34 The Courier sun • may 14, 2015 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.couriersun.com Family Residences Group home opens The Spring eld Gardens home looks like any other. Plants adorn the staircase and the quote “having a place to go is home, having someone to love is family, having both is a blessing” greets residents as they walk in. But what you may not know at rst glance is that this residence is one of three homes in Queens operated by Family Residences and Essential Enterprises Inc., which is also known as FREE. FREE was founded in 1977 by families who were looking for alternatives to institutionalizing family members with disabilities, according to Beth Peterson, Vice President of Community Living Services and Opportunities. The six women who live in the Spring eld Gardens home come from the Bernard Fineson Developmental Center in Queens Village, ROBERT S. BUDD FREE’s President and Chief Executive Of cer which is scheduled to close by 2017. “Within the early 80s we started doing day service activities and now we’ve expanded and we provide many services,” Peterson said. The agency expanded into Queens, has headquarters in Old Bethpage and Hauppauge and serves individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, mental illness and traumatic brain injuries, amongst others. Peterson said FREE is different because their goals are to increase independence among the individuals they serve, by teaching them useful skills like handling money when they go on shopping trips. Giselle Campione, who has been with FREE since February 2014, said the goal is to have them feel as a family. They go to the movies, eat dinner at restaurants and take trips to the Laundromat. Although, the women require 24-hour attention, many have made great strides in basic skills such as sitting at the dinner table and using utensils and even personally selecting their clothes, Campione said. At the developmental center the ladies often wore jumpsuits but now at the home, they choose their clothing each day. Four of the women have their own room. Two of the women have been roommates at Bernard Fineson for more than 20 years and requested to live together. “We don’t use jumpsuits here and we were able to help them shed behaviors of the past,” Campione said. “So that’s a huge accomplishment, being able to choose their own clothing.” Residences are also operated in Queens Village and Jamaica and support men from the ages of 22 to 24 who are on the autism spectrum. FREE operates more than 150 residences and apartments that serve individuals with multiple needs, according to Peterson. In addition to housing opportunities, which are for individuals who are 18 and older, the agency operates community services where a direct service professional will create a plan in collaboration with a family to increase an individual’s independence. Peterson said youth programs have been expanded and afterschool and weekend respite programs serve children whose parents may work late or who need to go away for a weekend and cannot travel with their children. A crisis program was developed to anticipate emergencies, such as the sudden death of a caretaker. Individuals would be placed into one of the agency’s residential programs in these cases, Peterson said. Government of cials often approach the agency and ask for advice when creating programs to care for individuals with disabilities. “Government of cials will approach us and say, ‘we have this person or we
SC05142015
To see the actual publication please follow the link above