sites throughout Queens, Nassau and Suffolk counties.
WORC, or Women’s Organization for Retarded Children, has 36 permanent homes, as well as six day habilitation sites – two in Queens, three in Nassau and one in Suffolk. Over 150 individuals are enrolled in the program, reaching so many families in need throughout the area.
Director of Day Habilitation Services Steven Gonzalez is so happy to see the program, which started back in 1997, reach full capacity for the first time this year.
“We would like to expand and open up a new place because that is how you grow,” Gonzalez said while acknowledging that the economy has put a freeze on the funding of new group homes and sites in New York State. “There are so many people out there who need help.”
Jamison said her son Rondel, 32, has been going to the Glendale site everyday for the past 10 years. She said Rondel now visits the library and goes to the grocery store on his own.
“Life’s WORC is an excellent program,” Jamison said. “I love it and I’m so glad he’s there.”
Each day hab site is staffed with five employees and one supervisor, as WORC sticks its one to five staff to individual ratio. The program also follows the organization’s five core values – responsibility to the individual it supports; quality; creating and maintaining a team; staff development and recognition; and communication.
“They are my saviors,” Barbara Maynard said of the employees at the Queens Village site. “These people have been great with my daughter and they’ve been my rock. Without them, I don’t think I would be able to go to work.”
According to Maynard, her daughter Althea, now 36, was diagnosed with mild retardation and has been in the day habilitation program for over 10 years. She has seen remarkable improvement in Althea’s social skills and although she says she wouldn’t allow her to, Althea is also capable of riding the bus by herself.
“At this point in my life, I’ve come to terms with it and my daughter is very happy,” Maynard said about Althea’s disability. “I am blessed and she is too.”
According to Gonzalez, the day hab program used to work on functional skills like reading a stop sign or learning to tie your shoes, but now it has evolved into improving social skills and learning how to train for a job.
“They can stay forever,” he said. “But we want them to find jobs. Until they find one, this is like their job and we’re preparing them for work.”
“Life’s WORC is a wonderful program and I would never put my son anywhere else,” Jamison said.
For more information on the day habilitation program as well as all other Life’s WORC services, visit www.lifesworc.org.