Katie Acrey and Filling Homes

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to this week of Filling and thank you for
joining us in our mission to support people with developmental
disabilities for Filling Homes. I'm Tina Parsons, Welcome back to
the program.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Today.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
I'm talking with Katie Akre. She is a fantastic employee
here at Filling Homes.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hi, Katie, Hello, So I see.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
You every day and I'm so excited to talk with
you and to share with the community what.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
You bring to Filling Homes. Okay, what's your position here?

Speaker 3 (00:29):
I am a job coach.

Speaker 4 (00:31):
So we have clients that come in from the community
and they work in the Abilities Bistro and I help
them do the cash register, run the cash register, and
I help them do the PowerPoint menus and the cash
register buttons.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
Sometimes I help them cook. We do all kinds of
fun things.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
You guys are always having fun back there.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
It's definitely there's definitely energy at the Abilities Bistro. Yes,
let's talk a little bit more about the bistro. This
is something that is open to community members. If somebody
wanted to come in and have.

Speaker 4 (01:05):
Lunch, Yeah, they can come in where you serve from
ten thirty in the morning until twelve thirty pm. And
we serve Monday through Friday, and our prices are amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
They are amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
And Katie, if somebody is listening and thinking, oh, I
wouldn't mind checking that out, could they maybe call ahead
to see what the menu is?

Speaker 3 (01:25):
Definitely, or they could look on the filling Home website.
It's always posted on there as well.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
So your job coaching and the abilities be strow and
the skills you're teaching them, is the goal to ultimately
have them in the community.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Doing that kind of job.

Speaker 4 (01:38):
Yes, that's our goal, is to get them out into
the community, to get them to where they're comfortable working
with us, and then the next.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
Step would be a community job.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Have we been successful at that or anybody?

Speaker 3 (01:51):
We're working on it. We're getting there with some people.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Good. Good.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
I would love to be able to go into a
restaurant and see somebody that has been working you're serving
me lunch and helpings.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
Yeah, that would be so awesome.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
That would be great to see.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
So it's not just the abilities bestro there's shredding or
the and there's other things that you job coach.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Let's talk about that.

Speaker 4 (02:10):
I job coach with a couple of residents and they
do shredding and they enjoy it.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
They work hard, they.

Speaker 4 (02:18):
Get their paper in the shredder the way they're supposed to,
and they One of them, Lucas, he doesn't communicate verbally,
so we have a system where he has a horn
on his wheelchair and if he needs something, he beats
his horn on his wheelchair.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
Katie, your relationship with the residents and how I see
you interact with.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Them seriously is fabulous. I can tell how much you
love these residents. I do you really do? How long
have you worked here? It'll be ten years next month,
ten years next month? Yeah. What other positions have you
had within filling homes?

Speaker 4 (02:49):
I started as a DSP and then I became a supervisor,
as a supervisor and second ship for a few a
few four years or something like that, and then I
came down to HAB and I was a hab staff
and I worked in the rooms, and then I became.

Speaker 3 (03:06):
A job coach.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
So explain what hab is.

Speaker 4 (03:10):
Hab is where the clients come in and they do
job duties, whether it's shredding or they do crafts.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
Sometimes they just work on things, skills and stuff to
help them throughout their day.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
And these skills that they're working on are based off
of their isp, their plan.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
They have certain goals that they need to achieve each week.

Speaker 3 (03:32):
Yes. So with the.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
Different careers that you've had, or different positions as you've
had with some filling homes, is there any that you
that you really enjoy more than another?

Speaker 2 (03:42):
Uh huh.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
I don't know. They all had their own like special
place in my heart. But I really like the job coaching.
I enjoy that a lot.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
It's probably a rewarding to see them, to see their
skills come to fruition.

Speaker 4 (03:55):
Yes, watching them just work hard and accomplishing rules is
really neat to see.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
But the ten years that you've been at filling homes
is there?

Speaker 1 (04:03):
I ask everybody this, is there a special memory or
is there something that's really near and dear to your heart?

Speaker 3 (04:09):
Every moment is special and amazing.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
I love that's gat And you know what, for those
of you listening, if you could see the smile on
Katie's face, it it's sincere.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
You truly love what you do.

Speaker 4 (04:20):
I do to working at filling home is just a
very rewarding job. You get to work with people that
you become your family, and you just get to have
fun every single day. And you come in and if
you're lucky like and you have great coworkers and you
get along with everybody. That doesn't happen for everybody, but
it happens for me. And I really love all my

(04:41):
coworkers and all my residence.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
You truly are helping us fulfill our mission of enhancing
the lives of the people that we serve.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
So thank you for what you do, Katie, Thank you
all right for those of you listening.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
If you would like more information on filling homes, please
feel free to give us a call.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
You can check out our website and follow us on Facebook.
Tune in next week