2008 • APRIL NEWSLETTER community catalysts of california A Special Thank You Thank you to everyone who took the time to submit a nomination for the P.R.I.D.E. Award for April! It was great to read all of the positive things you had to say about your peers. If the person you nominated does not receive the award this month, please feel free to nominate them again in the future! Employee Anniversaries 10 YEARS Elizabeth Wark - SC 8 YEARS Vanessa Orr - STK 7 YEARS Martha Castaneda - FSO 6 YEARS Joanne Bradshaw - FSO Cuauhtemoc Lopez - FSA 4 YEARS Christina Coonfield - MDO Samantha Grimes - STK 2 YEARS Thomas Mitchell - STK Vivian Perez - FSO 1 YEAR ** Meg Salinas - VIS Marie Gentry - STK Tina Ortega - STK Recee Robinson - FSO **Meg’s 1 year anniversary was in March. Community Catalysts of California Celebrates 25 Years of providing services to people with development disabilities. Community Catalysts has reached a landmark 25 years of service throughout San Diego and California. The company hosted a party at the San Diego Hotel and Marina on March 20, 2008 to celebrate. The event brought together current and former board members, founders, employees, consumers and community leaders. “This year we celebrate our 25th year of developing and managing programs that meet the needs of our consumers and help them to live more independently and contribute to their community,” said Jim Jenkins, CEO of Community Catalysts. “A lot goes into running our organization: knowledgeable staff, dedicated board of directors, supportive volunteers and enthusiastic consumers. Without these elements, our organization could not be successful. We are fortunate to have them in abundance.” The company also honored CEO and President Jim Jenkins who celebrates his 20th year with the company this year. “Jim was hired as a job coach in 1988. Eventually he rose through the ranks and took the helm of the company,” said Carey Storm, board member for Community Catalysts. “In the past few years, Jim has helped our organization to grow and has expanded our services and programs, including a new affordable housing initiative and veterans’ transitional services initiative. Community Catalysts would not be the organization it is today without the perseverance of Jim.” In addition to a slideshow highlighting past and present consumers, employees and board members, one of the original founders, John Lloyd, also spoke to the crowd about the early days of the agency. “Community Catalysts was originally founded by a group of teachers and parents trying to help graduates of Escondido High School’s Special Education Program to find jobs, live independently, and connect with the community. Our public schools tried to prepare our students for adulthood, but there were no transitional training services for these students once they turned 22-years old,” said John. “I’m very proud to be one of the founders. We saw an urgent need in our community and we answered that call for help. And look how far we’ve come since then.” (left to right) Neil Lien, Board Treasurer; Jim Jenkins, CEO; Don Mullen, Board Secretary; Debra McQuillen, Director; Carey Storm, Director (left to right) Joe Medugno, CCHA Director; Cathy and Dan Connell (left to right) Martin Preston, Consumer; Patricia Preston, Past Board Member Central Valley fresno & merced Fresno Fresno has been moving along adjusting to the ever changing weather. We would like to welcome 2 new employees to the Community Catalysts of California family. Welcome, Hugo Sanchez and Annette Myers, DSA’s for our SLS program. March 29, 2008, we have a Community Catalysts Multicultural Buffet Fundraiser to raise money for the SLS, Social Rec., and ILS programs. According to our Social Rec. Coordinator, the event turned out nicely, with some of our employees donating a dish of their culture for the event. Thank you to all of the staff and consumers who participated in this event and made it such a great success! Social Rec. will soon be enjoying an overnight retreat at Yosemite National Park! Congratulations Christian B., ILS consumer, for you new job with the IRS! Merced Congratulations to Michelle Acosta, DSS, as our winner for the Safety Incentive Drawing! In March, our consumers and staff went whale watching in Monterey and had a great time! We here at the Merced office would like to say that we miss Shelley, and really enjoy when she is able to come in! South Bay Santa Clara & Salinas Santa Clara The Santa Clara office is growing... Due to our growth with consumers in the community, we are pleased to announce that our office is hiring for a Case Manager and a DSA! April is a busy month for CAC events in our office! The first event planned is our Bowling/ Dinner night on April 4th. This event has had such a great response from our consumers to date that we are expecting 21 consumers to participate! FUN-draisers! We are kicking off our fundraising event in April to raise funds for our