College of Adaptive Arts Gets County Grant for I/DD Workforce Programs

The County of Santa Clara has partnered with the College of Adaptive Arts (CAA) at West Valley College to help expand access to new workforce apprenticeship programs for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD).

College of Adaptive Arts will receive $250,000 dedicated to fund staffing, computers for the program, and transportation for program participants, where necessary.

Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian championed the support after touring CAA, meeting with students, and seeing firsthand the need for more opportunities for adults with disabilities that were focused on critical thinking, problem solving, and promoting situational awareness.

“Folks in the I/DD community are well-suited for a variety of career paths. They can and want to do more,” said Simitian. “This new workforce and apprenticeship program at CAA will provide the training and experience these adults need to reach their full potential and secure meaningful and fulfilling work.”

CAA’s apprenticeship program, which is accredited by the US Department of Labor, is currently training for both receptionist and teacher’s aide positions. These jobs, unlike many other positions in service or retail industry, help trainees develop leadership skills, as well as adapt to various real-life situations.

“Fostering a love of life-long learning for our students is our primary focus at the school,” said DeAnna Pursai, CAA Co-Founder and Executive Director. “But now with this additional support, we can now begin to prepare our CAA students, as well as prospective apprentices from West Valley College, to seek out jobs, while exposing others to possible careers working with the I/DD community.”

College of Adaptive Arts (CAA) is a unique non-profit educational institution, providing collegiate education to adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. It serves more than 220 adult students across 9 states.

The organization was co-founded by Dr. Pamela Lindsay and DeAnna Pursai in 2009 after both witnessing loved ones with special needs become marginalized once they exited the public-school system.

The philosophy of CAA is to offer lifelong learning, with no age limitations, to any adult with disabilities who wants to pursue higher education. Ultimately, CAA’s goal is to be able to expand its innovative collegiate model, replicating it on every campus of higher learning across the country, and eventually, the world.

Those interested in joining the CAA workforce apprenticeship program can contact workforce development coordinators Dr. Pamela Lindsay (pamela@collegeofadaptivearts.org) and Professor Angel Coronado (angelc@collegeofadaptivearts.org). For more information on CAA, visit https://www.collegeofadaptivearts.org/.

ABOUT THE COLLEGE OF ADAPTIVE ARTS:

College of Adaptive Arts is a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization dedicated to providing a lifelong, equitable collegiate experience to adults with special needs who historically have not had access to college education. The vision of CAA is to empower adults with special needs to creatively transform perception of disability. This is an institution of higher education where adults have opportunities to learn from a diverse and rich curriculum that will enable them to live a full and empowered life as successful, contributing members of the community. For more information, or to volunteer and/or donate visit https://www.collegeofadaptivearts.org/

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