All requests for NAILS services, communication and information regarding services received from participants is kept strictly confidential and used only for meeting participant needs and achieving participant goals.
Advocacy
Advocating with individuals for their rights and entitlements enables persons with disabilities to learn to represent themselves. Peer partners work with participants to identify and establish advocacy goals and action plans.
Peer Support
Native Americans with disabilities assisting participants with disabilities is the strategy behind "peer support." An experience-based approach from those who "walk the walk and talk the talk" provides answers and insights into daily challenges of living independently.
Information and Referral
Providing answers, giving guidance, identifying resources, and pointing out a direction are all part of the information and referral service. Assisting participants in finding and obtaining information needed to live independently is the goal of this service.
Independent Living Skills Instruction
Living more independently can be a daily learning experience for participants with disabilities. The independent living skills instruction service of NAILS provides assistance and instruction for those individuals wishing to learn or relearn daily living skills. Managing family activities, household chores, work tasks and education assignments through the use of tools, techniques and assistive technology for greater independence.
Mental Health Support Groups
Support groups for American Indians with mental health disabilities and substance abuse problems. Several meetings for MICAs (mentally ill chemical abusers) are taking place in rural and suburban locations in Erie and Niagara Counties for the convenience of participants living on and off the three Native reservations. Strict confidentiality is maintained by group moderators who are peers and members of Iroquois Confederacy Indian Nations.
Family Support Services
Native American Independent Living Services offers a Family Support Services Program Native American families that need assistance for a family member who has a developmental disability can obtain appropriate support from NAILS. The agency is offering a New York State Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disability (OMRDD) Family Support Services (FSS) program which can provide a variety of options for eligible families. Among the program’s services are:
Service Coordination/Case Management
in which our counselors guide individuals with developmental disabilities to prepare them to live independently in the community through gaining access to necessary resources, such as: housing assistance, financial aid, work programs, and medical equipment.
Family Reimbursement Program
enables families of developmentally disabled consumers to purchase services and goods which are not funded through other sources. To access the Program, the family and NAILS agree to a formal plan to buy services and goods. Then the family makes the purchase, provides a receipt and is reimbursed.
Who is eligible for Family Support and Reimbursement Services?
Families can take advantage of this program, free of charge, if the person with a developmental disability, or his/her parent, grandparent, or spouse who lives in the same home, or the head of the household, is a Native American. They may reside on one of the area’s three Native American reservations or live elsewhere in Erie or Niagara counties. The family member, who can be of any age, must have a “developmental disability” as defined by New York State regulations.
For additional information call: (716) 836-0822, extension 120 or Cattaraugus, Tonawanda and Tuscarora participants can call 1-800-348-8399 and one of the staff counselors will return your call.
