The mission and purpose of Wall Residences is to provide high-quality community services to individuals who have a primary diagnosis of a developmental disability or a long-term mental illness.
We strive to enable and encourage those we support to reach for the stars to make their own dreams come true.
Services are provided in-home and in community-based environments and are designed to provide a high degree of individual attention and emotional support. Our services provide opportunities for self-expression and personalized routine.
The success of the service is measured by:
- The level of confidence and personal expression by the individual.
- Is the individual respected in the community as a contributing and valued member?
- The level of integration and acceptance into the life of the home and community.
- Is the person developing a spiritual, reverent response to life?
- How many friends does the individual have?
- What is the strength of relationships?
- Is the individual learning to understand and express their emotions and able to relate to the needs of others?
- Are hopes and dreams explored?
- Is the individual able to have confidence in physical expression through aspects of physical, emotional and spiritual health?
Our Philosophy:
- Most Individuals with disabilities who require continuous available support often prefer to live in a home rather than an isolated facility or group home.
- Many individuals with disabilities benefit from the consistency of knowing who will be there to assist them day after day. While the provider families have trained and certified back-up workers, the primary care is delivered by the same people. As a result shift changes, which are disruptive for some, disappear. The daily schedule is created around the individual.
- The respect that the community grants to a well-established family will be naturally extended to an individual with a disability who lives with the family. Inclusion into the community occurs naturally without the negative reaction and fear that can occur when a multiple bed group home is built in a neighborhood.
Our Primary Focus on Individualized Services
The focus of Wall Residences since the beginning is to provide a service around the needs of the individual who receives services, instead of making an individual fit into an existing service. The individuals we support sometimes choose to participate in a traditional day program or workshop. They are provided an individualized schedule of community participation opportunities with the support of their residential support provider. These include paid and volunteer work, becoming a regular at the local YMCA, park, or coffee shop. Our job is to explore with the individual and the natural family what works or doesn’t work in supporting the individual. Working together to put together a daily routine that works for the person. We work very hard to create normal lives for the individuals we support. It is important that individuals have meaningful activity and relationships with others in their day to day lives.
Person-Centered Thinking
The service is designed around the support needs and preferences of the individual we support. For instance, does the individual benefit from an urban or rural setting, animals in the home, and the need for a structured setting or preference for a more “laid-back” lifestyle? All of these preferences, and many more, are considered before making a match. If the individual benefits from assistance with decision-making, a family member that the individual trusts will be asked to assist in deciding which environment would best suit the individual’s strengths and needs. The individual service plan is written after the interviews, trial visits, and consultations with knowledgeable parties have been completed. All of our services include the use of person-centered planning, characterized by the following elements:
- The individual is the focus of planning and those who love the person are the primary authorities on the person’s life direction. The essential questions are “Who is this person?” and “What community opportunities will enable this person to pursue his or her interests in a meaningful way?”
- Person-Centered Planning aims to change common patterns of community life. It stimulates community hospitality and enlists community members in assisting focus people to define and work toward a desirable future. It helps create positive community roles for people with disabilities.
- Person-Centered Planning requires learning through shared action, collaborative action, and fundamentally challenges practices that separate people and perpetuate controlling relationships.
- Honest Person-Centered Planning can only come from respect for the dignity and completeness of the focus person.
- Assisting people to define and pursue a desirable future tests one’s clarity, commitment and courage.
Our Founders
The founders of the organization are Jack Wall, M.Ed and Kamala Bauers, LCSW. Jack worked as the Director of Mental Retardation Services for two Virginia Community Services Boards and had over 25 years of experience in the field before founding this agency. Kamala Bauers comes to this work primarily as a sister of an individual with significant support needs.
How Are We Different?
Wall Residences contracts with highly qualified families to deliver services in their home and community. We are constantly seeking out couples and individuals with the best qualifications, nice homes with available space, and the highest motivation to include the individual they serve within their family and community life. Family providers dedicate themselves to helping the individual in their care to be accepted and included as one of the family. Our services are small and well-staffed to meet the needs and preferences of each person referred.
Placement:
Placement decisions are ultimately made by the individual who is seeking a service and their authorized representatives. Wall Residences admissions staff use a detailed interview process and evaluate a wide range of possible options to offer in the preferred location. In order to find the best match of individual needs to the skills, experience, and personality of the family providers. We evaluate characteristics of the home environment, availability of daytime activities, and compatibility with others in the home. With over 380 family provider services throughout Virginia, we have services to meet almost any need.
Wall Residences attracts the best family providers because we provide the best pay and support. All family providers are treated with the highest professional regard and are continually offered training to improve their services and to meet or exceed the highest standards of care available. In addition to ongoing training and professional supervision, all family providers participate in frequent networking with other family providers through regional peer review sessions and agency-wide meetings. Family providers are encouraged to contact other family providers for social support, advice, and consultation. New family providers are often paired with an experienced family provider to have access to extra help from a nearby family provider.
Wall Residences provides a highly qualified Program Manager to provide support and supervision to the professional family provider.
All-Inclusive Services for Individuals with Disabilities
The goal of Wall Residences is to encourage the total health and well-being of each person through an all-inclusive approach to services.
All service providers and community support personnel are evaluated to ensure that they are psychologically healthy and have the capacity and desire to respect and learn from the individuals receiving services. The goals of the program will be met when all people in the community know that each person can reach their full potential . The individuals we support have unique strengths and needs just like all other people. Acceptance of diversity is encouraged through the inclusion of the individual we support in normal home and community activities.