MISSION STATEMENT
The Nemasket Group offers personalized, flexible support to families and individuals with disabilities to live, work and develop relationships within our communities. We recognize that people are the experts on their own lives and that our role is to listen and walk together on the journey toward the realization of power, community membership and self-determination.
Our “VISION for the future”………
The Nemasket Group envisions individuals leading successful lives that are rich with meaningful roles.
The Nemasket Group shall conduct itself according to the following Guiding Principles:
- Ensure that people exercise as much autonomy in their lives as possible, through options and being helped to make decisions much as any other person, and not be exposed to excessive rules and regulations.
- Ensure that supports and services are individualized and guided by a person’s goals, preferences, skills and strengths.
- Ensure that people receiving services are included in the interviewing, hiring, and evaluation process of the people that support them.
- Support people in settings with other community members with occasions for interaction that will enhance the competencies each person has.
- Provide opportunities to develop/deepen relationships and valued social roles, while enhancing positive perceptions about the persons value, status, roles and competency.
- Enhance the community’s capacity to welcome and include people with disabilities.
- Promote inclusion, meaningful roles, and positive perceptions of people with disabilities by actively discouraging segregated/congregated activities that hinder individual expression and foster negative, stereotypical perceptions of people with disabilities.
- Ensure that people receiving employment supports are not unemployed or underemployed for excessive periods of time, and that they receive any and all pay raises, employee benefits and employee evaluations due them as is consistent with other workers at the same business. Provide opportunities for people to develop a career path that could include learning new job skills, changing jobs and job fields.
- Acknowledge that it takes intention, perseverance, courage, faith, skills and support to realize one’s potential.
- Provide opportunities for people served and families to develop their capacity to speak for themselves and others, to initiate ideas, and to control what happens in their lives.
- Provide supports within the program’s purview that will meet the needs of people in the actual settings that the person will function within. Supports should be provided so that the person’s time is spent in meaningful ways and is image enhancing, through age appropriate roles, settings and timing.
- Provide opportunities to celebrate the ordinary and extraordinary events and rituals in people’s lives.
Louis Nisenbaum, Founding Executive Director of The Nemasket Group, Inc. 1984 – 2011
In January of 2014, The Nemasket Group embarked upon a strategic planning process. What emerged was an overarching theme: Imagine Better – people leading enviable lives define the true meaning of community. It was intended that our organization further embed the concept of valued social roles into the structures of The Nemasket Group. To use a building metaphor, work hard at making sure that the foundation, walls, wiring, etc. of The Nemasket Group are infused with the relevant SRV strategies for building valued roles. The more we do this successfully , the more natural it will be for employees of the organization to work together at supporting the people served to be in valued roles leading to “the good things of life.”
As we began strategizing, The Nemasket Group was in the midst of significant change. Many stakeholders were still grieving the loss of the founding Executive Director, Louis Nisenbaum, and uncertain about the future of The Nemasket Group. It is crucial that The Nemasket Group remain true to the Mission of the organization, build on Lou’s legacy, and take action steps that will instill a sense of security in our stakeholders. Therefore, one of our Strategic Plan priorities is related to “Legacy, Stability, and Security”. We want to ensure that employees of the organization know who Louis Nisenbaum was, and understand the legacy he left with The Nemasket Group. One of the things we did to ensure this is to create an audio recording of interviews with people that Lou knew and the impact he had on their lives. We hope you enjoy the audio recordings and find inspiration in the words of those who knew Lou.
Audio Interviews from Louis Nisenbaum’s Legacy Video:
The Nemasket Group is a member of the One SouthCoast Chamber, ADDP (Association of Developmental Disabilities Providers), and a sponsor of The Arc of Massachusetts.
