Valley Forge Educational Services

Adult and recreation services (ars):ars offers educational and recreational programming for children and adults, 7 years of age and older, and adults with disabilities and learning challenges. Programs are designed to maximize each individual's potential in an inclusive, encouraging, enriching and supportive learning environment. Recreational services include camps, respite, social gatherings, community activities, and retreats. Adult services include employment discovery, placement and job support through the vfes service, customized workforce solutions (cws). Ars hosted 1 event for vanguard alumni parents and community attendees on the topic of creating pa able accounts for children and adults with special needs.vocational immersion program (vip)vip is a four-week intensive pre-employment program for participants for adults ages 18-24. July 5-july 28, 2024, its tenth season, vip equipped 19 young adults with crucial employment readiness skills and vocational experiences. Specialized recreation services (srs)srs offers educational and recreational programming for children and adults with special needs and learning challenges. Srs's focus is to support participants as they cultivate friendships, expand their repertoire of leisure and recreational activities, and practice daily living skills away from home.in the 2023-24 fiscal year, srs supported 50 people, ages 7-22, at vfes @ camp kweebec in schwenksville, pa. Srs's retreats at mt. Gilead in stroudsburg, pa served 15 participants and fenwick island, de "beach week" retreat provided a respite experience to 12 adult participants, ages 20-35. Srs continued to provide meaningful social activities for adults with special needs by hosting dances, meeting for lunch at various locations and organizing meet-ups at places, such as elmwood zoo, dances, bowling establishments, longwood gardens and more.on a snowy saturday, january 27, 2024, vfes hosted its first neurodiverse resource fair and summer camp expo. This event combined the previously-held october annual adult services and transition resource fair and the annual special kids camp expo, which was held each january. The neurodiverse resource fair and summer camp expo drew approximately 100 families and 38 service organizations/camps. The event allows organizations to provide vital resource and camp information to vanguard families and members of the community with adults and transition-age youth with disabilities. Vfes's annual community day, held on saturday, april 27, 2024, was well-attended. It is estimated that over 300 individuals attended this community event. Vfes had 25 business partners that helped support this event. The purpose of community day is to provide sensory-friendly games and activities for people with special needs and their families in local communities.