Articles
Other Ways to Celebrate
Sample Activities
Besides participating in CAREDAYS, there are countless ways to celebrate Companies That Care Day. In recent years, organizations have celebrated by:
- Sending notes from senior management to employees expressing their appreciation for employee efforts
- Providing on-site massages for all staff
- Holding employee-wide meetings
- Publicizing the organization's commitment to employees and the community via banners and shirts
- Providing employees an opportunity to recognize each other by sending "caregrams"
- Providing an appreciation lunch for all employees
- Holding a drawing and giving "care packages" to the winners
- Making a donation to groups supporting the medically uninsured
Some other possibilities include:
- Communicate the Companies That Care Statement of Commitment:
We believe that our employees and the community are important to our success. Therefore, we are committed to
1) providing a workplace in which employees can thrive and 2) working to sustain and strengthen our community.
- Conduct focus groups to determine what employees perceive they are recognized for and what they want to be recognized for
- Hang banners and posters throughout the building to commemorate the Day
- Hold an ice cream social to recognize vendors that care
- Have managers spend the day in training courses to hone their people skills
- Establish an anonymous hotline for employees to report ethics violations
- Hold a volunteer fair to highlight all the volunteer opportunities within the community
Resources to Celebrate Companies That Care Day
Center for Companies That Care can provide a range of ideas and materials you can customize to implement your own Companies That Care Day theme at your company. Please contact Center for Companies That Care at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
or 312-661-1010 if you are interested in any of the following:
- Fundraising ideas
- Sample CEO talking points about why it's important to be a company that cares and Companies That Care Day
- Sample employee e-mail announcements
- Sample press release for media about your organization's participation in the Day
Why Caredays
CAREDAYS Annual National Initiative
Companies That Care Day is an annual national event that encourages employers to highlight and expand their employee and community initiatives, and recognize the people who make their companies successful. CAREDAYS brings individuals and employers together to collaboratively address a significant societal issue that is undermining the well-being of our communities. Organizations are encouraged to jump-start and expand their activities that reflect the 10 Characteristics, foster a people-supportive work environment and strengthen the local community. The philosophy behind CAREDAYS is this: “If we all do a little, we can truly accomplish a lot.”
Companies That Care Day is celebrated on the third Thursday of every March.
Eligibility:
All employers are encouraged to participate in Companies That Care Day and the national CAREDAYS initiative. There are no specific eligibility requirements. Participating employers represent the diversity of organizations that care - large corporations, small businesses, service firms, publicly held and privately owned organizations, government entities, health care organizations, not-for-profits, academic institutions, and others.
Cost:
The only costs associated with celebrating Companies That Care Day are any costs an organization might incur to implement the activities it plans for the Day.
Other Companies That Care Day Celebration Activities:
In addition to participating in the annual CAREDAYS initiative, companies may celebrate Companies That Care Day by organizing activities and events that integrate the 10 Characteristics of Socially Responsible Employers more fully into their work environment. Each organization may plan customized activities that make the Day meaningful to them and responsive to their development or recognition needs.
Support from Center for Companies That Care:
The Center for Companies That Care offers many resources to help you plan and implement Companies That Care Day.
Invisible Differences
Increasing educational and workplace opportunities for young adults with special needs
The Invisible Differences Program supports teens and young adults with neurobehavioral and learning disabilities to complete their education and prepare for productive careers doing work they love. This program also provides resources and support to caregivers of young adults with invisible differences and the organizations that employ them.
If you have an invisible difference or care for someone who does, please join our mailing list. We'll tackle the future together!
What is an "Invisible Difference?"
Invisible Differences Strategy
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Awareness, Education and Training
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Direct Support
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Research
- Which colleges provide the best learning and social environment for students with Invisible Differences?
- Take a CONFIDENTIAL survey.
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Partnerships and Mobilization
Invisible Differences Services for students, families and professionals.
Why Do We Need the "Invisible Differences" Program?Today, more of our children globally have been diagnosed with special needs than any generation before them. And while there is some debate, most health care professionals believe these diagnoses are due to a true increase in the incidence of the special needs and not just better diagnostics. To date, they don’t know why.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the number of people diagnosed with these types of disorders is rising at an alarming rate each year — 16% of children ages 4-17 have been diagnosed with one of these invisible differences. It is estimated that 3-5% of the current workforce have ADHD and 10% of the current and potential workforce have a learning disability.
One especially challenging aspect of these disabilities is that they are invisible. Also, because many of the children are intellectually average or even have superior intellect, they often lack credibility when they ask for accommodations. They may be perceived as lazy or oppositional or having a bad attitude. Parents know differently. Our children’s disabilities are truly debilitating and without help, it becomes difficult for them to function. This is true now, while they are children, and will likely continue into adulthood.
