introduction to easter seals and adult day care is part of the organization we want to see the d what is easter seals well it's a lot of things to a lot of people and in western pennsylvania they provide services to over twenty thousand families who are affected by a disability to do things that i can't necessarily do for my mom or with my mom doesn't work all day so that's probably the life that pretty much sums up our mission that his will is our sense of family life like we like brothers and sisters and stuff like that family last not like a big family trust commitment and care to make easter sales is all falling helping these adults overcome their obstacles whatever those obstacles are we are ready for helping our clients realize their potential it gives me  as we get older and our families get older we are less and less able to share for our children that have disabilities and there has to be somewhere that provides a nurturing community like environment for our folks to go to if there are no more family member families are much more comfortable they know that will be fair to take care of their son or daughter after they're no longer able to or their family is no longer able to do so it's a vital need for individuals with disabilities what it is is peace of mind and a loving heart what we all hope for in life we're also hearing language and speech specialist for the young and old we provide hearing and speech services for people with communication disabilities i couldn't believe so there's i was missing all  t here and the issue still the north cites the work of children with special needs and heidi is a good example of that when she first started here israel she couldn't walk or set up on her own and now she is doing  ok now that was a wonderful introduction to your easter seals i didn't realize that there were so many opportunities for so many people in everything it was doing wonderful and i'm sure that the audience will love all of that and really covers a lot of things easter seals of western pennsylvania works with those people who have disabilities and their families to create a solution that changes their lives easter seals of western pennsylvania  has helped over twenty thousand children and adults in the area it's in twenty different counties and they provide services for childhood through the aging how many can your facility handle i mean i'm through in the swim and you know we are licensed for sixty four sixty four and right because of the what services do you reap with services do you provide for the agent copulation well in washington allegheny county we provide services for adult senior citizens and it's a great solution for different  families that need our help and it's support families in caregiving and it's a partner in caregiving for the families that have a loved one has memory or physical impairments that would be a  centers that easter seals has it's a safe caring place for people to come outside of their homes so many families members work and they want to have their loved one seen or loved one at home with them but they need somewhere for them to come so they come to our center and we have activities and different things for them to do there so we try to help them with keeping the best of their abilities that they have right now you know and i think that's a wonderful service because a lot of these things you cannot do yourself in it helps everybody really i hear a lot about oh i can't do this and i can't do that if they only try and have a little bit of supervision i'm sure that they can do a lot more than what they think they can ok who needs a dog a three day curator is well if a person experiences or a family experiences some of the following problems we can help if you're concerned about leaving your loved one at home we're good place to be if they have a desire to be with others and they don't like being at home and no one to talk to we're there and they make new friends they enjoy that part maybe they're depressed sometimes on people who are filling isolated by their self and so they haven't a friends their friends to make so they enjoy that and a lot of times after rehab if they have rehabilitation and they need help following up on daily activities whatever it may be were there and we can help them do that and the other thing is if a character first working or the spouse is working and they just want the security of knowing that their loved ones well cared for then we can help there also and if a person shows signs of memory loss then we're good good for that because we have a lot of people know and understand and are adult they services provide affordable care for families we try to maintain the highest quality of care possible we have individual care plans that we formulate for each person that's specifically targeted to their needs and their abilities we also provide support to the family members we're a shoulder to lean on them or that listens right right because they they also need to be able to express their concerns it's a very hard job to be a caregiver in that in you need all the help you can get right and we also have some medications there i am a registered nurse and so if there are meds that are due any time between the hours that the person is attending they are given and tracked and so the family knows that indeed they were taken because i knew in my husband it was when i was a kid to cure for him and it was so hard to try to keep track of all the medications and everything it was quote the point that we wanted to make with that question is that the adult day services provided by easter seals are all licensed through the pennsylvania department of aging and are also monitor through the county therefore there are certain things that we must maintain which is the scuse me the  staff client ratio has to be one to five one staff member to every five clients all the staff are trained in first aid and c they are mandated to accrue eight hours of additional education as diane pointed out we do provide a care plan for each individual according to their needs whatever that is and that is reviewed and gone over several times during the year it can be updated whenever necessary  the personal care homes and the assisted living