OANO Member Spotlight

Later this month New Avenues to Independence will begin its summer camp for more than 100 young people with special needs. Participants will experience art projects, music, swimming; and speech and language therapy. The camp will meet for five weeks and is designed to help children maintain lessons that are learned during the school year.  

After 5 weeks of camp, services do not end for New Avenues. In fact, the organization offers support all year round to more than 500 clients with developmental disabilities. New Avenues has been a resource in NE Ohio since 1952, when parents who had an alternative and new way of thinking about care for their children living in institutions, started the organization.

The founders believed a group home setting would provide a pleasant living environment for the individuals and would promote the development of daily living skills, physical abilities and interpersonal skills. In 1971, New Avenues became the owner and operator of the first private, nonprofit group home in Cuyahoga County. The organization has now grown to nine group homes and also serves clients in Ashtabula and Summit counties.

Through the residence programs, an Individual Service Plan (ISP) is created to identify what services are needed. The ISP is developed by a team consisting of the individual, the individual’s case manager, a residential services representative, the individual’s guardian and any other person(s) that the individual wants involved. Throughout the planning process, the organization emphasizes the personal choice and needs of individual clients.

Types of additional care can include therapeutic (music, language, art, occupational, physical), medical, nursing, a full recreation program, mainstream housing assistance, and a vocational services program called Buckeye Industries. Buckeye Industries trains clients on how to work, provides a job coach, and also places clients in jobs such as document destruction, janitorial services, and outsourced production work.

New Avenues relies on 400 volunteers each year. Volunteers help with special events, gardening at group homes and some even participate in the organization’s speakers’ bureau, which educates the community about issues affecting people with disabilities.

To learn more about New Avenues to Independence, please visit, www.newavenues.net.

If you would like your organization to be featured in the member spotlight, email jennifereschbach@oano.org.

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Ohio Association of Nonprofit Organizations   100 E. Broad Street, Suite 2440, Columbus OH 43215-3119
Phone: 614-280-0233   Fax: 614-280-0657   Info@OANO.org