Vernon Manor Children's Home
Address: 1955 South Vernon Street
Wabash, IN 46992
Phone: (260) 563-8438
Number of Beds: 136
GENERAL INFORMATION
Vernon Manor Children's Home is a well designed residence for profoundly retarded, multiply handicapped children. Our facility provides the very best homelike environment. Our skilled staff serves as an extended family whose care, concern, and attention are genuine and total. The homelike atmosphere of our attractive, colorful facility reveals both our philosophy and our attention to detail. We believe that every child is unique and deserves to experience a meaningful and happy life. We support every child's right to develop fully, to have warm social relations, to enjoy daily living, and to attain self-esteem.
We therefore create in our home not only a caring, friendly, and vital environment, but also excellent developmental programs that serve each child's special needs. Our comprehensive habilitation and nursing programs stimulate learning, growth, and self-help skills.
FACILITY PROGRAM
Our special habilitation and activity programs are tailored to promote and to direct each child's potential. They result from thorough analysis of the child's potential. They result from the child's abilities in motor development, self-care, socialization, language and communication. This analysis is conducted by our licensed physical therapists and professional staff, and through the use of standardized tests and/or tests designed at Vernon Manor. Using these evaluations, we create a personalized, total plan for each child. This plan includes both short-and long-term goals and is attained through concentrated learning activities.
The home's daily program emphasizes four areas:
1. SENSORY MOTOR INTEGRATION
Designed to promote the child's purposeful interaction with his environment, our instructional activities apply the concept of the sensori-motor chain: sensory stimulation-integration-motor behavior-and feedback. Intensive stimulation involving the senses of touch, sight, motion, hearing, smell, and taste promotes the child's awareness of self and surroundings.
2. SELF-HELP
Through these carefully designed programs we foster and enhance each child's awareness of, and involvement in, dressing, eating, eating, bathing, and other necessary personal functions. This improved ability maximizes independence and self-care.
3. LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION
Through daily living activities, we provide many varied opportunities for acquiring expressive and receptive language skills. To the best of their abilities, the children develop usable communications systems, including responsive gestures, sign language, communication boards, and spoken words.
4. POSITIONING
Since proper body alignment is vital to physical functioning, we use specially designed equipment in combination with therapeutic handling and positioning to promote healthy body alignment and maximal functioning. Such guidance improves functional capabilities. The children are encouraged to use these capabilities through participating in imaginative activities and playing with creative toys.
Our progressive staff members dedicate themselves to fulfilling each child's individualized training plan through daily one-to-one tutoring and interaction within small groups. Our programs also involve the children in daily group activities.
NURSING PROGRAM
Our varied educational programs
are complemented by our medical and nursing care. Loving
care and sophisticated skills in combination maximally
benefit every child at the home. Our nursing staff
directs the medical care of each child twenty-four hours
a day. Our physicians are on call 24 hours a day and make
regular visits to the home for routine care as well as
emergency calls.
The exceptional efforts of our
teaching and nursing staffs are integrated through
continuous intercommunication. In fact, our program goals
are constantly reinforced not only by the inter-working
of our therapists and nurses, but also by our direct care
staff.
The direct care staff is
responsible for the daily physical care-bathing,
dressing, and feeding- of their children. Through
specialized techniques of handling and stimulation, our
staff provides affectionate care and attention.
Also very important to our
total program are the positioning, handling, and care
bestowed on our children while they eat. And each child
has an individual menu of foods based upon personal
dietary needs. Our registered dietitian plans all the
menus.
Besides these daily activities, our children enjoy periodic outings to neighborhood parks, community facilities, and special attractions. A highlight of the summer is our annual camp program. These diverse opportunities help to broaden the children's awareness of, and interest in, their environment.
ADMISSION
POLICIES
Admission to Vernon Manor is
open to all persons from infancy to age 28, regardless of
race, creed, sex, or national origin. As long as
placement is appropriate, children may remain at the home
until the age of 28. Our interdisciplinary team requires
a complete medical summary to evaluate the
appropriateness of each admission. Final acceptance is
based on each child's developmental level and the home's
capacity to meet the child's needs appropriately.
Prospective residents of the home are eligible for
various state and federal aid programs that defray the
costs of care. Every child over the age of three must be
registered in his local school district, which then
contracts with the home to provide educational services.
Parents of a potential resident
should request a school transfer from their local school
district so the child may participate in the Wabash-Miami
area program for the mentally retarded. This transfer
certificate should be sent to Vernon Manor prior to
admission. Each resident from three to 28 is eligible to
participate in the public school program. This program is
directed by certified special education teachers and
speech and occupational therapists.
Upon admission to the home,
each child is given a comprehensive examination and
evaluation on which the child's program of care and
training is based. The child's progress within this
program is closely monitored by our staff. The program is
routinely re-evaluated to ensure its effectiveness and to
prevent or resolve problems. Parents are always welcome
to visit their children and to assess their progress-no
appointment is needed. Parents are also encouraged to
participate in development of the education program.
The home is
licensed by the state as a skilled pediatric facility for
the care of developmentally disabled children. It meets
all government rules, regulations, and standards
concerning services, equipment, and physical plan. It is
also approved for participation in Title XIX, Medicaid.
