Employee Assistance Program:1-800-523-5668 Holiday Stress Busters for Big and Little People The holiday season is upon us. It is a time for family get togethers, decorating, shopping, gift wrapping, baking, and attending special activities. Holidays are supposed to be a time of enjoyment and happiness, but instead you and your family may feel stressed because of the extra demands placed upon already busy schedules. Relieving some of the stress during the holidays can best be accomplished by getting the whole family involved in tackling holiday tasks and activities. The following ideas can help you and your family work together to reduce holiday-stress. Sit down as a family and come up with a list of all the things that need to be done during the holidays (shopping, card signing, cleaning, etc.). Delegate or let family members volunteer to help. Make up a December calendar. Include dates and times of all activities to be attended, and a schedule of when tasks such as cleaning, baking, and shopping need to be done. Take a look at your family's holiday activities. Are there things that you do each year but really do not enjoy? If so, consider not doing the activity any longer or doing it in a different way. Plan easy meals. Double batch your favorite casseroles and put in the freezer for a quick meal on a busy day. Take a few minutes each day for yourself and do something relaxing. Keep eating and sleep routines as close to normal as possible to prevent children from becoming cranky or overtired. Expect young children to misbehave occasionally. Remember they have short attention spans and tire easily. Make time for family fun! Plan fun activities together such as baking cookies, trimming the tree, caroling, or taking a drive to see the local light displays. Making the Holidays Special Be sure to set aside some time to do special activities with your child during this busy month. Involving your child in preparing for the holiday festivities makes them feel important and can also provide an excellent opportunity for one-on-one time. Why not try letting your child make their own beautiful wrapping paper for gift giving this year? Making Homemade Wrapping Paper Materials Needed: brown paper bags (cut open), white or colored tissue paper, or butcher wrap household sponges cut into a variety of shapes (triangles, squares, circles, etc.) tempera paint, crayons, or markers paper plates Directions Together, cover a large table with newspaper. If using paint, help your child spread a thin layer of paint in each plate. Crayons and markers may also be used to draw designs if paint is not available. Slightly dampen sponges. Encourage your child to select sponge shapes and press them into the paint, then place them on the paper and press down to print shapes. (Your child might want to wipe paint on the paper with sponges rather than making prints. That's OK.) Let your child make several sheets of wrapping paper. This would be a wonderful way to package those special gifts for Mom, Dad, Grandpa, Grandma, or any other special people. For more information, please log on to www.magellan.com Stockton Ate Eyes The Stockton office had a wonderful month. We all enjoyed the extra hour of sleep and hope everyone else did as well. Nicole Wiley showed off her "crazy hair day" hair do and Janice Tucker made eye balls in dirt for Halloween! EW! But it tasted wonderful! The Stockton office would like to wish everyone happy holidays and we hope you all had a great Halloween! Salinas Picks Pumpkins We would like to welcome our new ILS Coach Esperanza Galera. Prior to Halloween some of the consumers went out to a Pumpkin Patch to pick their own pumpkins. On October 31, we had a Halloween Event where consumers participated in a best costume contest, carving pumpkins, safety contest, raffles and planned upcoming events. The Safety Winner for October was Arlene Monroe. Spooky Time in El Centro The Imperial Valley Consumer Advisory Committee held their Halloween group event with an Outdoor Potluck barbeque at the Calexico Community Center. Consumers brought in food and participated in having a very spooky time. The Imperial Valley Office is preparing itself for an upcoming SDRC Medicare audit to be held sometime by the middle of next month. Everyone is quite busy reviewing for the coming questionnaires when the time comes. The Advisory Committee recently held a new fundraiser to help build up their trust fund selling Krispee Cream donuts. Funds collected will be gradually added to their fund and thus they will have money available for coming expenses. Coalinga is Festive During the month of October, the consumers at the Coalinga office were able to spend a day at the Fresno Fair, go Ukiah Competed With Soup We've had a couple of things going on this month, Plum House had a Halloween Party. Lots of consumers showed up dressed in their festive costumes, ready to trick or treat. Everybody brought their favorite pot-luck dish to share and it was great! At the Special Olympics "Soup Off", Katie Landon and Cindy Fransham won second place with their choices of soup. We won a dinner and a glass of wine for two at The Crushed Grape. to the Fresno Dance, and participate in the Halloween Hay Ride. They also celebrated a birthday for Debra for whom they had a luncheon at Jumping Java. Consumers also had a Halloween Party at the office where they had pizza, hot dogs, a costume contest, and lots of other goodies. Congratulations go out to Melissa, Michael, and Elva who got 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place in the costume contest. Overall, consumers had a very good month and they were able to enjoy themselves. Nonprofit Corner: Special Needs Trust Foundation Steve Lawrence, Director of Development In the last edition special needs trusts were described. In San Diego there is the Special Needs Trust Foundation. It allows families with modest financial means to establish trust funds that they could not otherwise afford. This is made possible because the Foundation is a pooled trust, which means that many families can make smaller contributions that form a larger trust fund for ease of management and increased investment leverage, but each family has a separate trust account. This fund is not meant to be the principal means of support because that would eliminate