Compassions Training & Awareness Center

Compassions approaches professional caregiving from the lens of the consumer who requires professional care to live independently at home. Typically, degreed executives run profit-based homecare agencies, pay caregivers extremely low wages, do not provide adequate training. People needing home care are highly vulnerable to abuse because they must rely on caregivers for their most intimate personal care, complaining endangers lives.  Providing highly specialized training for caregivers taught by someone who knows what’s needed because she lives it every day. This elevates/ empowers everyone involved!  People that need safe professional care learn independent living and self-advocacy skills. Caregivers learn valuable marketable skills, earn more income, achieve recognition, improve their confidence and self-worth. Families of disabled  have less anxiety.  The entire community benefits from participation of people who have been left out for far too long. Their voices will help find solutions to the until now taboo topic of rampant abuse.

The core of the problem: low pay and minimal-to-no qualifications required to  be hired attracts individuals that should never be responsible for the care of a vulnerable person, and receive no formal or specialized training. It's a breeding ground for injury and abuse. According to the " University of Michigan' more than 50% of woman experience some form of sexual assault or physical violence' at the hands of a caregiver or someone they know. For woman with disabilities sexual assault and violence or routinely un-reported and under-addressed. The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation unveiled staggering statistics based on research into the prevalence of paralysis across the U.S. According to the study, there are nearly 1 in 50 people living with paralysis – approximately 5.4 million people. That's the same number of people as the combined populations of Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. Compassions aims to aid the existing issue of lack of specialized trained caregivers and abuse against our Disabled population, so that this demographic can stop suffering, improve the quality of life, gain the confidence, stop the separation people with disabilities often feel.

Compassions is a personalized, blended online & offline learning experience in the atmosphere of professional caregiving.  Incorporating public, private and valuable community resources, client's and caregivers will be provided the expertise and the support that they need to reach their full potentials.  Through online courses, webinars, videos, podcasts, and a customized app, our caregivers will be able to access the necessary online resources at their convenience to accommodate their lives as professional caregivers.  This is a a continus program that will be approached from the lens of the consumer, the disabled community. Caregivers will earn certification, and work towards opportunities for advancement and pay raises, as well as gain hands-on work experiences in their desired career field of Heath Care. 

As a survivor of domestic violence that left me disabled and living in a nursing home for a few years. The purpose of my organization is to advocate, teach and train, caregivers how to safely provide specialized care for people with quadriplegia (spinal cord paralysis. My goal for the future is to give individuals with paralysis and other debilitating disabilities a voice by offering them real support, love and understanding while providing individuals with disabilities a preventative roadmap to survival, showing each person how to advocate for their health and wellness with learning preventive measures that can be utilize to train their caregivers and help prevent neglect and abusive care.   

Compassions Training and Awareness Center  is a market pace for social impact innovation with a wide variety and a mission to solve world challenges. I have a long successful award winning history. Since 2006 to my current history I have received numerous awards, newspaper notoriety and featured on several of our city's news channel but yet finding so satisfaction due to my work is not done. My organization is having a impact on Humanity because I lead not only by experience but by example. Living with a disability is not a ending but a new beginning, finding  their understanding into self-discovery and self-worth. to continue to have a positive impact, I would like to rebuild our website, create YouTube lessons; create online courses; create an online community and podcast create advocacy networks..... Our longevity is due to our commitment, Compassions strives to elevate and empower some of the most diverse and marginalized voices in society and as we hear their stories and open our hearts to their experiences and gifts, we all benefit and are enriched by their participation in our communities. My continued commitment to the disabled community and will always be, At  Compassions we are working together as one to help one another.   

Although Compassions was incorporated in 2006 we have never had the opportunity for Compassions to reach it's full potential. Now through new technology and networking we will have the opportunity to expand our service to a broader range of individuals living with disabilities.   

I am approaching professional caregiving from the lens of the consumer. My approach elevates and empowers everyone-the person needing care as well as the professional caregiver who learns valuable marketable skills-the field at large improves when the specialized training is recognized. And the extended family also benefits knowing their loved ones are being safely cared for, while addressing issues of abuse and neglect. 

