My Nonprofit Reviews

I am the mother of a 32 year old daughter who has intellectual disabilities and mental health challenges. We experimented with two different group home placements for her, but neither one met her individual needs. She didn’t like having to share a room and bathroom with someone else; she didn’t like eating food that she didn’t like that was served; she didn’t like having to go to bed and wake up at specified times of the day; and she wasn’t able to visit her friends and family as much as she would have liked to.

We are blessed to have her in the Community Based Day Program and the Supported Living Program provided by AVENUES. Our daughter lives in her own home with 24/7 outstanding direct support staff provided by AVENUES. She gets to choose where she lives; who she lives with; what healthy meals she wants to cook; when she wants to go to sleep each night; and what activities she participates in. She likes to sit outside in her backyard after a busy day and just relax and watch the birds and squirrels in the trees.

Staff provide her with transportation and support so she can go to church activities; special events; movies; trips; shopping; and more. She LOVES that she gets to choose how she spends her days, instead of being told what to do, such as when she lived in a rigid institutional residential setting. She is able to be actively engaged in the Santa Clarita Valley, which is her home community. She volunteers at an animal rescue facility and she goes to the gym daily. She bakes cookies and brings them to her neighbors.

Our daughter has learned so much from the well-trained, compassionate staff at AVENUES. She now knows how to do her own laundry; grocery shop and prepare her own meals with assistance; do household chores; and more. She is still learning many new important life-skills all of the time.

Having our daughter in the AVENUES organization provides such peace of mind for my husband and I. We simply don't know what we would do without Directors Scott and Lori Shepard and the AVENUES’ programs. Our daughter’s Supervisor and direct support staff are all wonderful and benefit from on-going educational training to help meet our daughter’s social, emotional, educational, recreational, and vocational needs. Knowing our daughter is safe; healthy; and happy means the world to us...especially as my husband and I are getting older.