government benefits. It is for special needs not covered by government assistance. These needs may well be expenses that are very important to the well being and happiness for the consumer which his or her family would routinely provide as long as they were able. Examples are special dental treatment, purchase of personal goods or Fresno Cruises Around Fresno welcomes their newest staff: Corin Negret SL Coach, Antoinette Aguilar SL Coach, & Marcia Clark ILS/Rec Coach. Some of our staff went on the company cruise. They had a great time! Our DSS James Besser sadly has left the company after 12 years. He will be missed much by all of us. Thanks James - “You’re The Best!” Our bowling team had a playoff with Merced. It's official Fresno has first place! Our Consumers attended the Big Fresno Fair on Oct. 9. Can you smell the corn dogs and cotton candy? A great time was had by all. They also had an awesome Halloween party on Oct. 27. Dancing, contests, and good food and company! services or even recreational and travel needs. Disbursements are made from the individual accounts through a carefully monitored partnership between the trustee and the consumer’s primary service provider. The trustee for the Foundation is City National Bank established in 1954. Family participation is welcomed. The Special Needs Trust Foundation is a cooperative project of: The Access Center, The Arc of San Diego, Development Services Continuum, Home of Guiding Hands, NAMI of San Diego, Sharp Healthcare Foundation, St. Madeline Sophie’s Center, United Cerebral Palsy of San Diego, UNYEWAY, Vista Hill Foundation and Community Catalysts of California may become a member as well. I will attend their next board meeting and get more information. One issue I want to be sure of is that our consumers from anywhere in California could create a trust and that it is not limited to San Diego. Consumer CatalystsAnniversaries 16 Years Vera P.~San Diego 13 Years Chris D.~San Diego 10 Years Maya W.~FresnoEva H.~El Centro Ronald R.~El Centro 9 Years 8 Years Joey T.~CoalingaJavier S.~Fresno6 Years Diana B.~ San Diego 5 Years Christopher M.~StocktonJesus Y.~MercedHayden H.~San Diego 4 Years Marie G.~Stockton Gregory T.~Merced Daniel W.~Santa Clara Phillip R.~Merced Jermaine J.~Merced Claudia G.~Salinas Steve A.~Merced 3 Years Shoua V.~Fresno Lee Ann T.~Merced JueWanda T.~Santa Clara Daniel C.~Visalia Cecelia K.~Santa Clara Tyesha T.~Santa Clara Jan B.~San Diego Kimberly K.~San Diego Rachel T.~Santa Clara 2 Years Jose T.~Salinas Kristopher S.~Stockton John K.~Merced 1 Year Modesto Sightsee Modesto consumers and staff are having a Halloween Costume Party at Ken and Thelma's house, we will have pictures for the next Newsletter. Modesto Case Manger, Chris Korelin and her family, which included Cooper their adorable Beagle, took a trip to the Grand Canyon as well as other popular sites such as Winslow, Arizona. They drove over 2000 miles, endured all types of weather and still all love each other. The Korelin s at the Grand Canyon Office Manager, Carole Uhlenhop, just got some exciting news; her daughter Jennifer and her boyfriend of 4 years got engaged while vacationing in Costa Rica. No date has been set yet. Hopefully Jennifer will give her parents plenty of notice so they will have time to save up for the big event. Thanks to Jim and Anna Jenkins for the roundtable luncheon at the Radisson Hotel on the 24th. The Modesto and Stockton staff enjoyed a wonderful lunch and were updated on future goals of Community Catalyst. Pet of the Month Chloe,the little itty bitty kitty! Melissa, the Office Manager in the Corporate Office, adopted Chloe about a month ago. She is about 5 months old and a bundle of energy. She loves to play, then sleep, play, then sleep even if that pattern carries on in the middle of the night. Melissa wakes up often to find her laying next to her on her pillow “petting” her face! Chloe uses no claws and just lightly brushes her paws down her cheeks. Her favorite thing to do is terrorize Obie, their family cat. She chases his tail, bites his ears and otherwise makes him crazy. She is super fun to play with and so lovable. She is a great addition to the family! Let’s just hope she eventually gets a sleeping schedule… Star of the Month- October 2006 Star of the Month- October 2006 Jenna Plante Jenna Plante Direct Service Supervisor in the San Diego Office has been with Community Catalysts of California for over 6 years. Jenna works in the Supported Living program and is always willing to go the extra mile to assure the consumers’ needs are met. Although Jenna often is known to go above and beyond in meeting and exceeding her work duties, recently she even went farther beyond her duties! While the San Diego area was in transition between regional managers Jenna step right in providing support to her program by assisting in completing the hiring paperwork and orientation for new staff. Jenna is a reliable and hard worker and has great communication skills and is never afraid to ask questions when she is in doubt. Jenna also has an endless sense of humor which helped her handle a very difficult consumer situation recently. Jenna is professional and always supportive of both the consumers we serve and the staff with which she works. And if that is not enough, Jenna also is active in Special Olympics and the Consumer Advisory Committee. Jenna is a great asset to the San Diego team and is a true model of our values and vision! Congratulations, Jenna! Consumer Catalysts of the Month- November 2006 Paul Rowe Paul has been with Community Catalysts of California for four years in the Supported Living Program in Ukiah. Paul has worked for Mayacama Industries for four months and has been chosen the employee of the month twice. He walks to work across town for the exercise. Paul has made several new friends at work. He is motivated to work because he likes to earn money. Paul is enjoying his basic skills class at the community college and he loves math. Paul’s hobbies are collecting Pokeman cards and playing video games. He is also great bowler. He loves bowling with his friends at Special Olympics bowling and is one of the top 10 bowlers in his group. Community Catalysts of California and the Butterfly Club are very proud of Paul and his achievements!! Congratulations, Paul!