Summer BBQ that is to be held this July. For this fundraiser, consumers will be raffling off three types of gift baskets. A Gardening Basket for all of the gardener’s in our community, a Movie Night Basket for all of the movie lovers in the community, and a Pasta Basket to take care of someone’s dinner for a night! Consumers will be selling tickets at $1 per ticket and the top sellers for sales will receive a prize. We would like to thank the following establishments for their donations and assistance in making the fundraising event a success: Silicone Valley Auto Group - $100 Hobees Restaurant - Gift Cert. Costco - $25 Gift Card Armadillo Willies - Dinner Cert. We have an upcoming fundraiser in May. Consumers will be hosting their second fundraiser. We will be holding a Car Wash at a local gas station in San Jose to raise money for the Summer BBQ event this July. Congrats! Congratulations to Earl Leclair, our consumer of the month for March. Earl has contacted the office to thank us for all the wonderful gifts he received. Earl plans on wearing his shirt that he received to the Bowling/Dinner event in April. The following recipients were winners at our safety meetings from January through March: January - Jou Chen - Jamba Juice Gift Card February - David Bergheim - Starbucks Gift Card March - Denise Mansfield - McDonald’s Gift Card Jennifer Mansfield’s baby boy has arrived earlier than expected! His name is Ashton Tyler. Congratulations to her. She will be greatly missed and we wish her the best! SalinasWe would like to first welcome aboard Gilda Alvarez as our new Direct Service Aide. In March, we had a CAC Easter event held at Del Monte Beach in beautiful Monterey. Consumers were able to participate in our Annual Easter Egg Hunt, go for a walk at the wharf, andenjoy a delicious lunch at McDonald’s! The consumers were able to socialize with their peers throughout the day. Congrats! March’s Award of Excellence at the Salinas office went to Farley Odad for her continuous support with her consumers. The Safety Incentive Winner went to Karla Martinez. Congratulations to you both! Happy Birthday! We celebrated two staff birthday’s this month. Special Birthday wishes to Arlene Monroe and Farley Odad! ConsumerAnniversaries 21 YEARS Fred M. - SD 16 YEARS Bobby Y. - FSO 15 YEARS Peter B. - SD 11 YEARS Michael S. - SCMolly H. - FSOSergio C. - SC 10 YEARS Dante H. - SC 9 YEARS Kesha W. - SD Sharon P. - SCRobin E. - SC 7 YEARS Ruby T. - EC 6 YEARS Davina W. - SAL Marcelino P. - SAL Donald S. - FSO Sergio A. - SALAndrew W. - SAL 5 YEARS Julie P. - SCChristopher B. - STK Daniela G. - COASteven B. - SD 4 YEARS Khamtanh K. - FSO David F. - MCD Baudelio L. - SALRuby M. - SAL 3 YEARS Joseph M. - SC Tom T. - MOD Alicia T. - SALJanet H. - SAL 1 YEAR Michael M. - SD Anglia P. - MCDDavid S. - MCDCarmen L. - STKDennis C. - MCDDavid C. - MCDShirleen M. - STKJorge M. - MCD2 YEARSPeter R. - SDCheneye W. - MDOJohn G. - FSOIsrael L. - FSOMichael M. - MCDRusby P. - SDLinda A. - VISArthur V. - STK Redwood Coast/SoCal Ukiah, San Diego& & San Marcos Ukiah The highlight of March was the St. Patrick’s Day dance and potluck put on by the leprechauns at People First. Most of the Supported Living and Plum House consumers went and had a great time! The dancing was reminiscent of Riverdance with few jigs here and there. Easter was also enjoyed by all. David S. spent the weekend with his parents. Marie G. and Albert P. had a nice quiet dinner for two. Paul R. went out with his brother Sam and staff person Marge Cloe. The Plum House consumers and staff had a ham dinner with all the fixings! Marie G. has been enjoying a girl’s day out each week. She likes to have her hair and nails done, shopping and going out to lunch. Jean M. and Mark. B. each enjoyed having quiet birthday parties at home. Happy birthday to both of them! Congratulations to Don Lucas, our Safety Incentive Winner for March! Happy birthday to Rodrigo Ruiz, Diana Ragan, Mark Graumann and Sharon Knivila. San Diego & San Marcos Change is good and the San Diego/San Marcos offices have seen a lot recently. Congratulations to Sherie Kainz who has officially taken over the Regional Manager position. Although she still keeps the hat of “Program Leader” for the San Diego office, she will also be Regional Manager for the San Diego, San Marcos and El Centro offices. Welcome to new staff: Andy Trani, Program Leader for San Marcos, Teresa Grenawalt, IL Case Manager for San Marcos, and Kris Jerry, IL/SL Case Manager for San Diego. Jacob Schreiner and Josh Rohrabaugh have joined our team as IL Direct Care and Elbert Gonzalez has joined as an Employment Coordinator. The SE team welcomes Margie White who has traded in her IL Case Manager hat for the Employment Specialist position. Bettina Puga spent her 18th Wedding Anniversary in Las Vegas and had a great time. Congratulations! Teri Geston, SE Case Manager spent Easter with her nephews. First they