S-A Welch gives back to the community through VIP Services
Released: November 22, 2006
Communication professor S-A Welch is accustomed to helping college freshmen overcome their fears of public speaking. A recent experience has provided excellent training for her, helping to make connections in her work while assisting an adult with a developmental disability.
Welch volunteers with VIP Services, Inc., a nonprofit organization in Elkhorn dedicated to empowering people with disabilities. The organization aims at having its clients develop the confidence needed to try new experiences and new environments.
There are a variety of ways clients with disabilities can successfully work in the community. The VIP staff works with each client to build the best plan based on their special needs. Simultaneously, staff job developers meet with local business employers to identify personnel needs and creative solutions to those needs by employing VIP Services clients.
Welch began training in September, meeting with a director to learn about her responsibilities as an ambassador for the client-centered speakers bureau program at VIP. The ambassador?s program trains and empowers clients to develop the confidence and skills needed for public speaking.
"Through this experience I am truly seeing how people are human, and I am looking forward to meeting my client," Welch said.
Welch will work one-on-one with her client, a man with Down syndrome, developing public speaking techniques so he can speak in front of groups like the Rotary Club or the Kiwanis to promote the VIP programs. The challenge will be finding alternative ways to communicate a speech without relying on notes. In doing this, she must adjust her mode of teaching to communicate in a different way.
"In the classroom, I must relate to what each particular student may be going through and keep pace with their needs, much like I will have to do with my client,?"Welch said. "I have dealt with similar challenges with my able-bodied students, and I hope to give my client confidence through our work with pictures, magazine associations and storytelling."
VIP Services Inc. also has several empowerment programs offered to clients. The day service program offers clients with multiple and severe disabilities and unique needs the opportunity to realize their fullest individual potentials through activities that enhance both cognitive and physical development, as well as self-esteem. Other programs include center-based production services, community employment and support and service coordination.
For more information on the VIP Services, Inc. program, visit http://www.vipservices-inc.org/index.html or contact Welch at welchs@uww.edu or (262) 472-5722.- Patti Schenker,schenkerpl07@uww.edu