Due to Covid-19 Our solution is currently working to reopen. In one year we are looking to provide services to about five -hundred individuals living with disabilities and it is a estimated four-thousand individual living with disabilities combined with caregivers being provided with services by year five. 

Compassions uses the list of our consumers who seek out the services offered through our organization, consumer referrals and the results from our online surveys .

Due to Covid-19 we Currently have a staff of three, which includes a fulltime staff of two and part-time staff of One

Our executive director Edna Sutton has over thirty years of experience living with spinal cord paralysis after she was punched through a second floor window during a domestic violence dispute. She would go on spending a year in hospital and another two years in a nursing facility. Once living independently on her own, Edna began to train caregivers, that were sent to her home due to lack of knowledgeable and skilled caregivers. She understands all to well the issues plaguing the disabled community when addressing  issues such as abandonment, physical/mental abuse, sexual assault, theft and neglect. Compassions wants to give back the control over the lives of individuals living with disabilities  by allowing their input, ideas and agendas when it comes to the design and implementation of services that can only have a positive impact, when working to improve nd enhance the quality of their lives.

It is the policy and practice of Compassions to assure that no person will be discriminated against, or be denied the benefit of any activity, program or employment process, in the areas of recruiting, advertising, hiring, upgrading, promotion, transfer, demotion, lay off, termination, rehiring, employment, rates of pay and/or other compensation.

Compassions is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer and is strongly committed to all policies which will afford equal opportunity employment to all qualified persons without regard to age, ancestry, color, marital status (including civil union status), national origin, race, religious creed, sex, sexual orientation, mental retardation, learning disability, present or past history of mental disorder, or physical disability including, but not limited to blindness, unless it is shown that such disability prevents performance of the work involved.

 This policy and practice applies to all persons, particularly those who are members of the protected classes identified as being Black, Hispanic, Women and Persons with Disabilities and others such as Asian or Native American, etc.  Compassions will implement, monitor and enforce this Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employment Policy Statement and program in conjunction with all applicable Federal and State laws, regulations and executive orders.

 In order to implement our Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employment Program, Compassions will develop written strategies and plans designated to correct any deficiencies identified.  Furthermore, this policy statement, as well as the Labor and Antidiscrimination Poster, shall be posted and otherwise made known to all workers in the company’s home office, each satellite office, and at each job site

Compassions Training and Awareness Center teaches home care providers how to safely care for individuals with significant disabilities and teaches people with disabilities how to hire and train providers, advocate for their own needs, that in-turn will help prevent abuse and neglect for people who are vulnerable and at risk. If selected as a winner we would use the Solve funding to further our mission of advocacy and awareness providing individuals with disabilities opportunities and survival training skills, meeting efforts to unite with other communities that will  help further continue our mission to improve the quality of life for people with disabilities while they acquire the skills and mindset deemed necessary so that they can live, re-entering in a society where we are often judged or left out.  Living with a disability is not a ending but a new beginning, finding  their understanding into self-discovery and self-worth. to continue to have a positive impact, I would like to rebuild our website, create YouTube lessons; create online courses; create an online community and podcast create advocacy networks.....     

Although Compassions has been incorporated since 2006. There are still individuals who discriminate against individuals living with physical disabilities. There are people who feel that individuals with disabilities have no place in the workforce, especially in a position of leadership or power.

I would like to partner with Solve. Solve can help me advance our need to help individuals with disabilities by educating us how to run and sustain a profitable organization that can assist consumers on a national level buy providing quality services and unique opportunities for those in need. We want to be the best and do our best for individuals living with disabilities.

I am special and uniquely qualified for this work because I am a survivor of domestic violence and live with the consequences every day. As a young adult, I was pushed out of a window and left for dead by my boyfriend at the time. My life was miraculously spared, and when I woke up from the coma and discovered I was a quadriplegic, I felt a deep sense of gratitude and knew that I was alive for a purpose. I was young and didn’t want to spend my life in a nursing home, so I learned what I needed to do to get out and live independently in my community with assistance from caregivers. I learned how to train my own caregivers and have experienced decades of hiring professional caregivers. My passion is to stop the suffering and separation that people with disabilities often feel.