Independence Center

The services my family received here were very helpful. My brother was able to find a job and learned skills that we had struggled to teach him ourselves. The patience of the staff and the availability to speak to them whenever I needed was a plus. The program director Judy I found to be very compassionate and understanding towards my brother’s needs.

This program has made the greatest difference in my child’s (and my family’s) life. After a year at the IC, my daughter has become much more autonomous. She is cooking on her own, grocery shopping, rides the bus and is volunteering three days a week. She has become far more calm and happy. All of this has been done with the help of the kind and professional IC staff.
There is always someone there to pick up the phone and answer my questions, and we have come to trust them completely. At first, it was hard for us, because we have been so used to protecting her from grown-​up stresses. My daughter doesn’t always like the rules at the IC, but we both now see how they have helped her to become independent. They seem to know what she is capable of.
This is not a 5 star resort and the staff are not hand-​servants (nor should they be). We have seen firsthand other parents flip out in an attempt to coddle their children and complain about the rules, which was a great lesson to me in why we brought her here in the first place. Do not bring your child here if you do not want them to grow up.
THANK YOU, THANK YOU JUDY, LINDA AND ERIKA!

This is one of the worst programs you could allow your learning disabled young adult child to enroll in. It is unorganized, unprofessional, punitive, and in my child’s own words, «degrading.» Our son went BACKWARDS in maturity and ability after living here. If you question the treatment by the staff, you will be told, «If we had employees like that, they wouldn’t be allowed to work here any longer.» If you ask about an incident that may have occurred, you will be told, «You will have to talk to Judy, the director about that, and she is in a meeting.» If you question Judy, the director about a staff member, she will say, «I cannot address that without that person here, and they are not here right now.» Imagine being called at 11 pm on a Saturday night and being asked,“Did you come and pick up your child? We cannot find him.” Then you will be called later and be told, «Oops, I didn’t see he was asleep.» Independence Center defends physical abuse among residents, stating, «They have to learn to get along. They are behaving like brothers.» Please save yourself from the agony we have suffered.