Message From The Superintendent - May 2023

Greetings! 

We hope everyone is doing well! Here are the updates.   

We added a new member to the Portage DD family in April. Eric Larsen started on 4-24-23. He will be the Advocacy and Community Resource Assistant. This new position will allow us to expand programming in our schools, Special Olympics for kids, and advocacy. He had worked for the last ten years as a direct support professional, supervisor, and habilitation specialist. He lives in Portage County. We are excited to have Eric here!   

This summer, we will continue having the Portage Trailblazer Camp at the Happy Day Services building. The camp is free for anyone eligible for services ages 6 to 21. We again have contracted/partnered with Akron Rotary to have this camp for eligible people. It is an inclusive camp. Registration is now open. Each camper can sign up for four weeks. It starts June 12. It is a 7-week camp that runs Monday- Friday from 9-3. There will be no camp the week of July 3. See the link below to register. 

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR THE SUMMER CAMP.

We had our annual Bowling Invitational at SPINS bowling alley. Congratulations to all the Special Olympic athletes that competed! We had twenty-eight athletes compete from Portage County. The breakdown is below on how they finished. We wanted to thank the Knights of Columbus, who are so generous with their time and money to sponsor this event! Thank you to the athletes, Colleen Brown, and Laura Fechter for assisting in making it a magnificent event! 

1st – 9
2nd – 4
3rd – 3
4th – 1
5th – 4
6th – 6
7th – 1

We wanted to thank the Department of Developmental Disabilities and the SSA department for working together to roll out the Ohio Individualized Service Plan (ISP). They stopped by Portage last month to train with our SSAs; other counties also participated virtually. The new Ohio ISP will make things easier in the future for the SSAs, families, and Individuals we serve by having one plan for all eighty-eight counties. The complete rollout of the Ohio ISP should be accomplished in Portage County by the end of February 2024. 

Testimony has continued at the Ohio House Finance Health and Human Services Subcommittee. The House will be adding funds sufficient to raise the average DSP wage to $17 in year one of the biennium and $18 in year two. This will now go to the Ohio Senate for further discussion. The goal is to get the DSP wages up to 20.00 an hour. The potential changes will not be finalized until the end of June. We will keep you posted. Thank you to all of the county board members, providers, people with DD, family members, DSPs, and the Ohio Association of County Boards that have worked diligently to get this closer to the goal by providing testimony. We could only have done this by working together. Thank you!  

Believe in People! 

WE ARE HERE FOR YOU.

Sincerely,

John Vennetti