So What are the Options?

Program Preps Disabled Youth for Life on Their Own

by Susan Sharon

The first graduating class of Strive U, in Portland, Maine. Top row, from left: Julie Jermann; Jeff Goranites; Christina Mailhot. Bottom row: Brittany Noyes; Noel Thompson.

 

Web Resources

• STRIVE U Web Site

 

NPR.org, September 16, 2007 ·As many college students unpack their microwaves and get acquainted with their roommates and their chemistry professors, a group of classmates from Portland, Maine, is embarking on a different journey this semester: life on their own.

The five students recently graduated from STRIVE U, an intensive, two-year post-secondary education and training program for young adults with developmental disabilities. To graduate from the program, the first of its kind, students were required to take several college classes at the University of Southern Maine, get a job, and learn how to manage a checkbook, hail a cab and plan a menu. In other words, to live as independently as possible.

Today, they are all living in their own apartments, and they have all jobs. They are expected to pay their rent and other bills with the money they earn from their employment. And while their low-cost housing is subsidized, program administrators and parents estimate that students' independence saves about $40,000 a year in fees to personal attendants.

As Maine Public Radio's Susan Sharon reports, the students' struggles have been a lesson for those around them as well.