Tools for Schools - FREE Event

Join us for this free NEAT event for administrators, educators, speech and language professionals, related service professionals, students with disabilities and their families.  View the latest in assistive technologies, and talk with the experts, vendors, and professionals.

Date: Thursday, Oct. 28, 2010; time: 8:30AM-3:00PM

Location: The NEAT Center at Oak Hill

Featured Keynote Presentation: Samuel Sennott, Sennott Technologies and Co-Creator of the original Proloquo2Go, and Adam Bowker, CCC, SLP

Registration may be done online after August 1st, or by calling Julie Hein at (860) 243-2869.

Oak Hill Helps Families and Guardians

Oak Hill provides answers for families and guardians with loved ones with disabilities through programs and services designed to help them build on strengths to achieve success.

Our 9 distinct programs and services provide in home and community-based housing, day services and education; birth to three services; employment; assistive technology; healthy relationships; arts & recreation, and training; and professional development and ways to give. 

To get started, call us today at (860) 242-2274 or email us at info@ciboakhill.org

Oak Hill's Parents & Guardians Advisory Committee

We hope you are all enjoying the summer and finding time to relax and rejuvenate.  Our next Parents and Guardians Advisory Council Meeting will be Saturday, September 25, 2010, 9:00AM at the NEAT Center at Oak Hill (corners of Coventry & Holcomb Streets, Hartford).  For more information, please contact Darian Sanders, Assistant to President via email at sandersd@ciboakhill.org or call (860) 769-3814.  Thank you and hope to see you on 9/25/10. 

Message to Parents, Guardians & Family Members

Thank you for all your support! 

At our last meeting we discussed:

• Face Book and Oak Hill's Fan Page
• The internet and our Families/Guardians' Page on Oak Hill's website
• The state of Connecticut's proposed budget cuts which affect ICF-MR facilities
• Fabulous news about Oak Hill

Thank you again for making your voices heard. 

Lois Nitch, Chair, Oak Hill's Parents & Advisory Committee

Oak Hill's Parent 990 Form

Take 5 Minutes - You Can Help

Advocacy doesn't have to take a lot of time, and it doesn't have to cost anything. 

1. Call your legislator - you do not need a bill number, or a doctorate in health policy.  Just tell them what concerns you, what you read and cannot get out of your mind, your latest great idea, whatever.  And if there is a bill, definitely call them.  They  not only welcome such calls, they have staff hired waiting for you to call.  To find your local policy maker, add your zip code to search box.  Attached, you will find a sample script for phoning your legislator. 

2. Get on our Parents and Guardians mailing list or join an advocacy organization that addresses the issues you care about.  In order to get on the Oak Hill parents/guardians mailing list, please send an email Darian Sanders, assistant to president at sandersd@ciboakhill.org You can also join lists for more specific organizations, from mental health to cancer to political lists.  For more information 

    

Email Campaign - Express Your Concerns

Contact your legislator and express your concerns over Governor Rell's Deficit Mitigation Plan ~ with your help we hope to have legislators rethink these devastating cuts.

Find your legislator, click here 

Chris Donovan, Speaker of the House may be reached at Christopher.Donovan@cga.ct.gov

Donald Williams, Senate President may be reached at Williams@senatedems.ct.gov  

Inform Someone - Write a Letter

3. Inform someone – share your concerns with a friend, family member, even someone standing next to you in line.  Never underestimate how powerful word-of-mouth can be.  And it’s a small world; you never know who you are talking to. 

4. Write a letter to a policy maker – writing down your concerns might take more than five minutes, but it is fairly simple.  And as with phone calls, policymakers expect to receive letters, in many cases they rely on getting information from the public (and they trust you far more than a lobbyist). You will also most likely get a response, usually written, explaining the issue more carefully and letting you know what they intend to do about it.  We have a sample letter for you to cut and paste.    

Visit, Vote and Write Again

5.  Visit a policymaker – Honest, this can be under the five minute limit.  You may get a knock at your door or be greeted coming out of the grocery story during campaign time by a candidate with literature.  Don’t run away.  Take a minute to stop and ask him/her what they would do about your issue if elected.

6.  VOTE – it is critically important that everyone who is eligible to vote exercises that right.  But you can do more to support candidates that support the issues you care about.  For more on voting, go to the Connecticut League of Women Voters  If you aren’t registered, the League site has the form you fill out.

7. Write a letter to the editor of your local paper.  Senators and legislators pay attention to the concerns of their constituents in their districts.  By writing a letter to the editor you are raising awareness to your community and can encourage them to get involved as well.

Yes, I want to network with other Oak Hill Families

I authorize Oak Hill to release the following information to other Oak Hill parents, guardians and family members for networking, advocacy and other organizational purposes.  I understand that this information will not be used for any outside commercial purposes. 

Video:

Bob Cloonan, Oak Hill parent is featured on  June 2010 show “HARC: Life After School for People with Intellectual Disabilities” is available in the HARC category of the Video On Demand section of our website or by clicking here:

HARC: Life After School for People with Intellectual Disability (June 2010)

Grant Opportunities

Connecticut Parents Advocacy Center

Helpful link: Connectict Parents Advocacy Center

Programs that Serve Families and Guardians

1. Individual and Family Supports Center at Oak Hill 
2. Oak Hill School
3. Oak Hill Birth to Three Program
4. NEAT Center at Oak Hill
5. Eleanor A. Brooks Blindness Related Supports Center at Oak Hill
6. Oak Hill Center for Relationship & Sexuality Education
7. Oak Hill Camp
8. Oak Hill Residential Services
9. Oak Hill Day Services
10. Oak Hill Foundation
11. Oak Hill Professional Development

Oak Hill is a recognized private provider by the State of Connecticut’s Home and Community Based Services Comprehensive Waiver and Individual and Family Supports Waiver through the Department of Developmental Services (DDS)

Learn About DDS

My Son, Christopher

When my son, Christopher was 3 years old, he suffered traumatic brain injury after being hit by a drunk driver.  For 29 years, he has lived with intellectual and physical disabilities and requires 24 hour supervised care.  He recieves that care at Oak Hill, where he lives in a group home and attends a day program where staff treats him and others like him with dignity, respect and like a member of their own family. 

At Oak Hill Christopher feels accomplished and part of his community while working at his supportive employment job.  His happiness is due in large part to the individualized attention and genuine affection he receives from his caretakers and the access he has to equipment that enables him to live life to the fullest. 

Your donation will ensure that my son, his housemates, and all the people served by Oak Hill have more than just the bare essentials - it will ensure that they have a way to see the world when they have no vision, a way to communicate when they can't speak, and a means of transport when they cannot walk. 

Thank you,

Janice Favreau (Christopher's mother)

To make a donation online, click here

How do I get started?