"A community can be judged by how they treat the neediest in their group. We should be proud of how we've addressed the needs of people with disabilities in our community."

- Bob McGuire, Executive Director

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The Executive Director's Blog

I wish all readers a happy and healthy 2010…

I wish all readers a happy and healthy 2010 and, that if you have made resolutions or plans to change or improve, you are successful! One of my New Year’s resolutions is to maintain communication with you, our constituents to keep you aware of our successes, opportunities and threats. This periodical is one of the tools tI use to achieve this goal. I am delighted to share the most recent success story that I believe was achieved through the advocacy of our consumers, families and staff. The Governor’s budget, released recently, includes a trend which was missing from last year’s budget. Nonetheless, in the past year, extensive letter writing, phone calls, emails and visits, not only to our legislators, but also to the Governor’s office in Albany has finally resulted in the trend being in the budget for 2010/2011. Unfortunately, there are also cuts and we will attempt to persuade our legislators and the Governor to remove these significant reductions as they have the affect of reducing the value of the trend. Make no mistake, your message was heard. The voices and the votes of all who insist that individuals who are disabled, should not be relegated to second class citizenry, is a powerful method to educate and influence. Keep it up. In this paper, you will see many stories of generosity, achievement and accomplishment. Enrollment for our children in the CLC is at the highest level in the school’s history. That is a huge testimonial to the administration, faculty and support staff. Keep up the great work. Our adult programs’ attendance figures are also way above our historical average. Here too, a caring and professional staff has created such meaningful activities that participants don’t want to miss a day. Credit also should be shared with many of our adult consumers who partner with our staff in developing much of the curricula. Our clinic program has also had more visits this past twelve months than anticipated. Creating an efficient and effective model that provides responsive services to those children and adults who attend our day programs as well as our outpatients, has been a goal of the entire clinical and support team and they are strident in these efforts as they also work towards a more financially stable clinic operation. Our Residential Services program continues to grow as three new homes have been opened up in the past two years. These …

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