LIFESKILLS supporting Achievements

Apart from having HEAPS of fun,

Lifeskills’ participants achieve

great things. Take for example

Chris.

Chris joined our teenage group 1

afternoon a week in 2011. By

2012 he started our TTW

(Transition to Work) program and

enrolled in a Cert. III at TAFE. In

TTW, Lifeskills focusses on work

experience opportunities and for

Chris we found a great opportunity

with our sponsor “BUNNINGS”.

After a few months, (in Oct. 2012)

Chris had impressed so much in the

workplace that he was asked by

his supervisor to apply for a PPT

position that came up. Chris was

successful with his application and

was offered the job. He started

working part time for

“BUNNINGS” in December 2012.

That same month he completed

semester 1&2 in horticulture.

In April this year Chris added an-

other milestone in his life when he

achieved a Learners’ permit at the

RTA with 100% pass! By July this

20yo man organized a car loan,

purchased his own vehicle and is

now cruising Mudgee in order to

prepare for his Red P’s. To finish

off the year, last month Chris com-

pleted his TAFE course and by the

end of this year will successfully

graduate from Lifeskills Plus’ TTW

Perry Street Centre

24 Perry Street

Ph : 02 6372 6440 Fax : 02 6372 6516

Southside Skills Centre

13 Oporto Road

Ph : 02 6372 3336 Fax : 02 6372 9330

OPPORTUNITIES ... ACHIEVEMENTS

L i fe sk i l l s P lu s In c .

We’re on the web :

www.lifeskillsplus.com.au

Lifeskills Plus Inc. supports people with disabilities and their families in our community. We encourage personal growth, skills

development, integration and opportunities to achieve ‘outside the square’ in a safe and happy environment

General Enquiries

mgr@lifeskills.ngo.org.au

Service Enquiries

dsm@lifeskills.ngo.org.au

Business Enquiries

bclo@lifeskills.ngo.org.au

During the holiday season Lifeskills Plus will be

closed for business from 23/12/2013 and we

reopen on Thursday 16/1/2014.

Next year our operating hours will be as usual.

Program and service hours are flexible and

according to need/funding.

Office hours 9am—4pm Monday to Friday

LIFESKILLS PLUS has an ac-

tive page in Facebook. We

invite everybody to visit us

there and check out the infor-

mation / stories.

Dear friends,

As Lifeskills’ CEO I feel an immense pride

when I look back on 2013.

The results of the work we do with people who

attend our centers has obvious results —

increased individual skills, confidence and self-

esteem. Clients are now running their own

monthly meetings at Southside, making deci-

sions on core programs at the centers, whilst

Perry Street clients are participating in many

more activities on-site and in their community.

What a wonderful boost to us when we re-

ceived funding from the NSW government to

purchase 10/13 Oporto Road. This achieve-

ment has to be followed by considerable

fundraising next year to modify the building

to suit the needs of our people with high sup-

port requirements. The goal however, which

was just a dream 3 years ago, is now taking

shape and is within reach.

There are SO many people who I want to

thank for all their hard work this year. There is

the group of parents and community members

“Friends Of Lifeskills” who do a brilliant job

raising funds for us. There is the board of di-

rectors who give their time and energy to Life-

skills. On top of that we have an amazing

team of professional disability workers who

go beyond the call of duty for our clients. In

turn they can enjoy the enthusiastic support

from volunteers like Ron, Margaret, Alison,

Rachel, Suzy and many more.

In this newsletter you will read some wonderful

stories, both about our activities and about

some impressive individual achievements. As

2014 progresses we will keep you up to date

about the accomplishments of all those people

who are part of our community organization.

While I’m typing this up, I can hear Jingle Bells

in the background. I hope this Christmas will

bring us all a little bit closer to Peace on this

Earth. I also wish all of you good health, love,

happiness and success in the New Year. I

promise you that Lifeskills will continue to

make every effort to provide you with the

opportunities to achieve your dreams /goals

Carolyn

How quickly a year passes / Lifeskills in 2013

Although the look is differ-ent, we are still the same. Lifeskills Plus Inc. will al-ways be about creating Opportunities for people with disabilities to Achieve their individual dreams and

goals.

The NDIS is coming to us. While providing exciting new choices and opportuni-ties for people with disa-bilities, it also means a more business-like environ-ment will emerge. This is why Lifeskills Plus Inc. has

adopted a new look logo.

Catch-Up L i f esk i l l s

P lu s Inc .

