Story behind the workbooks...
The Imagine Different Coalition, formed in May of 2014, is a group of parents, advocates, and other professionals from across the state that emerged out of a grant from the Pennsylvania Developmental Disabilities Council awarded to the PEAL Center in July 2012.
The grant called for promoting system change by providing materials, training, technical assistance, and consultation to families and stakeholders to assist children living in facilities to move to families. Three workbooks were developed to help users imagine and achieve supported family life as an alternative to congregate care.
The PEAL Center partnered with Nancy Rosenau, national expert on family-based alternatives to congregate care and Executive Director of Everychild, Inc. Texas to develop the three Imagine Different...Achieve Different Workbooks.
This workbook is an invitation to families of children with developmental disabilities who are living in congregate care facilities to imagine the possibility of family life and achieve it. It offers families a chance to look at different services and supports, or to look at services and supports differently.
Workbook for System Representatives
This workbook invites representatives of Pennsylvania's child-serving systems to imagine and achieve a system of family-based alternatives to congregate care.
the workbook for Facilitators
This workbook is an invitation to individuals who are interested in actively helping a child with a developmental disability who is living in a congregate care facility to move to a family home.
