Adaptive Community Approach Program

My 25 year old daughter, Lauren, has been a member of ACAP since June of 2015 when she was 21 years old. She absolutely loves ACAP with all the various activities she participates in from Meals on Wheels to rock climbing to working with and seeing horses. The "in house" activities keep her very very happy. She interacts with the community as the name suggests. All of the Staff treat her very well. Looking forward to Lauren's continuing association with ACAP!!

I tried to go here, 17 years ago, but had to leave, because I didn't like some of the activities they had at the time, and I didn't feel like I really belonged in there. I was just doing it because I was being forced by my case worker I had at the time, after I already told her "NO", because she wouldn't take "No" for an answer. I also didn't like the way some of the people were being treated there. Some of the staff members didn't always have empathy for some of the clients in terms of their feelings. If someone was crying, sometimes some of the staff members wouldn't even try to ask them what's wrong, and why they're crying, or try to console them. Instead, they would just tell them to "SHUT UP," or to "KNOCK IT OFF!!" And I've also learned that if you're a female with a disability and one of the guys with disabilities tries to touch you in a way that's sexual, whether you have their consent or not, you get in trouble for it, while they let the guys off scott free, and always assume the women should be to blame. I got sexually harassed by one of them which put me in a position where I needed to protect myself from them and later got in trouble for getting "Physical" with them, and was falsely accused of making it up for attention as well as falsely accused of provoking him by flirting with him, when I did no such thing. And to blame me for being touched inappropriately, when I did nothing to provoke it, is no different from blaming a woman for why she even got raped in the first place. To make matters worse, there was a staff person in the room when it happened who had to have seen or heard something happen, but made it out to sound like I made it up to get attention, and the main person running the program at the time chose to listen to her and believe her over me. She wouldn't let me explain in better the details of what happened and what I thought was relevant, as well as why I felt like I needed to do what I did, or how I felt about everything, and never even considered my feelings about the whole thing. And all in all, this woman was very rude to me. And when I started crying in her office, she yelled at me telling me to "STOP IT!!!" One of the other staffers at the meeting there had lied about whether or not she saw anything happen when she did, just because she didn't want to get in trouble. She should have told the truth that she was there and she did in fact see this guy try to touch me inappropriately but did nothing to stop him. While I was at this meeting, the main lady running the program at the time, also interrogated me and asked me questions I really didn't want to answer when she was yelling at me, and not only did she accuse me of being prejudice of intellectually disabled people, but she more or less told me that I'm mentally retarded, when I'm not. Not only that, but ACAP is more of a place for those with real severe physical and intellectual disabilities. NOT those with people with my diagnosis which happens to fall under the category of being neuro divergent. And unfortunately, I already knew having me do the program was a mistake, but my case worker wouldn't listen to me until after I got sexually harassed in there and got in trouble for it, all because I was just trying to protect myself. When I first went on the tour of that place, the main person behind the program at the time had told me a lot of people didn't like her, because they thought she was mean. They didn't think she was mean. They knew she could be mean. That should have been considered a red flag that I could potentially get abused in this program. I've also seen staff yelling at some of the clients, when they were crying, and brushing off their feelings, to me is emotional abuse. At the time, staff also knew nothing of high functioning autism spectrum disorders, they didn't want to know, and they didn't care to know more about it! The staffers are also ablest. If any of the clients there aren't intellectually disabled, some of the staff will still talk to them in that tone of voice like their 2 years old. #ableism #abuse

Wonderful people doing an AWESOME job with people who really need assistance!

Our son has been attending ACAP for almost 2 years. ACAP is different from other day programs. The members have so many things to choose from to meet their individual needs. Our son looks forward to attending and has done so many activities he would never have had the opportunity to do with his peers. They take members out into the community to volunteer, be active and have fun. He goes rock climbing, is learning TaeKwonDo, volunteers for a food pantry, learns to utilize public transportation, does geocaching, goes swimming, works out at a gym, bowls, and so much more! The staff are what really makes ACAP special. They are dedicated, caring and work very hard to make this a unique program. ACAP makes him feel useful, appreciated and loved. When I first toured other day programs, it seemed they were just a way to fill the time of people with disabilities and special needs. ACAP has exceeded our expectations by giving our son positive interactions, feelings of value and worth, physical and mental stimulation and a whole lot of fun.

My daughter is in the best program of the last 30 years. ACAP is truly a 'Jewel ' of South Eastern Wisconsin. We've had our daughter in a number of good programs over the years but this is truly incomparable.

My daughter tried this facility. After being denied access to a class which I felt was discrimination, she won't be coming back. Some aspects of the program were fine and some staff was wonderful but others I felt were very rude to other clients. Clients pay to be at this facility, it isn't a paying job for clients. This program is fine for some clients but they get a bad rating for the observations I saw and they claim they are adaptive but really aren't.