KCARC For Life

At KCARC an aggressive effort is underway to strengthen relationships and the connectivity between individuals served, their families and KCARC. KCARC found that it had been losing contact with students and their families after enrollment at the Civitan Children's Center. Too many students who subsequently completed public school were not receiving services. Attempting to find a way to change this situation, KCARC has developed a new effort and named it KCARC FOR LIFE.

Consequently, KCARC decided to develop many avenues to continue contact with the students and their families during the years following the students leaving the Civitan Children's Center and before high school completion. Some examples of the new effort include Buddy Ball, a division of the Babe Ruth League that provides "buddies" to assist players with disabilities if they need help hitting, pitching, catching, or running the bases; the School-To-Work Transition Program, provided in conjunction with Indiana Vocational Rehabilitation, which allows special needs students in their final two years of high school to spend a part of the school day at a worksite (presently at a KCARC plant) gaining important job skills; KCARC's recreation coordinator has begun visits to the area schools to make qualifying students aware of Special Olympic activities, like the swimming program, in which they may participate; and parents of individuals with disabilities being connected with the Arc of Indiana and the Arc of the US, which will serve as valuable resources in the complicated maze of obtaining services for their child(ren). With the addition of so many important programs, families of individuals with disabilities will now think of KCARC FOR LIFE.