Weekday Reflections

Read: "Participation in activities valued as part of our culture and human experience requires no definitive level of achievement to make the activity more or less rewarding or significant." -- Tom Fish and Paula Rabidoux, Next Chapter Book Club, this week's featured book.

Read: "Generous behavior shines a protective light over the entire life span. The startling findings from our many studies demonstrate that if you engage in helping activities as a teen, you will still be reaping health benefits sixty or seventy years later. And no matter when you adopt a giving lifestyle, your well-being will improve, even late in life." -- Stephen Post, PhD, professor of bioethics in the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, as quoted in Next Chapter Book Club, this week's featured book.

Read: "Literacy and ongoing adult education must be recognized as a basic human right for all people, with services starting at birth and continuing throughout life." -- Tom Fish and Paula Rabidoux, Next Chapter Book Club, this week's featured book.

Read: "Social connectedness -- the extent to which people have friendships, engage in social activity, and feel a sense of belonging -- positively correlates with a sense of empowerment and with overall quality of life. Interpersonal connections, friendships, and belonging play important roles in an individual's emotional and physical well-being. It is well recognized that our social activities help define us as people and promote self-esteem." -- Tom Fish and Paula Rabidoux, Next Chapter Book Club, this week's featured book.

Read: "Research demonstrated that people with disabilities (even those with severe disabilities) were able to learn, perform, and benefit from education and support far beyond what was initially assumed. Rather than futures of sheltered care, a future of rich relationships, work, leisure, learning, and play were both possible and expected." -- Steve Holburn, Anne Gordon, Peter M. Vietze, Person-Centered Planning Made Easy: The PICTURE Method, this week's featured book.

Read: "Person-centered planning is a way of helping undervalued people, such as people with intellectual disabilities, get what they need and want in their lives. Because such people are often segregated from the rest of us, person-centered planning emphasizes social inclusion of people with disabilities, which has become a movement in many Western cultures." -- Steve Holburn, Anne Gordon, Peter M. Vietze, Person-Centered Planning Made Easy: The PICTURE Method, this week's featured book.

Read: "It is wonderful to be able to dress yourself but much better if you have the chance to use that skill on a regular basis and you actually enjoy the clothes you put on." -- Steve Holburn, Anne Gordon, Peter M. Vietze, Person-Centered Planning Made Easy: The PICTURE Method, this week's featured book.

Read: "People with disabilities should live like people without disabilities. People with disabilities have the same needs and rights as others in our culture. However, they are often required to live, work, and learn in groups consisting of other people with similar disabilities." -- Steve Holburn, Anne Gordon, Peter M. Vietze, Person-Centered Planning Made Easy: The PICTURE Method, this week's featured book.

Read: "We have all experienced the curse of getting exactly what we asked for and realizing it was not what we expected. Life is about turns and twists, not straight lines." -- Steve Holburn, Anne Gordon, Peter M. Vietze, Person-Centered Planning Made Easy: The PICTURE Method, this week's featured book.