Our new look logo

2014 services

OOSH (Out Of School Hours for

students with disabilities)

Respite Care

Community Participa-

tion

Transition To Work

Life Choices

Teenage Group

Day Programs

Supported Living

Leaving Care Program

Brokerage Services

Inside this issue:

Sizzling 70’s 2

Lawn Bowl Fun !! 2

iPad Training @

Lifeskills

2

Art Appreciation 3

Local businesses

support Lifeskills

3

Focus on disAbility 3

Chris’ Story 4

Volume 1, Issue 1 December 2013

Sizzling 70’s … Our annual concert triumph!

Lawn Bowl Fun !!

ue to be nurtured by our

Lifeskills staff and we prom-

ise you … You Ain’t Seen

Nothing Yet.

Plans for

2014

concert

are al-

ready

been

cooked

up by

our participants and will

surprise you again next

year.

Months of preparation, hours

of rehearsals, litres of paint

and copious amounts of fab-

ric equals one fabulous

show!

Our LIfeskills Stars had no

problem getting the audi-

ence on their feet when they

took them through a decade

of hits. Of course there was

Abba, Boney M, Glenn

Campbell, Creedence Clear-

water Revival but the person

attracting the strongest sing-

a-long and hip movements in

the Baptist Church was Mr.

Presley himself!

Wade, Dan and Cameron

did an excellent job bringing

the King back to life. All this

developing talent will contin-

A group from South Side Skills Centre decided to learn how to play bowls

and joined the lawn bowl community.

To start off, the group were shown the simple but important ways of how

to hold the bowls and how to roll them over the green, without damaging

the green. With lots of laughter and skill sharing from the wonderful ladies

at lawn bowls, the group have shown a marked improvement each week.

The bowls ladies were so impressed with two young gentlemen from the

group, that they have agreed to compete in a game against them and they

think that the young gentlemen have a good chance of winning!

Watch out for the results in our next newsletter!

Catch-Up Page 2

iPad Training @ Lifeskills’ South Side

@ Taking photos

@ How to use the key board

@ Send emails via iPad

@ what all the buttons are

for

@ use Emoji settings and

more

Thank you Scott!

Scott, Apple specialist from

Mudgee Mac

(www.mudgeemac.com.au)

did training with Lifeskills’

Southside group to teach our

participants the basics of

iPads

Scott had a very attentive

audience and our partici-

pants were always focused

during the sessions and ap-

peared to be really interest-

ed

Staff also learnt things that

they will able to pass on in

the future.

We all learned about things

like ;

Lifeskills participants focus on disAbility

Another one of our participants achieved one of her goals this year. We have some

amazing staff at Lifeskills but we are also blessed to have extraordinary community

volunteers who offer our participants opportunities and support. Wildlife carer Pricilla is

one of those people. Here she is with one of our participants, Tahnee, who’s feeding an

orphan kangaroo.

Tahnee’s work experience has been taking place over the past 3 and a half months

and in this time Tahnee's confidence and understanding of the needs of native animals

has grown considerably. The tutoring Pricilla has provided to Tahnee has been most

beneficial .

Tahnee has enjoyed every visit to Pricilla's and has gained the knowledge and skills she

needs to assess a further career, working with and caring for native wild life.

Art appreciation

Art and craft is an important opportunity for LIFE-

SKILLS’ participants to exhibit their talent. Linda’s art

group has caught the eye of one of our sponsors

“CRT”. Scott Needham, Mudgee CRT proprietor,

contacted LIFESKILLS PLUS a few weeks ago after

seeing the results of our marvelous art and craft

programs. He thought some original artworks by our

creative clients would make a perfect Christmas pre-

sent for his major business relationships. He commis-

sioned 26 paintings on canvas which turned LIFE-

SKILLS PLUS’ art group in a spin because they were

given only 4 days to complete them. But completing

them they did! What a great way of working to-

gether with our local sponsors.

Page 3 Volume 1, Issue 1

Do you have a

story to tell?

Why not put it

on paper and

send it to us for

our newsletter?

Local businesses support LIFESKILLS PLUS Inc

-Christmas gift tags We are very appreciative to Bunnings for their time and for giving us the op-portunity for our group to make these items.

2013 has been buzzing with cooperation between Lifeskills and the local business community. A group of 6 clients have had the opportunity to do some wonderfully creative craft work at Bunnings recently.At Bunnings we have had lots of fun mak-

ing;

-Christmas cards -Christmas baubles -A photo frame shaped as a Christmas Tree -A chalkboard notice board, decorated with faux gemstones