About Our Programs / Overview of Programs

ADAPT (Assisting Developing Adults with Productive Transitions) is a functional life skills program with an emphasis in community participation. The program is designed to teach home living skills, vocational skills, and community skills to young adults with disabilities, allowing them to maximize their independence in adulthood. Students learn domestic, vocational, community, and social skills, as well as self-advocacy. Through scaffolding (supported) learning opportunities, students are able to transfer their skills from the classroom to the community.

Up to four days a week, students can participate in community skills outside our building at one of 30 job or leisure sites. Within our building, we use a mock apartment with a kitchen and laundry, provide a recreation and leisure setting for social interaction, and offer a variety of vocational training opportunities. Students also may be responsible for jobs within the school building, such as shelving books in the media center or working with clerical staff.

The BRIDGE (Building Relationships in Discipline, Goals, and Education) provides comprehensive educational and therapeutic support services to students who might otherwise require residential or other more restrictive placements due to the severity of one or more of the characteristics of the disability category of emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) and others. The BRIDGE serves students through educational services and supports, academic instruction, behavioral intervention, therapeutic support (provided by in-house school psychologists, school social workers, and behavior specialists), collaboration with student’s home school, and inter-agency and parental support.

Our mission is to provide a safe, caring, therapeutic environment where students with educational, behavioral, and social challenges can best develop the skills and character necessary to rejoin their communities with success. We strive to provide individualized education that addresses students’ unique learning styles, cultivates independent thought, and promotes the building of character, so students can learn to be citizens of a culturally diverse society.

STRIVE (Supported Training and Rehabilitative Instruction in Vocational Education) is a community-based work skills program for students with special needs, with an emphasis on acquisition of adult independence. The mission and purpose of the program is to provide real-life work experiences for students with intellectual disabilities in real community-based businesses. During their time in the program, students receive instruction on basic work skills and appropriate work behaviors. STRIVE provides an instructional focus on IEP Transition Plan activities, post-secondary goals, and outcomes. Students learn a variety of job skills as well as soft skills needed for all types of employment. Soft skills include professionalism, work ethic, enthusiasm, teamwork, collaboration, critical thinking, and problem-solving.

The STRIVE program helps to empower students to reach their full potential, offering many benefits to participating students, including full community integration and inclusion, a competitive edge in the workplace, a bridge to adult life through supported transition, and an opportunity to explore career clusters through a variety of job tasks.

Project SEARCH is a nationally recognized nine-month internship program for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. It is targeted for individuals whose goal is competitive employment. The program takes place in a healthcare, government or business setting where total immersion in the workplace facilitates the teaching and learning process as well as the acquisition of employability and marketable work skills. Interns participate in three internships to explore a variety of career paths. The interns work with a team that includes their family, an instructor, and local and state agencies to create an employment goal.

Buice Center