Expo Focuses on People's Abilities, Not Disabilities

Listening to the specialists at the All-Abilities Expo, Arnold and Jefferson County residents should hear a message. People with disabilities can live independent lives.

The annual event allows older residents and those with disabilities find organizations and programs that help improve their lives. This year, the event occurred last Saturday at the Roy Wilde Conference Center, 849 Jeffco Blvd. 

“This event focuses on what people can do instead of what they cannot,” Arnold’s Director of Administration Greg Hall said during the event. Hall is on the city’s Aging and Disabilities Commission that helped bring the expo to Arnold.

The Jefferson County Developmental Disabilities Resource Board and the Jefferson County Community Partnership, a nonprofit, also helped bring the Expo to Arnold. 

Nancy Foster, an Arnold resident, and her daughter, Annie Winkler are thrilled about the new Arnold bus service operated by the Jeffco Express, Nancy said. Both women have a disability that limits their ability to drive.

The new bus service, which started on Monday, stops at popular retail locations, businesses and employers in Arnold.

The new service allows the two women to go where they want in the city, or in  Jefferson County, without relying on friends or family to drive them.

“Annie’s an adult, she likes going out on her own, seeing movies with her friends and going to the library,” Foster said about her daughter.

The Maplewood-based Turner Center for the Arts stood had a booth at the expo's entrance. Co-Director Nate Larson said art can build people’s confidence and decision-making abilities. 

Older people and those with disabilities are always with nurses, live on a schedule, and lack privacy, Larson said. The nurses make all the decisions of what to eat, where to go and participation in selected activities.

“Art allows people with disabilities to have some privacy and begin to make their own decisions,” Larson said.

Artists decide the paint color, its placement on a canvas and brush stroke.

“In time, people become self aware, build confidence in their choices, and that carries into the rest of their lives,” Larson said.

Next Step for Life, at 12 A Municipal Drive, is an employment service that helps people with disabilities find jobs. The organization also had a booth at the expo.

A state agency refers people with disabilities to the Arnold-based organization, said Maria Benson, a job placement analyst.

The organization offers three levels of service to people with disabilities: supported employment, traditional employment services and transitional employment.

Supportive employment provides one-on-one job coaching and monitors the employee’s adjustment at the work place for about three years.

The goal of supportive employment is for job coaches to be heavily involved with the new hire the beginning of a new job then to eventually become less involved. Benson said. 

Traditional job services provide résumé and job search help. Transitional services teach attendance and remedial job skills to help people with disabilities find useful jobs in the community, she said.