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Show f x f I is - . ' -- . . . I "- , f DEVELOPMENT CENTER GROWING FARMINGTON - There's a school in Farmington that may look more like an assembly as-sembly line at a manufacturing manufactur-ing plant to the uninitiated. JUST THE same, the Davis County Development Center is a place of learning for about 135 students ranging in age from 16 to 74. Like any school, students come from a variety of backgrounds. But one thing they share in common is a desire to succeed suc-ceed in spite of disadvantages and the Development Center gives them an extra push to Reviewing work schedule for some of the 100-plus students at the Davis County Development Center are Paul Richards, production foreman, left, and Director Robert Daniels. help them achieve in this competitive, fast-moving world. The students are physically and mentally handicapped han-dicapped in some way, but still able to "contribute" to society. DIRECTOR Robert Daniels says the purpose for the school district-operated facility is, 'To provide vocational voca-tional training, evaluation and employment services, supported by social and personal per-sonal adjustment training to handicapped adults so they may acquire skills required to function at their highest level of self-independence, to include economic income." Translated, that means students are engaged in work projects ranging from wedding wed-ding cake decorations to cable pulleys or collating. Most students at the center are able to participate in one of the work programs. , STUDENTS arrive at 8:30 a.m. and work until 2:40 p.m., following a schedule similar to secondary schools in the county. But there the similarity ends, for most of them. "We try to make the atmosphere very work-oriented," Mr. Daniels says. "We try to run it just like a business. We have timeclocks and they have breaks at 10, lunch at noon, back to work at 12: 30 and a break at 2" The center operates six different programs including skills-training, where medical housekeeping and laundry cleaning skills are taught, work activities center where an extended shop atmosphere at-mosphere is maintained, sheltered workshop where students work at piece rate on various projects, vocational evaluation and work adjustment adjust-ment and job placement. FUTURE articles will discuss dis-cuss each program in more detail. Skills training works with the "high functioning" students in hospital settings at Lakeview in Bountiful and Davis North Medical Center in Layton. WORK adjustment involves counseling .by two counselors to aid students in job placement, either at the center in the sheltered workshop or eventually in an outside job. The work activities program also has students working on projects paid piece rate but in addition, students work on self-improvement self-improvement projects such as ceramics, Mr. Daniels says. , EVERYONE receives a vocational evaluation. "On the work activities, program we have a waiting list," he says. "We do contracts con-tracts with businesses and also al-so provide cleaning at Lagoon. We started that in July of last year with 16 and now will have 20." STUDENTS are drawn from throughout the county, from referrals by the school district, State Division of Family Services, State Division of Rehabilitation Services and from the Comprehensive Employment Training Act program and the public at large, Mr. Daniels says. The center has come a long way in a short time, its director, a former coach and special education instructor at Viewmont High School in Bountiful, says. In 1974, the school was started as a part of Monte Vista School, with which it now shares facilities. "We had a classroom there and a teacher and an aide. It slowly grew from the two staff and 12 clients to 25 staff and 200 clients annually." IN FACT, growth has prompted officials to look at the current school lunch program site in Kaysville as its future home. Plans call for that move to take place next fall, giving the Development Center at least twice its present space, tb |