a monthly newsletter for families and friends of Easter Seals Wyoming February 2009

MISSION

TALES AND TIDBITS

Easter Seals Wyoming • 991 Joe Street • Sheridan, WY 82801 • (307) 672-2816 anitab@esgw.org • www.esgw-nrm.easterseals.com

At Easter Seals Wyoming we create solutions

that change lives forpeople with disabilities

and their families.

Traveling the Worldone classroom at a time

Top: Mistie holds a visual aid as her classmates answer questions from the audience. Bottom: (left to right) Mary, Andrea and Heather read through their parts during their presentation on Greece.

Nursing students learn and observe

Participants in our Community Access program have been broaden-ing their cultural horizons without the aggravations of airport delays or baggage checks. Each quarter one classroom at the Center prepares a short presentation on a foreign country for their peers and staff to enjoy. Usually the festive nature is not limited to just a lecture and pic-ture show, but also in-cludes a lunch with authentic foods from whichever region of the world is being studied. Countries that have been ex-plored in the last year in-clude Ire-land, China and France. This quarter saw Heather Thompson’s Rainbow Room pres-ent a virtual tour of Greece. Par-ticipants gave several perspectives on the tiny island country, starting with its ancient mythology and ending with current facts, including

the country’s economic status as a major tourist destination. The class then served gyro sandwiches for lunch. Most of the quarterly presenta-tions include a discussion of what normal, daily life is like, what people eat, unusual sports and original folklore, special holidays and interesting travel spots. After the class’ presentation is over, the group fields questions from the audience. Colleen Sutherlin’s Wigwam Room served chicken cor- don bleu casserole with strawberry crepes and read romantic poetry in their presentation of France. The Buckaroo Room’s presentation on China included building dragon kites and eating General Tso’s chicken.

January 21, 2009 marked a mile-stone for Easter Seals Wyoming and Sheridan College. For the first time, nursing students from the college began a clinical rotation at Easter Seals. Students will rotate through every 12 weeks and will be observ-ing participants at both our ABI Center and Community Access program. ABI and Community Access directors Diana Cline and Helen

Couch worked with nursing in-structor Kathy Davidson and other college staff members to develop the education contract. Davidson and Jenny Heuck from the college toured both of our programs and reported being impressed with the level of professionalism and the atmosphere of love and caring that’s evident in our centers. Nursing students traditionally are assigned to work brief hours

(nursing students continued)in nursing homes and hos-pitals to gain clinical experiences for their future careers. However, they rarely receive training with our special populations, except during trauma and hospitalization experi-ences. In the future, nurses graduat-ing from Sheridan College will be much better prepared to interact with individuals with acquired brain injuries or developmental disabilities. After spending time at Easter Seals the students will under-stand more about what to expect and how to be more comfortable in communicating with patients with similar conditions. This collaboration should be a win, win situation. While our staff shares techniques, communication strategies, and behavior modifica-tion skills with the students, they in turn will model nursing ethics and procedures for Easter Seals staff. An added bonus is that each of our participants will learn to become more comfortable with health care professionals, so future visits to the hospital or doctor’s office should be less stressful.

“Tales and Tidbits” is published monthly by Easter Seals Wyoming for the friends and families of our participants. For questions or comments please contact Anita Badgett at 672-2816 or e-mail anitab@esgw.org

Client of the Month winners pose next to their photoss. From letf to right: Rebecca, (Sept.),

Mary (Nov.), Jackson (Oct.) and Jessica (Dec.)

There is no telling how far a good pat on the back will take a person, but our Community Access Cen-ter hopes to find out. Last fall we implemented a “Client of the Month” program that recognizes one participant in the program each month, acknowl-edging his or her accomplishments publicly by hanging an award on the wall in the hallway next to the kitchen area. Besides having their pictures hung on the wall, participants also receive a $10 prize along with the pride of accomplishing their goals and the confidence that public rec-ognition brings them. The award’s selection criteria includes maintain-ing a positive individual program performance rate, a willingness to help other people, being an active volunteer, a constant and caring friend and demonstrating a low rate of negative behavior reports during their programming day. The appreciation program was implemented in September of 2008 and Andrea Harvey was named the January 2009 “Client of the Month.” Jackson Ventling was named October’s award winner for his constant, custodial vigilance and Rebecca Cichonski was awarded the honor last September for her excellent accomplishments. Rebecca’s sister Mary took November’s high marks

for her tenacious attitude and Jessi-ca McPartland was handed the blue ribbon in December for working through her prevocational program so thoroughly. Colleen Sutherlin, coordina-tor of the Wigwam Room, stated that the positive incentive the new honor represents is visible in all the participants’ behaviors. “I can’t believe how exited the clients are to get their picture up on the wall,” she said.

Getting the recognition

they deserve

Earlier this winter, before the heavy snows came, a young, curious mule deer buck, decided to make a social call at the Easter Seals Day Habilitation center in Sheridan. The apparently fearless young male is one of many mule deer who make the edges of Sheridan their home year-round. This one stayed for the morn-ing before leaving.

The casting call is all but a distant echo as the Community Access participants began rehears-als last month, along with work on costumes and props for the Easter Seals Players’ annual community performance. A full troupe of 25 participants is rehearsing twice a week throughout February. They’ll step up the practice schedule to five

Easter Seals annual Valen- tine’s Dance is coming up on Friday, February 13th, featuring a live DJ and re freshments prepared by Supported Living homes and Easter Seals staff.

Valentine’s Dance

Sam erupts in laughter as she learns she has been cast as Jasmine, the princess in “Aladin,” when Brandy hands out scripts for “A Fractured Fairy Tale.”

Easter Seals Playersprepare to take

the stage

times a week in March as the (Easter Seals Players continued)cast approaches opening night on Friday, March 13th at 7 p.m. in the WYO Theater downtown in Sheri-dan. Brandy Sickler, case manager, is in her second consecutive year as the project’s writer and director. Brandy has dreamt up an eclectic mix of characters for this year’s pro-duction called “A Fractured Fairy Tale.” The story is set once upon a time in a fairy tale land far, far away. The land is populated with a make believe “who’s who” of magi-cal cartoon, storybook and movie characters. The characters start out exist-ing contentedly inside their own story, fully expecting to live happily ever after (as all good make believe heroes do). Then, along comes Friday the 13th and fairy tale land is turned upside down, catapulting all of the unsuspecting characters into the same jumbled tale, leaving them to find the way back to their own respective stories. Fairy tale princesses, noble rogues, dolls and a frog will be just a few of the wanderers moving in and out of scenes like refugees from a disaster movie, not knowing where they are or where they will end up. Everyone in the community is invited to bring friends and family and come enjoy the performance. Admission cost is a donation of any amount at the door. Proceeds will benefit Easter Seals Wyoming’s pro-