A Place to be Ourselves | A Place to be Ourselves & More | Nebraska Stories | Nebraska Public Media

- Matching. - The yellow goes over there. - Oh, I did need- - The back of the tile -matches. -- Good. -There you go. - Good job. -Nice one. - We've got peak. (gentle music) -[Adeline] To be able to have your child go to a place that you know is safe, that they love to go to, (gentle music) it's everything. (gentle music) That's what every parent wants. (gentle music) - [Narrator] Before 2018, there was no place for teens with special needs to go when the school day was over in Hastings. Parents were forced to find in-home care or leave work early to ensure their kids were safe. As Adeline was looking at these options for her own daughter, she knew there had to be a better solution. -[Adeline] Our oldest daughter, who is six years older than Zoe, she was a junior in high school and it kind of occurred to us, oh, she's going to college. What shall we do now? And so I started hunting around other like Special Olympics parents and saying, "So, what do you guys do?" "We stay home." Well, that's not an option. I'm a teacher. My husband works a day job. That's a no. We just gotta figure this out, and so I started asking, "Well, what if we did our own? What if we like co-opt something? Could we do that?" - [Narrator] They did exactly that and started their own program. Our Place After School Care. It began in the basement of Adeline's Church, but quickly grew into a place of its own that let them help others, like Joslynn. -[Erin] My daughter Joslynn, she's 15. She was born early and she has cerebral palsy. So, she's in a wheelchair. She's 100% physically dependent on others to care for her. So, life before Our Place was I had in-home care providers that would come to my house and watch her until I would get home from work. Unfortunately, recently, she started to have some pretty significant health issues. She's been having some seizures, and so my providers in-home are not able to provide the emergency medication, and so unfortunately, they had to let us go. I was actually looking to have to cut back my hours at work, which literally means not enough money to put food on the table, to pay my mortgage, to provide the things that my kids need. - There ya go. - Oh. K. Here, Zoe. Will you throw that away, please? -[Joslynn] Well, that was no yolk. (people laughing) - [Caregiver] That was was no yolk. - That was no yolk. Like, that was no joke. - [Caregiver] Right. -[Erin] She absolutely loves it here. The caregivers that I would have in-home before would be middle-aged, maybe a little bit older women, and so she's a 15-year-old girl. She's a teenager, and so having other teenage girls that she could be around, it just makes her thrive -in that area. - Almost a strike! - [Adeline] Depending on the day, if they're in the mood, they'll do games or things like that. Otherwise, sometimes, they're just hanging out, talking. -[Raegyn] They do a lot of fun activities, like games, baking, snacks, cupcakes, usually always cakes when we bake. Otherwise, we also do art, crafting. - It's just more fun than stuck in my bed. (gentle music) -[Christie] We have families with kids with special needs that there are so many different things that they explore or need, maybe like being able to hang out with friends, but going to birthday parties or hanging out with friends after school is not something that they get a chance to do. - [Narrator] Our Place was created to give teens with special needs opportunities they didn't have before. In 2022, they took it one step further by opening a consignment store to give the students a new level of independence. - [Adeline] So, the Freedom Factory happened, because we saw a program called Roots to Wings in Arlington, Nebraska, and they do that program for 21 and older, and I thought well, that's a fabulous idea that their people make things, and then they sell it in a consignment store. I thought, well, why couldn't my teens do that? (gentle music) They get their first paycheck and one is just staring at it, mouth agape, doing this jump up and down kind of thing. It's just so fabulous. - Who's ready to frost some cupcakes? - Woo hoo! - I am! - [Narrator] These past six years have just been the beginning for Our Place After School Care. Dreams and ambitions for the program are big. No matter what growth comes in the future, their focus on caring for and celebrating teens with special needs will always remain. -[Erin] Moms and parents, advocates are allowing those kids to be seen, and so we're not ashamed or shunning or hiding them away anymore, and so we have to give them the full realm of being able to fit into a community and having a space that's safe. (gentle music) -[Adeline] That's why our name is Our Place, 'cause it is their place. It's where they can go to be themselves and not have to worry about what someone else is thinking or any of those kinds of things. (gentle music) - On your napkin. There's your knife, honey.