Northwestern Illinois Center For Independent Living

Education/outreach - provide education to individuals with disabilities regarding public health, heath and wellness education and information, counseling, assistance with accessing health care services

Personal assistant program - this is an ongoing program and served over 200 people. A personal assistant is someone who works for a person with a disability, a consumer, with the purpose of empowering that person to live independently in the community. The personal assistant's role is to assist the consumer in completing activities of daily living based on his or her individual needs. Nicil trains & maintains a list of people who would like to become personal assistants for people with disabilities. Nicil's personal assistant coordinator conducts initial interviews of people interested in the position and hosts an orientation that all personal assistants must attent prior to being placed on nicil's referral list. A computer database is maintained daily and used to generate the referral lists of personal assistants to give to consumers upon request. The personal assistant coordinator also provides further training to personal assistants and offers assistance to consumers with interviewing, hiring, and communicating effectively with his or her personal assistant.