The Choice Group

Following the successful completion of Project SEARCH, our client was hired at the Chesapeake Regional Medical Center as a Care Partner in Surgical Admitting Unit- Phase II. With the COVID-19 Pandemic, all elective surgeries have been cancelled and our client was scheduled to be transferred to a new department.  Serving her in Long Term Employment Support Services, The Choice Group has had to adjust the ways we support her in this critical role. With The Choice Group staff staying in touch with the client, her mom, and her manager at the Medical Center, we have ensured this frontline employee was able to remain in her current department, in lieu of the scheduled transfer. Further, utilizing remote strategies, her Vocational Counselor was able to ensure our client was able to safely adjust to her new critical roles and responsibilities which include taking employees’ temperatures as they report to work.   We thank our client for her hard work, dedication to her job and working ...

PEERS for Young Adults is a 16-week social skills training program designed to help young adults with autism spectrum disorder and other social challenges make and keep friends. The Choice Group began its fourth cohort with a group of young adults and their social coaches in Charlottesville in January 2020. After meeting in person weekly through February, the PEERS instructors took a creative approach in order to comply with COVID-19 social distancing norms and regulations while at the same time ensuring the students could complete all of modules as scheduled. Setting up Zoom meetings and creating Power Point lessons, the PEERS instructors presented the lessons on, “Dating Etiquette”, “Handling Disagreements”, and “Bullying” online. Feedback from the students and their social coaches was positive and the students are scheduled to graduate on time and look forward to continuing their weekly meetings, but as a group social club doing Dungeons and Dragons via Zoom.