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               Home Away From Home

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  Cooper Home provides life skills training for teens

When the high school bell rings at three, classes aren't over for four
students. Each weekday afternoon they resume the process of learning
about life.

Every semester a new group of teenagers suffering from mild mental
disabilities is selected to live at Walter Cooper Memorial Vocational
Training Home in Fort Collins [CO]. Drawn from three area high
schools--Fort Collins, Poudre and Rocky Mountain--they learn skills
needed to live on their own.

"These students need an extra head start to adjust from school life to
an adult community," says Paula Shepard, Cooper Home director for the
past eight years and a special education teacher. "We try to select
kids with similar interests and personalities."

Four students are recommended for the program by Poudre R-1 School
District special education teams. Shepard and her husband, a Fort
Collins city planner, live in the top story of the tri-level home. The
students, who spend Monday through Thursday nights at Cooper Home,
share bedrooms on the bottom floor. They return to their families each
weekend.

"This is the only live-in, classroom training program like this in the
country. I love it. We have a lot of fun," says Shepard. "The boys are
learning everyday skills to help them function on their own."

This semester the four students are all high school juniors who have
held part-time jobs in the area. Chase Rodocker worked in a print
shop, John Garrott bagged groceries and Bill Suiste worked for a
veterinarian and has been a restaurant prep cook. Ron Turnbull is
working for Kunkler's Produce Wholesale Food Service. He leaves Cooper
Home at 4:30 every morning to make deliveries.

Established 27 years ago, Cooper Home was given to the Poudre R-1
school district by Martha Cooper in memory of her husband, Walter. If
the house is ever used for anything other than a training program for
students with disabilities, it will revert to the Cooper family,
Shepard says. Mrs. Cooper, 93, lives in Miami and corresponds with
Shepard.

Former students have helped in all of the improvements made to the
Cooper home, including furnishings. Bunk beds, chairs, flooring and
wallpaper were either built or chosen by the students, and when the
television failed recently, the current students had to shop for a
replacement.

Their week is structured around meal planning, grocery shopping and
leisure time. On Thursdays, a guest speaker from the community usually
comes to talk to them.

Instruction covers four basic areas: vocation, domestic, recreation
and leisure, and "community skills," such as learning to ride city
buses and grocery shopping. Shepard sees the program as a team effort
involving the community, parents and teachers. She is aided by a
variety of occupational therapists and Colorado State University
student volunteers. "This helps us provide a one-on-one program. Also,
the students' parents are welcomed any time," Shepard says.

After school, instruction begins with learning household chores. The
students also have leisure activities such as karate and
weightlifting. "These activities help with self-esteem," she says. The
Fort Collins Health Club donates memberships for the teenagers while
they are staying at the home. "The students need to learn how to
occupy their leisure time appropriately. After graduation they will be
mainstreamed with regular society," Shepard says.

Already the small, subtle skills of human interaction that are
difficult for the mentally disabled are developing among the
teenagers. Every evening the boys prepare dinner. Ron says he likes
the food, and Bill enjoys showing his roomates his skills as a cook.
Recently, Bill explained to Ron that he can tell when spaghetti is
done by throwing it against the wall to see if it sticks.

Said Ron: "We better just taste it."

[Home Away From Home, The Electronic Times, September 16, 1993, Donald
Denton, Editor]

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