spent a day at the Wild Animal Park and then they colored eggs. Aunt Teri had fun playing “Easter Bunny” for them. Consumers are getting ready for a trip to Sea World. After another successful fundraiser selling See’s candy, they will be getting a discount on tickets. Congratulations to Stephen J. and Parker G. for their new jobs. Disneyland was another successful event. We had over 40+ clients and 8 staff participate. Although it was raining when we left Oceanside, the sun came out and we had great weather for the rest of the day. Healthy Communication Can Help Ease Workplace Conflicts Success on the job means liking your work environment as well as liking your work. Maintaining harmony with the people you work with is critical. The key to building constructive relationships is good communication. Is there someone who rubs you the wrong way? Better communication can help. The first step toward improving things is to forget where the fault lies and to realize you can only control yourself. That could mean changing your attitude. For personality conflicts, an effective strategy is to: Make a list of the persons abilities, talents, positive character traits and personal • interests. Examples: energetic, good with details, punctual, loyal, loves music, etc. Choose a common ground and share some thoughts or information. Once you start • talking openly about something, you create a path toward positive interaction in other areas. For other conflicts, rather than voice a complaint without a remedy, try presenting a new proposal or solution to the problem. Then you will be perceived as a problem solver, not a problem maker. When communicating your position, choose the right time, right place and right mood. Try not to say something that could make matters worse. Learn to be positive. Try not to gossip or talk negatively about others; be complimentary and encouraging; rely on humor whenever possible. These are small efforts that go a long way toward making everyone feel better, including you. Resources Are Available For more information, call our Employee Assistant Program provided to you by Magellan Health Services. 800-523-5668 ©2007 Magellan Health Services, Inc. Cherolyn Howard Community Catalysts of California is proud to announce that Cherolyn Howard has been selected to receive the Catalyst P.R.I.D.E. Award~Leading by Example for March 2008. Cherolyn has been with us as a Crisis Response Assistant for the T.R.I.P.S. Program in the Stockton area for about 11 months. Cherolyn is most recognized for her ability to multi-task and for her exceptional display of the 5 core values: Resourcefulness, Empathy, Trust, Compassion and Respect. She is the main driver for the T.R.I.P.S. Program which means that she spends a great deal of her day on the road with consumers and consumer family members. She also handles REST assignments in between T.R.I.P.S. assignments that she has scheduled for the same day. Not only is she able to complete each task at hand, she does it with a positive attitude and is in constant communication with her supervisors! She has received outstanding feedback from her supervisors, consumers, consumer’s family members, and even from the Valley Mountain Regional Center for her “whatever it takes” attitude, professionalism and inspiring work ethic. We appreciate the great service and dedication to the vision of Community Catalysts of California that Cherolyn has provided and would like to recognize her for her hard work and for Leading by Example. Thanks for Leading Us In the Right Direction! Consumer Catalysts of the Month April 2008 Cheneye Williams Cheneye Williams has been with the Supported Living Program in the Modesto Office since April of 2006. He lives in his own apartment with his roommate and friend. He is very proud of his apartment and keeps it nice, clean and organized. He works Monday through Friday for Cal Trans, cleaning the rest stop in Patterson. He is a very hard worker and loves his job. He has been there for 6 years! Cheneye is also very involved with the Special Olympics in soccer and track. Last year both his soccer and track teams went to the Regionals at Berkeley State. He is a very good athlete and he also likes to go fishing when he gets the opportunity. In his spare time he likes to watch old time television and movies, and one of his favorites is The Breakfast Club. Cheneye is also learning new recipes each week when he cooks with our staff. He likes to grocery shop every other week with his SLS staff. Cheneye is able to write out his own grocery list and select the items on the shelves himself. He is becoming very independent! He is making great progress each week. Cheneye is very polite to the staff and the other consumers he meets and has a chance to spend time with. We are very proud of Cheneye and his accomplishments and that is why he has been chosen as our Consumer Catalyst of the Month for April! Congratulations Cheneye!