Covenant Shores Wins National Award

MERCER ISLAND, WA (August 21, 2003) - Dishwasher Emir Grcic thought he was just doing his job when he taught a disabled student how to load and run the industrial dishwasher at the retirement community where he works. As it turns out, Grcic was participating in a program that won both state and national awards.

The job training program for disabled students at Covenant Shores Retirement Community won the 2003 National Organization on Disability Award from the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging (AAHSA), a trade association representing 5,600 senior service providers. The program also received top honors in the same category from the Washington Association of Housing and Services for the Aging (WAHSA).

Covenant Shores received the WAHSA award at the organization's annual conference in Spokane last weekend. The AAHSA award will be presented at its annual meeting and exposition in Denver, October 26-29.

For its award-winning program, Covenant Shores partnered with the vocational-development program at Mercer Island High School, which has a transition program to help moderately to severely disabled 18 to 21 year olds gain employment skills. Covenant Shores found food service, housekeeping, laundry and clerical jobs that would match the students' skills and give them resume-quality work experience. The students, like Scott Wells (pictured right) worked up to six hours a day, five days a week, during the school year.

"We looked for jobs with skills that could be transferred to other industries," explains Covenant Shores Social Services Director Jean Henkels-Lee who helped spearhead the program. "One student loves to sort and organize. We put him to work doing laundry for residents of our skilled nursing center, replenishing the linen cart, organizing the linen room. He had the linen room straightened out in a matter of hours. Martha Stewart would have been proud."

The students could learn the skills in the school setting, but there are advantages to being on the job, said a teacher who works with special needs students.

"Learning to be appropriate and develop social skills with coworkers is paramount," says Sue Jobe, the Mercer Island High School special education teacher who runs the program. "The Covenant Shores staff really welcomed and enjoyed our students. They appreciated their contribution. This kind of experience is how we're going to make strides toward accepting diversity in the workplace."

While Covenant Shores personnel appreciated the students' efforts, along with the state and national recognition, they also say the benefits worked both ways. Reliable and hard working, Emir Grcic is also quiet and reserved. When he was paired with a student, Henkels-Lee says, "He started demonstrating leadership we hadn't seen before. He was impressed with the student's ability and gave him lots of positive reinforcement. They developed a nice camaraderie. It was a very positive work experience."

To win at both the state and national level, the Covenant Shores program had to provide an innovative and concrete way to assist those with disabilities. It also had to be a program other WAHSA or AAHSA members could replicate.

"We'll be glad to work with any other provider to explain how we got the program started and made it successful," says Covenant Shores Campus Administrator Anne Arakaki-Lock. In the meanwhile, the community is planning to replicate the program itself next year and is considering expanding the opportunities available to gardening and landscaping.

Covenant Shores is one of 15 not-for-profit retirement communities nationwide that are administered by Chicago-based Covenant Retirement Communities Inc. on behalf of the Board of Benevolence of the Evangelical Covenant Church. For more information about Covenant Shores, call 206-268-3000 or visit www.covenantretirement.com. For more about the award-winning work program, email Henkels-Lee at JTHenkelsLee@covenantretirement.org

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