Post 21 Day Program
Monday through Friday 9:00 am -3:00 pm
Limitless is beyond thrilled to announce the beginnings of our next endeavor to support our adult population in building happy lives and fulfilling futures as they progress through the lifespan!
The staff at Limitless is delighted to extend this opportunity to you, as we know the road to progress and advancement is built upon lasting relationships, paved by ongoing developmental approaches, and embedded in meaningful experiences in a variety of communities.
This fall, we will expand our course offerings at Limitless for our post 21 population and implement a curriculum we feel is innovative, in recognition of the unique strengths and capacities of adult individuals with special needs, and continues to lay the groundwork towards increased independence in all areas of development. Limitless is dedicated, driven, and inspired to support adults in maximizing potential and accomplishing goals.
Key program components are the cornerstone of increasing feelings of competency, gaining a sense of control over one's own life, and attaining self-confidence in trying new endeavors. These foundational principles include self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship building, and responsible decision-making.
Comprehensive goals are embedded in community-based instruction, client-centered planning, transition planning, skills of daily living and independence, and pre-vocational coaching. Daily activities include mentorship in integrating into the local community, becoming aware of and utilizing community resources, troubleshooting and effective problem solving, and fortifying interpersonal skills to build social, employment, and community networks.
We look forward to hearing from you and we hope we can embark on this journey together!
Academic pursuits
The pursuit of educational content continues to be a priority, including current events, scientific exploration, exposure to literature , sign language, interpreting art, music history… whatever floats your boat! In order to see what sparks interest, what lights them up, what keeps them most engaged, what prompts them to inquire, what they are most independent in, what areas of expertise they have, what they could look at every day what they find challenging, what creates the “thinking face “, what one day they would like to do more of - we have to make accessible. Guiding experiences and creating opportunities to learn what is important to them, are steps to ongoing self-discovery throughout adulthood.
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Technology for Today
Let’s face it, in today’s world, technology is everywhere and is crucial to be inclusive and competitive in all aspects of society and work. From cells phones, to texts, to social media and iPads, and apps, and blogs, and oh my…. Our gang needs to keep up with the times! Technology helps support communication, organization, self-expression collaboration, socialization, information acquisition , creativity , and at times safety and security. This prevocational prerequisite will explore forms of assistive technology, a variety of communication formats such as texting, effectively using and interpreting emails, and various organizational and creative technology tools of many trades. Experiences include group participation in a fantasy football league , utilizing online shopping avenues as well as contributing to social media for the program.
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Employment Pathways
Long-term and successful employment goes well beyond just having the job skills and must focus upon the behind-the-scenes soft skills. Themes such as emotional regulation, social communication on the job, and professionalism can be generalized to any employment experience. Employability skills including responsibility, time management, pacing, safety, perseverance, flexibility, manners, and interpersonal skills, will be practiced and implemented in community-based settings and environments.
Building maintenanceand improvement
It is our community, we are in charge of it - good, bad, or ugly. As members of the program, participants do not just show up, and someone else is in charge of taking care of everything. The program culture supports the development of a sense of ownership, feelings of pride in the environment, a one for all, all for one spirit, and presumed competence in all. In that light, if something is a mess, help clean it; if something is broken put it on a “to do list; if something looks ugly, make it beautiful, if we needs supplies put it on the shopping list; if something is not working come up with an idea to make it better. With support and experience, clients are learning what it takes to buy, build, plan, organize, prioritize, beautify, and maintain a place that is important to them.
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long term projects
Long-term projects foster organization, time management, and goal achievement. Clients work toward becoming proficient ‘project managers’ and practice a variety of roles within a group dynamic. These initiatives usually have more complex objections requiring significant resources and planning as well as ongoing maintenance and monitoring. Benefits include working in multiple phases without immediate gratification, seeing the tangible outcomes of hard work and perseverance, contributing positively to their community, being accountable, and learning to set and achieve goals. Examples of projects include designing and maintaining a garden, creating an improved landscape, redecorating and room design, and special event and party planning.
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Movement activities
Movement can help increase memory, perception, language, attention, emotion, and decision-making. Additionally, the promotion of lifelong habits to support physical health and mental well-being contributes to a positive, successful, and fulfilled adult life. Developing independence in the navigation of familiar and novel environments, manipulation of objects, sequencing steps to solve a problem, and completing tasks requires both fine and gross motor skills. In a world that, for many, is becoming increasingly sedentary, it is crucial for adults to engage in daily purposeful movement. This may look like hiking, an exercise station course, swimming, walks in the community, group sports, martial arts sessions, weights at the gym, or spins of the Peloton program. Try them all out and see what suits you best for your adult life.
