News Post

It’s Graduation week!

As a part of the celebration, we are continuing our blog series highlighting our 2024 graduates. On August 23rd, we will be honoring Danny and Ruthie’s achievement of graduating from the Discover Program and moving out into the community as independent adults. This week we spoke to both Danny and Ruthie about their time at Discover and the life lessons that they learned.

Ruthie posing in her Vista cap and Gown

Ruthie talked to us about her learning experience with transportation, and how she overcame that obstacle. “Well, it's gotten a lot better, actually” Ruthie said. “At first, I did not take the bus by myself. I know the schedules now, so it's not as hard for me to get around.”

We also spoke to Danny about his time at Discover. “I didn’t advocate very well when I first came here,” Danny told us, “So that’s something I struggled with. Now I like doing things by myself, like self-advocating,”

Danny posing in his Vista cap and gown

Whether it’s learning transportation skills or self-advocacy, Danny and Ruthie both found support at the Discover Program, practicing life skills that they found difficult and supplementing them with the skills and experience they already had. The staff at the Discover Program are always sharing methods and systems to improve life skills and independence with our students, but the greatest part of Discover is the opportunities to practice those skills in the community.

In our final Graduation 2024 blog, we will be covering the community opportunities that Danny and Ruthie have leveraged to build their independence and reach the milestone of graduation.

You are all invited to join us for Graduation 2024 at The Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center in Old Saybrook. Admission is free, but we request that you RSVP in advance by clicking the button below or visiting https://www.vistalifeinnovations.org/graduation.

Until next week…