Butte County’s Work Training Center is helping members of the community with disabilities live independent lives

WTC client Michelle demonstrates her job duties at Arc Thrift Store in Chico in mid-January. Photograph by Helen Harlan

By Helen Harlan

Michelle, an Oroville native and Chico resident, lives a full life of a typical adult. She works part-time as an assistant at Arc Thrift Store, likes protein smoothies from Dutch Bros. and closely follows the soap opera “Days of Our Lives.” Her mornings often start with a dance workout at home, where she lives alone.

“I like living by myself,” noted Michelle, who is 50. “I lived with roommates before, but finding the right person is the hard part.”

But Michelle is not a typical adult. Like more than 615,000 Californians, Michelle manages a developmental disability. Workers from In-Home Supportive Services aid her domestic needs through the state’s Department of Social Services, and she gets to and from work with paratransit.

Michelle meets with Pam Easter over the course of four hours a-week, getting help building her independence, which can involve anything from cashing her paycheck to educating her on scams and fishing schemes.

“She’s very involved with her independence,” Easter said.

Easter is a Direct Support Professional, or DSP, through Work Training Center. Michelle is her client, and their work falls within WTC’s Independent Living Skills (ILS) program, one of the many services the center has offered to individuals with disabilities in Butte County since 1949.

“Everything we do is person-centered,” said WTC’s Director of Client Services, Andrea Moriarty. “So, we don’t say, ‘This is what we’re going to do.’ We ask the clients, ‘What do you guys want to do?’ And then we support them in doing those things.”

Moriarty has been with WTC for almost 30 years. She’s one of the many dedicated social service professionals who provide hands-on, personal assistance and care to the center’s 200 clients. Like many of her colleagues and clients, Moriarty was with WTC during the 2018 Camp Fire, followed closely by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“A third of our (WTC) population lived up in Paradise,” Moriarty pointed out. “But we had to close those programs once the Camp Fire came through. That dropped our population significantly. And then COVID mucked everybody up.”

In March 2024, WCT reopened Mosaic, one of its three dedicated in-person day programs. Mosaic is medically based and offers a space where high-needs clients, such as those with mobility issues, can gather for up to six-hours-a-day, five-days-a-week. An registered nurse is on-site, and a room is dedicated to personal care.

“Mosaic really is the epitome of what we do,” Moriarty said. “They’re there from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.. Some are doing some physical therapy activities. Some are doing what they need to do with the nurse and such. They do different activities.”

Activities include listening to music, playing trivia and Hagman, or working on motor skills development. Clients can also take classes, such as a recent one on restaurant etiquette, go bowling or sing karaoke. There is even a sensory room with a bubble tube, vibrating acoustic chair, and projector where they can nap or decompress.

“Some clients really like tactile things,” Moriarty added.

WTC client Marcus displays artwork he made at the Work Training Center’s Mosaic program in mid-January.

One client, Geena, spent a recent morning playing tennis through Chico State’s BE:WEL Program before coming to Mosaic to hang out and have lunch. Marcus, another client, enjoys doing arts and crafts. Both Geena and Marcus are NFL and 49ers fans. Though they expressed disappointment at their team’s poor showing this season, they said they are looking forward to the Super Bowl party Mosaic will throw on Friday before the big game.

John Williams is a social worker meeting with clients at Mosaic, where the staff-to-client ratio is 3:1. Williams has been with WTC since 1989, when he started with the commercial landscaping department, which supports the non-profit side. He has known some Mosaic clients for 30 to 40 years.

“To me, the key is just having patience,” Williams reflected. “And there are days when that can be tested. You just need to understand who we’re working with and their limitations and keep that in perspective. They’re all doing the best they can, and you gotta remember that.”

WTC is a vendor for Far Northern Regional Center, which is funded by the California Department of Developmental Services. If one is looking for developmental services for a loved one, Moriarty’s advice is simple: contact Far Northern.

What can the greater Butte County public do to help? Volunteering and donations are good options, said WTC’s Client Services Operations Manager Elise Daniels, who started at the center as an intern a decade ago.

“If they have a business or work for a business, and they want to reach out to us, that would be great,” Daniels noted. “We’re always looking for community connections and more fun things for these guys to do.”

Perhaps empathy and understanding are the best the public can offer to the clients and staff of places like WTC, where so many individuals work to put people first and their disabilities second.

“The one thing I want to add is I was really excited and looking forward to meeting with you and showing you what I do independently,” Michelle said as she sat across from me in a Chico park, Easter by her side. “I am not letting my disabilities get in my way of accomplishing my goals. My goal was get a job, and get my own place and I (still) have people saying, ‘You can’t do that because you have disabilities.’ So, I proved them wrong.”

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