CARPE NOCTEM - ADVOCATES FOR SPECIAL PEOPLE

GO ADVOCATE EAGLES! AdvocatesForSpecialPeople.org ADVOCATES FOR SPECIAL PEOPLE, INC.

Our History...Our Future

Advocates for Special People was founded in May 1997 by a small group of parents of young adults with mental retardation. Some of our children were already out of high school and some were still in school planning to graduate within the next year or two.

We were greatly concerned that there was nothing available to these young adults after high school graduation. Most of us did not see sheltered workshops as the way we wanted our children to spend their days. As all parents, we wanted them to continue to be challenged mentally and physically, to be productive citizens in their communities, and to continually develop their daily living skills, socialization skills, and academic skills. Within a few short years we grew in membership, became a non profit organization, and spent much of our time establishing programs in which our children could participate. We approached Tarrant County College (southeast campus) about developing transitional skills classes for our kids and the Dean of Continuing Education, Carrie Tunson, agreed to do this. In August of 1997, we had 33 students with various degrees of mental retardation enthusiastically entering college life. This program is now offered in three TCC campuses and has become a much sought after program.

Advocates for Special People also approached the City of Arlington Parks and Recreation Department about expanding their adaptive summer day camp program to become a year round program without age limits. This also became a sought after program as it provided recreational, social, and creative activities for our special population. Unfortunately, this program became the victim of budget cuts in August of 2003. Within two weeks, Advocates for Special People secured staff, a new meeting place and an exciting new program was started. The newly established program is called The Special Connexion, and is governed by our board of directors. We continue to offer recreational, social and creative activities, and have added such programs as job skills training, cooking, educational activities and fun field trips within our community. Recently we have added music therapy. The Special Connexion is proving to be a popular entity and we expect great things from this program.

Another of our achievements has been the organization of team sports for Special Olympics Texas. We have teams which participate in basketball, volleyball, soccer, bocce, bowling, track and field and unified sports. Our coaches are all volunteers and our athletes are dedicated to their sports. We compete in area and state competition, and our athletes have been awarded many gold, silver, and bronze medals. We currently have 55- 60 athletes participating in the program.

Our dreams are big and our determination and commitment is strong. One of our visions is to create a state of the art group home where our children can live out their lives in a family type setting with their peers after we, their parents are gone or are no longer physically able to care for them.

Our organization is committed to establishing and expanding programs for the education, recreation, and socialization for adults with mental retardation. It is our dream that they be given the opportunities to improve their quality of life and reaching their maximum potential in skills needed to allow them greater independence, and the ability to live and work in the least restrictive environment.