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VTDigger is excited to work with Vermont Care Partners to promote the much needed services of its sixteen respective member agencies which, includes NCSS. They also understand how important it is for our elected officials to know how to support the needs of Vermonters.
This thirteen week series is a collaboration produced by members of the Vermont Care Partners statewide network of sixteen non-profit, community-based agencies providing mental health, substance use and intellectual and developmental disability support.
Below is the thirteenth, and final, installment of the series from Upper Valley Services (UVS) highlighting the impact that the system of care including the important role that Shared Living Providers play resulting in high quality-of-life outcomes and satisfaction for individuals with developmental disabilities.
Living and Thriving with a developmental disability in Vermont
Andreas Yuan makes it clear he does not want to be underestimated.
“They think I am too thoughtless to know people’s thought [sic],” typed Andreas, on his iPad fitted with a keyguard, when asked about people’s assumptions of him. “They think I don’t know things.”
After all, he can understand three languages: English and two dialects of Chinese, vote, and keep up with the human rights protests in Hong Kong — just to name a few things. Not to mention he was living the life of a cross-country rock music festival-fanatic.
Andreas has Angelman Syndrome (AS), a rare neurogenetic disorder that mainly affects the nervous system and results in speech limitations, balance and movement problems, seizures, sleep problems and intellectual/developmental disability.
As his mother, Susan Yuan, puts it, “the man who discovered it was named Harry Angelman — but many parents sometimes call their kids angels. The primary characteristic behaviorally, with Angelman Syndrome, has been written in the literature as ‘excessive love and happiness. People with Angelman Syndrome are very easy to love because they give love. Read more…
Link to article:
https://vtdigger.org/sponsored_content/living-and-thriving-with-developmental-disability-in-vermont/
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