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Ginny Clark, a longtime client at disability support nonprofit Our Own Lives, has had the unique opportunity to shape her own disability care at the organization.
Clark, who has a cognitive, visual perception and auditory processing impairment, has been working on the Our Own Lives board since last September, along with other disabled individuals from OOL, helping to curate the services offered by the organization to what those in the intellectually and cognitively disabled community need.
According to CEO Scott Smith, Our Own Lives provides a range of support services to adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities across five counties in Southwest Colorado, and wants to “revamp” disability services – in part through hiring disabled clients with lived experience, like Clark, to work within the organization.
“I would never have thought in my life I would be on a board,” Clark said. “I really like it. We make sure everything goes right, and we talk about not-very-fun finances, and we just check in with each other to see (if) everything is going right, and vote on stuff that needs to be voted on.”
In addition to working on the main Our Own Lives board, Clark is also a member of its Client Leadership Board.
“We vote on what we want to improve in our own lives,” Clark said of her Client Leadership work. “Like, right now, we're doing a project getting a new greenhouse, and we voted on that.”
Our Own Lives previously operated within Community Connections, another Southwest Colorado disability services organization, but branched off to operate as its own entity on July 1, 2024, for regulatory reasons and because of a desire to provide more individualized and client-led services to intellectually disabled clients.
The organization, which currently touts 47 employees, has provided a range of disability-led support services to more than 90 clients since it opened a year ago.
Services include support assistance for disabled individuals in residential care, employment coaching, transportation services via the Community Connector program and day-to-day assistance with tasks like grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, and bathing.
Scott Smith, CEO and President of Our Own Lives and a certified social worker, has Tourette's syndrome and dyslexia. While he feels his lived experience provides him with insight into the experiences of his clients, he also recognizes that each individual is the true expert on their own life; thus, the organization’s name – and its commitment to hiring disabled employees to inform their own care.
“I have a bunch of alphabet soup behind my name – (like a) a Master's in social work – but I'm never going to be an expert in someone else's life,” said Smith. “That's where we really came up with the ethos and the mission of being disability-led.”
Though every county in Colorado is mandated by state regulation and Medicaid services to have a disability support program available, Our Own Lives has “really taken disability support to the extreme,” Smith said.
“If a client has gone through the bureaucracy of State and Federal Medicaid services themselves for 10, 15 years, they're actually experts in navigating the system and knowing what services really helped them out in their own lives,” he said.
“Then they can provide those services way better than a trained formal social worker like myself can to others in the program, because they've actually lived it and experienced what empowered them to live the way they want to.”
One of Our Own Lives’ most impactful programs, the process of which has been shaped heavily by client input, is the Vocational Program, also called the Employment Support Program.
It involves Our Own Lives employees meeting with disabled clients to assess their needs and strengths, as well as providing mock interview practice and other job-related preparedness resources, then connecting them with business owners in the area who are interested in creating a customized position for the individual. The next step involves an Our Own Lives support employee accompanying the disabled individual for the first 60 to 90 days of their job to ensure success and provide solutions to issues such as sensory overwhelm in the work environment. After that, encouraging work independence in the disabled client becomes the focus.
“For a long time, people with disabilities – especially intellectual and developmental disabilities – you would see them working, maybe in a grocery store, in a factory setting or in a large thrift store,” said Smith. “And that's awesome, if those people really want that job. But a lot of times, I don't think they want that job.”
OOL’s customized employment program launched 9 months ago and, according to Smith, it’s already making a positive impact on both Southwest Colorado’s disabled community and its business community.
“(The Our Own Lives clients) are going to be the best employees that most small businesses have ever had, because the job is created solely based on their strengths and interests,” he said.
Amanda Turek, Employment Support Program Manager at Our Own Lives, who is certified in customized employment, says the program, much like the organization on the whole, involves a dedication to providing specialized care to each client, and hearing what intellectually disabled individuals are seeking in a daily job.
“Every case that I work with is completely different based on what they need and what their skills, strengths and weaknesses are,” she said. “If they know they aren't good working with social interaction, we're not going to put them in a boutique, or at a hotel working the front desk, you know?”
Turek also works with clients to ensure success after they begin their jobs.
“Either I or our job coach, depending on our staffing at the time, will work with them day to day and help them come up with accommodations to help them succeed even more,” she said. “Natural supports, like, ‘hey, the light really bugs you – let's get some blue light glasses for you.’ Anything that supports them in being the best at the job that they're doing.”
Turek said independence is the name of the game after getting clients settled into a job – something many Our Own Lives clients are hoping to achieve by working with the organization.
“From there, the goal is ‘they don't need me,’” she said. “I want to put myself out of a job, so to speak.”
Turek is also involved with services like Community Connector, which works to provide transportation and support for disabled individuals who want to explore the community.
“We all have the same goal of wanting all of our people in services to just be so happy, and be able to be like, ‘Heck yeah, I want to go to the bar on a Friday night, but I don't have support to do that,’” she said. “Well, we do. You want to go do karaoke one night? Absolutely.”
Clark feels the organization’s focus on hearing the true needs of its clients has had a massive impact on her ability to feel independent, and has positively affected her quality of life overall.
“(This program) really means a lot to me, and helps me live the happy life that I want to, (and have that) extra independence that I need,” she said. “If it wasn't for this program, I don't know where I would be.”
Volunteer and Donation Opportunities
CEO Scott Smith encourages anyone from the community who is interested in volunteering at or donating to Our Own Lives to reach out to the OOL team at 385-8605, or visit the Our Own Lives website at www.ourownlives.org
epond@durangoherald.com
