A New Agency Is Now Developed

OCL is one of the few organizations that is totally dedicated to personalizing the services for each person who comes to be served. We began this journey in the early 90’s and it has continued over the years. OCL has had tremendous success in providing personalized supports vocationally, residentially, academically and socially. We have seen the people we support become more relaxed and satisfied with their lives, medications have decreased or disappeared, behavior problems have decreased dramatically, and those we support are now a part of neighborhoods of their choice and are known as just another person who lives on the street or works in an establishment. People today served through OCL are now living ordinary lives.

As we began our walk down this path of personalized services, we found that there were numbers of people asking for more normal lives away from traditional programming. As we began to support more and more people, we began to realize that we could not do this for everyone who walked through our doors. We realized that in order to provide quality, we needed to know each person, deeply understand what s/he needs and remain true their personal direction. If this was so, we could not do it for large numbers of people.

OCL has always conducted retreats that help all of us to think more deeply about our work. It was through one of these experiences that OCL decided to remain small and instead mentor a new group of staff that would become a new organization in the Syracuse community. This new organization would be dedicated in providing only personalized services and would be another option to those in the county.

When a person came to our attention that could not get the services in the manner that the family wanted, we decided then to approach our local administration office about the idea of developing a new organization. We would develop and provide the service if they would allow us to begin the development of a new organization with expertise in developing and providing personalized supports. Thus began the development of a new team of staff that will become the new agency, Connections of CNY, Inc.

It is with much excitement that OCL now spins off Connections of CNY. On March 1, 2010 Connections now, in its entirety, becomes an agency of its own. An agency mentored by OCL to provide individualized supports to people with developmental disabilities. It's new home office and phone number will now be;

675 Brickard Falls Road
Manlius, NY 13104
phone: 315-692-2000
fax: 315-692-2001

The new agency is headed by Darin Yoder.

OCL gave a send off to the Connections team on their last Friday together. Their three key staff, Cindy as their MSC, and Danielle and April as their Residential Coordinators joined together to cut the cake in celebration.

With good humor and fun Cindy made a chocolate chip cookie with the words..."and you thought we'd never leave"

Everyone at OCL wishes them the best and we are proud to have another agency in Central New York dedicated to personalized supports!