How The Care Boutique brings real-world vocational experience directly into brain injury rehabilitation...
There is a difference between practicing a work task and knowing someone is counting on you to do it.
At CommuniCare Michigan’s Grand Rapids location, vocational rehabilitation doesn’t always happen in a simulated work environment. Just beyond a set of double doors from our Day Program is The Care Boutique, a 2,200-square-foot, public-facing retail store filled with clothing, accessories, gifts, home décor and products made by CommuniCare clients.
It looks like a boutique because it is one.
And that matters.
When the work has a purpose
Through CommuniCare’s Day Program, clients have opportunities to participate in work that directly supports The Care Boutique. Our client-made candles are among the Boutique’s best sellers, but the work extends far beyond candle-making. Depending on their interests and abilities, clients may spend time sewing napkins, pillows or bags, creating stained glass and mosaic pieces, making jewelry and home décor, caring for plants and customized planters, or working in the woodshop on projects such as bookends, coasters and other items for the store.
There are also opportunities beyond product-making, including inventory-related tasks, cleaning, janitorial responsibilities and other work that helps keep a real business running.
These experiences can provide opportunities to practice skills such as following multi-step directions, attention and concentration, fine motor skills, organization, task initiation, endurance, problem solving, safety awareness and workplace routines.
But there is another piece that can be just as meaningful: the work goes somewhere.
A candle is placed on a shelf. A woodworking project is displayed in the store. A task completed behind the scenes helps the Boutique operate. Eventually, something a client helped create may leave in a customer’s shopping bag.
The contribution is real and visible.
What if transportation wasn't part of the equation?
For many individuals living with a brain injury or neurological condition, transportation can be a barrier to employment and community participation. A traditional vocational experience may require coordinating transportation from home to a rehabilitation program, then to a separate work site and back again.
At CommuniCare, the distance between rehabilitation and a real-world work environment can literally be a set of doors.
Because The Care Boutique is physically connected to our Grand Rapids Day Program, clients can access vocational experiences within the same facility where they receive rehabilitation services.
Clients living in CommuniCare’s independent living residences also have access to transportation to and from the Day Program. Some clients may have opportunities to earn pay for the work they perform, adding another meaningful dimension to the experience.
More than a work-like activity
Simulated work activities have an important place in vocational rehabilitation. The Care Boutique gives us an opportunity to take the next step.
Products need to be made. Merchandise needs to be prepared. Spaces need to be maintained. Customers walk through the doors and purchase products our clients have helped create.
To our knowledge, we have not found another program in Michigan that combines a public-facing retail boutique with a TBI rehabilitation Day Program in the same facility.
For shoppers, that means some of the candles, woodworking, sewn pieces and handcrafted items throughout The Care Boutique carry a story they may not immediately see.
For our clients, it means something even more important:
There is meaningful work to be done, and a place for them to contribute.