Community Living Opportunities helps clients with developmental disabilities find employment, engage in volunteer activities and generally live as independently as possible as full community members.
The agency also offers home support for those who desire it, said Site Director Jodie Kaufman.
“A lot of people wonder what we do,” said Home Coach Halee Miller.
CLO provides Home and Community Based Services programs.
Team leaders “meet with consumers about needs, problems, issues and provide behavioral support,” said Team Leader Matt Stuckey.
CLO tries to tailor its services to client interests.
“We have several who are just chomping at the bit waiting for Allen County Rescue Facility to open,” Kaufman said, so that they might help out at the new animal shelter. Fishing outings are also popular with those needing services, Miller said.
“Most of the folks we serve in Iola are dually diagnosed with mental and behavioral issues,” Kaufman noted.
Occasionally, she said, clients have run-ins with law enforcement due to how they work in the world. Developmentally disabled adults may have boundary issues, or not fully understand right from wrong, she said.
At such times, “We work with the city attorney to develop appropriate community service” opportunities for such clients. “We do a lot of behavior programs as well.”
Clients get training in “job readiness skills such as attendance, punctuality, respectful behavior and understanding personal boundaries,” Kaufman said.
But, Kaufman emphasized, clients are “Responsible for their own actions. We don’t have control over (them). They’re adults. They pay us for our service to them. They are individuals and CLO is there to assist them.”
CLO uses incentives to enhance positive behavior, such as trips to the Kansas Museum of History in Topeka, Schlitterbahn water park in Kansas City and Union Station in Kansas City to see the “Dinosaurs Unearthed” exhibit. “In October, we’re going to the NASCAR qualifying races,” Stuckey said.
Clients go to Iola’s municipal swimming pool in the summer and swim in Burlington at the Recreation Center when outdoor pools are closed. “In the summer, we really try to get out as much as possible,” Miller said.
“We go to the Humboldt Community Recreation Building and use their walking trail” when weather precludes outdoor activities, she said.
Clients also engage in hobbies such as knotting blankets, woodworking, scrapbooking and faith based activities.
“We’ve never had a problem with our clients being accepted” at local churches or community service groups, Kaufman said.
Stuckey said that “garage saling on Saturdays is a big ritual” for some clients.
In addition, they volunteer to assist with elderly, with meals on wheels, doing yard work and at their places of worship.
“We are fortunate there are a lot of people in Iola who are tolerant and who are patient,” Miller said.
Kaufman explained that most CLO clients “live independently In Iola. For the last two years, we’ve been doing a semi-independent apartment program. Typically, we have someone with them doing a visual connect during the waking hours every fifteen minutes,” she said.
That person “support(s) the individuals in their home in daily living tasks such as cooking, cleaning and personal care,” Stuckey noted.
In addition, “We have something unique in our agency — we have cameras in all our residential areas that monitor public areas (such as doors and appliances) in the overnight hours,” Kaufman said.
Video is fed to a central office in Lawrence which can contact a local staff member on call if a problem arises.
“Another service we provide is Targeted Case Management,” wherein CLO assists clients in receiving help from other agencies, and “ensures those services are being provided appropriately,” Kaufman added.
CLO has been in existence in Douglas and Johnson counties for more than 30 years, Kaufman said.
“We started with targeted case management in Allen County in late 2003. We added consumers in Neosho County in 2004, and residential consumers in Allen County in 2005.”
All community service providers have to be affiliated with the Community Developmental Disability Organization (CDDO) in their catchment area to provide service, Kaufman noted. Here, the CDDO is TriValley Developmental Services Corporation.
“TriValley is assigned by the state to be the local coordinator of all developmental disability services,” Kaufman explained.
“We serve TriValley’s catchment area, which is Allen, Neosho, Woodson and Bourbon counties. We have residential programs in Allen and Neosho counties and do targeted case management in all four counties,” Kaufman said.
In Iola and Chanute, 18 clients receive direct services. About 50 to 60 receive targeted case management services in the four county area.
Although it is affiliated with TriValley, CLO receives no funding through them, she said. “All our funding is either through private pay or Medicaid,” she said.
“When funding got cut, we had to make adjustments,” Kaufman said, referring to the recent 10 percent cut to Medicaid service providers.
A new nursing home bed tax meant to reimburse some providers will not apply to CLO, she said.
“We worked hard not to let funding cuts impact direct services,” she said. “So we cut administrative positions. We did not cut a single direct care position.”
Despite the loss of funding, Kaufman said, employees are dedicated to CLO.
Many employees have been with the agency for a decade or more, she added.
And, she noted, “The people who started CLO are still with CLO. One is our executive director; two are board members.”
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