Community Life Services

2021-2022 continued to be another challenging year coming out of the pandemic rules and safeguards with the COVID virus still impacting our communities. Our clients, families, and staff have all continued to work while illness is still present in our community. In addition, at the close of 2021 and the start of 2022, we experienced more challenges when the severe atmospheric rains and flooding occurred in 3 areas, we provide services. Some people were impacted at home, and some were impacted at work. All these challenges required our staff to be flexible and to provide services when possible. Providing a hybrid of services was required to maintain service utilization and regular support schedules for in-person job coaching. Many clients and staff communicated that they were concerned about illness and the weather. People reported those concerns placed strain on their daily lives. We provided ongoing services to 150 adults with disabilities in the areas of employment preparation, employment placement, employment retention, and life skills training. Throughout the year, we were back to providing in-person services with a complement of virtual services when requested by clients. For people with disabilities, this employment market has proven to be very positive. Many of the people we support have been able to complete internships and achieve paid jobs due to the lack of workers in our community. Although the year was filled with challenges, we can take pride in the achievements of people in the disability community and our staff. A shortage in the local workforce has meant that employers in our community have been eager to work with us to employ a larger diversity of workers which means that people we support are getting jobs faster than prior years.