Children with special needs are legally entitled to the same rights as people who have other disabilities and they are currently receiving support from their schools, to a greater or lesser degree depending on the school, during the K-12 years. Everything changes once they reach college. What services will they receive in college to enable them to be successful and graduate? What will they need to be effective and productive at work?
As a society, we will face a crossroads in the not too distant future. Our children are capable of being working, productive, tax-paying citizens. In fact, some of them will be the intellectual and innovative giants of the next generation. They will not, however, achieve their potential if the environments in which they are expected to work remain as homogenous and inflexible as they are today. Instead, the almost 20% of today’s children with special needs will become a burden on the society that will need to care for them if they are unable to work.
In addition, it’s not just those with special needs that are impacted — it’s also their caregivers, primarily parents. In a World Online Consumer Panel screening 60,000 working adults, almost 5,500 or 9% of participants were parents of at least one child with special needs. These caregivers face many problems themselves, such as health problems, emotional strain, mental health issues and financial insecurity.
- Provide resources and support to parents of special needs children
- Encourage and support educators and administrators of programs designated for special needs children and adults in providing ready-to-work training—not just how to do the work, but how to interact effectively with managers and co-workers
- Present a “business case” to employers on why it is critical to provide supportive work climates for parents of special needs children and those special needs adult as they enter the workforce
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Enable employers to leverage the talents and exceptional abilities of the new workforce
- Educate employers to provide a work environment that is inclusive of all employees
We support cognitively-typical teens and young adults with neurobehavioral and mental health disorders, and learning disabilities, to help them complete their education and prepare for productive careers doing fulfilling work. Adolescents and young adults who have invisible differences deserve to reach their full potential. That will require a college degree.
Our organization offers services to various groups, and we are convinced that with this network of supporters, this population of students will thrive.
- Services for Individuals and Families
- Services for High Schools
- Services for Post-Secondary Institutions
- Services for Employers
- Services for Health Professionals
Resources
Although we provide many services and support for educators, employers, caregivers, and young adults with "invisible differences," we wanted to offer you a list of resources that may be helpful. We provide resources for parents,educatiors, employers, and adults and young adults with disabilities. Please click the links below that apply to your needs.
PEERS® Social Skills Intervention
PEERS® is a 16-week social skills workshop, developed at UCLA, that teaches teenagers and young adults with special needs to make and keep friends. Center for Companies That Care is the only certified provider of PEERS® in Chicago. Classes are running continuously in downtown and Skokie locations! Click here to register.
About PEERS®
There are separate parent and teen sessions that meet at the same time for 90 minutes each week over a 16-week period. The young adult sessions meet for two hours for 10 weeks. Both groups focus on skills like: having two-way conversations, finding common interests, entering and exiting conversations, making phone calls, handling teasing and bullying, healing interpersonal conflict, using humor appropriately, good sportsmanship, and being a good host and guest during get-togethers and other group social events.
Parents/guardians are taught how to help their teens/young adults make and keep friends by acting as social coaches outside the group. During the teen session, students are presented with a lesson, modeling of appropriate and inappropriate behaviors and then practice the skills they learn each lesson which participating in socialization activities or playing board games, card games or outdoor sports. Homework assignments are also given each week to make sure teens are practicing the skills they are learning.
Adolescents who would Benefit from the PEERS® approach to learning social skills include those who:
- Have difficulty making and/or keeping friends
- Function best when they have a set of concrete rules to follow
- Use humor inappropriately
- Have a bad reputation in school or the community
- Are perceived as bossy
- Talk too much and don’t engage in a give-and-take dialogue
- Are teased or bullied by their peers
- Tend to talk about the same thing over and over
- Are afraid of social interactions
The PEERS® approach is less effective for teenagers and young adults who:
- Are not socially motivated (truly don’t care whether they have or keep friends)
- Are emotionally dis-regulated (have poor control over the display of their emotions)
- Have below average intelligence
Learn More About PEERS®
- Social skills are broken down into concrete rules and steps that are practiced repeatedly in a variety of settings.
- The rules and steps are ecologically valid for teens and young adults. The strategies taught to the teens and young adults are actually used by teens and young adults in the real world. These strategies may or may not be the strategies adults think teenagers should use.
- Parents are an integral part of the process.
- The intervention can be modified according to the individual needs of each teenager.
We encourage you to call us at 312.661.1010 with any questions you have! The PEERS® program is a significant time commitment and we want to help you determine whether it’s a good fit for your family.
Please feel free to check out two articles written about the effectiveness of PEERS®:
- "Evidence-Based Social Skills Training for Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders: The UCLA PEERS Program" published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
- "Can Joey Make a Friend?" published in PEOPLE
Fees
The cost for the 16-week workshop includes the student's as well as the parent's participation. Scholarships are available.
Register for PEERS®
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