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Organization and Regulation
The best way to begin the day is through a sense of competency developed by the ability to be increasingly independent with the organization of personal belongings. Executive functioning and feelings of control and comfort are supported by knowing there is a place for everything; if something is needed it can be found, and privacy will be respected.
Following the comfort and safety of being self-reliant in the management of possessions, clients prepare their levels of alertness for the day. Self-regulatory exercises and activities such as movement, heavy lifting, and brain pursuits ensure that clients are at a just-right level of regulation to optimize engagement, emotional management, and success throughout the day.
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Experience and Exposure
Learning on the Move! This community-based course provides a multitude of meaningful experiences in a wide variety of settings. Daily living, academic, employment, and functional skills are applied naturally in community settings such as stores, banks, doctors' offices, parks, restaurants, post offices, and malls. A comprehensive range of experiences provides relevant and applicable learning opportunities. Learned skills become functional and transferable as they are mastered and are applied to increasingly wider community settings. We only truly know something when it can be generalized over and over. The development of skills is relevant to the individual, facilitates independence, age age-appropriate, and in fostered in natural and integrative environments.
Community experiences are client-centered as they make selections based on preferences and strengths, are the driving force in all steps of planning, and facilitate community relationships.
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team building
The ability to work collaboratively as a team is an identified cornerstone of success in the 21st century. Group work highlights the need to achieve collective goals, solve problems, generate more ideas, and communicate effectively. Skill sets include interpersonal awareness, learning to make inquiries, the ability to teach others what you know, to question effectively, and to appreciate diversity. Working through the steps of the problem-solving process, clients collectively engage in real-life challenges, including assembling furniture, team building challenge games, science activities, and social dilemmas.
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Morning Meeting and weekly planning
As a client-centered program, morning meetings help map out the plan and set the tone, goals, and responsibilities for each day. Each week, the group works together to plan the week's trips, arrange special events, and formulate “to-do” lists. Reviewing the regularly scheduled activities as well as spontaneous and flexible planning, determining community-based instruction preferences, sharing opinions, and planning in detail for outings ensures member-directed outcomes. Troubleshooting challenges, conflict resolution, checking in on long-term projects, task delegation, research assignments, well-being check-ins, and daily goal setting are on the meeting agenda.
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Leisure
Leisure skills are part of typical growth and develop naturally and automatically in most, but some need skill development, practice, repetition, and support in order to have purposeful free time sans constant supervision and monitoring. Developing these skills should be a central part of any individualized plan as they can be the greatest barrier to being able to access the community. Downtime with purpose allows members to choose activities that may be social, creative, physical, cognitive, relaxing, or spiritual in nature. This is an important part of the day to make choices, be in control of their day without always being scheduled and directed by others, feel competent and comfortable, turn off and recharge, or stimulate and activate passions and areas of natural strength. Importantly, the expectations of others are set aside and clients are driving how to use their time doing what is important to them. Expansion of leisure pursuits may lead to greater community connections , involvement with like minded people, and meaningful relationships.
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Daily living
Mastering tasks of daily living with increased independence is essential in the support of general well being, the development of a positive sense of self, decreased fearfulness about the future, and establishing feelings of competence into adulthood. Clients participate in a wide range of personal self-care activities across home, school, work, and community settings. Skills of daily living must be both routine and novel, as practice and repetitive experiences support the need for decreased assistance and improved quality of life. Group members develop self-sufficiency by planning and preparing meals, maintaining a clean facility, making minor repairs, and taking pride in grooming and caring for pets.
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Mindfulness
Participation in an adult world with increased expectations and responsibilities may raise anxiety, cause overload, and make it challenging to be present in the moment. As a lifelong tool for well-being, the practice of mindfulness has many positive outcomes, such as decreased stress, improved attention, regulated mood, positive coping, increased working memory, and more cognitive flexibility. Clients participate in activities to support the completion of body scans to determine current states, mindful eating, guided breathing and meditation, muscle relaxation, and yoga and stretching.
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Daily Schedule
Expanding on Independence
Along with structuring our curriculum around independence, we also give our clients every opportunity to take charge of their time here and make their own choices about how their schedule will be organized. Every day offers a new way to organize the courses, and the outcome is solely up to the group. We encourage our clients to interact and glean perspective from every participant, then use that to create the schedule for the day. They can choose when we go into the community based on the weather that day, or choose when we take a break depending on how strenuous our work will be.