facilities that are in the area are sometimes needed by these families when they cannot provide the care required by each of the individuals however some of these facilities claim to have adult daycare services within them and the difference is that they are not licensed through the pennsylvania department of aging so it's important to the families if they ask that question when looking into a personal care setting or an assist living area and they are told that adult day care is provided the family needs to ask if it is a licensed program or not the home itself is probably licensed but not the adult day services that they provide  center i can do that ok that's my job as the activities coordinator at our adult day services and what we try to do is to always focus on treating each individual with the respect and dignity that they deserve we also try to tailor the activities each day to the needs of the people who are attending that day we do so many different things we provide for the whole person their emotional their mental their physical their spiritual needs we focus on all of them and we do educational programs we have quite a few people who really enjoy learning new things and so we offer them educational programs we offer creative programming where they do things with arts and crafts we try not to look like kindergarten children bringing a colored picture home every day but try to do something that's meaningful to them fun things as we can we do entertaining and musical things we also go on field trips out into a museum or a restaurant or go to a ceramics place and paint a cop lots of different things like that name it square of muslin and asked them to take it home and work with their families and in doing so it it gave them a focus sometimes families don't know what to do with an older person and it gave them a focus and as you can see from the quote their ideas were so unique and individual and creative but the idea was to focus on something from that person's life and it's spectacular one thing i think i should mention to you is that we also do intergenerational things and we have homeschooled children who command because they're available in the daytime hours when we are there and they come in and do activities with us and we also occasionally not as often as with like at our students from  township and from the high school community service classes who command and do their community service projects with us and that's been awesome affair our biggest story is one of those students is now employed at our know that they are still useful in this i guess i'm getting off the subject here a little there was a lot of good because that is one of our goals to make sure that each individual knows that they still have a purpose in life and you know just because they have a disability whether it's physical or mental they're still needed to be around and they can do things like show little children how to color inside the lines or point out the the quilt and this is what i did when i was younger i played bingo i played cards i loved horses whatever it is that it shows  it's very i mean we could go on and on about that really probably taking to individuals where and talk about going to person you know and i see you have simply curious here can you tell me something about  that is simply our trifold for that we do take place as when we talk about the adult day service if everybody is going to be at peter's township community day they'll see it at our  wonderful there'll be something very nice to look forward to community tell us about one of your individuals attending the program and how it changed his life who's going to tell me that story i guess i can start ok one lady i remember when she came in she thinks funky little lady really enjoyed her but she came in her daughter needed to work and she needed the socialization that we offered and she was a little depressed and you know was by herself and she needed to be able to get around other people but she life and she loved it and she would tell her family and friends all about us that was very pretty reluctant to come on line i'm sure what to expect and what just with a lot of the people that come we encourage families to bring their loved one to see us first to you know before they sign up just to get a tour and see what we actually do and visit with us for a while but there's some person was very reluctant to come but after a while coming you know a couple days a week and now three days a week this person enjoys coming in is very helpful a tate joining our group well they don't know what to expect they don't know what to expect but i can say that after just a week or two their fee very comfortable and very welcomed and most times make a lot of friends who look forward to seeing them and when they're not there we always get questions you know where are they is are they sick are they ok are they coming back  withdraw into our stuff you could just see your shrinking down into ourselves she didn't like to be touched or anything and over the course of time she now comes in and gives us a hug and i think that's the biggest indication of how much benefit she's receiving from being in the program do you have a story do i think oh i have that one about the gentleman but i want to add that it's a lot for the family members to the caregivers you were talking about that before because unlike the writer said earlier a lot of them work outside the home and they need some where for their family member to be that was a safe place but also they need a place you know when you're the caregiver and you have a doctor's appointment you need to go to or just to go yes i do seven to four nine four two four five one one and if they set up a time to come in and take a tour of the building like dorothy have offered and then there is a physical that needs to be completed including a t v test and an assessment that needs to be done and that whole process could take maybe two to three weeks and then they can start we are located at two fifty pro road you can either get to us from mcmurry or from sugar camp i think it's fairly simple and all are welcome any questions that all people should feel free to call us or perhaps we could maybe later on the phone