Gloria served as a home manager for Kadima for eight years before accepting a promotion to area manager in 2015, increasing her responsibility overseeing Kadima’s homes for client residents.

Written By: Gloria Campbell

When I started at Kadima, my previous experience of 20 years with the State of Michigan was working with developmentally disabled individuals, with the last five years transitioning to dual-diagnosis individuals with mental illness. I was not sure how long I planned on working at Kadima, but Kadima was like no other. I’m a religious person, and I asked God if this is the place where I should be, and after all these years, I'm still here. A year ago, when I had the opportunity to become an area manager, it was a position I was really glad to take on to expand my role at Kadima.

That’s not to say I don’t miss working with my residents day-to-day. I worked in one of our 24-hour home locations, and I really cared about them. I still keep in touch with one of the residents who was very dear to me. I always seek him out in our Activity Center to see how he’s doing and stay connected.

You truly can’t ask for better living locations than Kadima has to offer. All of our homes have something unique about them and are designed to meet the level of need from our clients. Those who need more help may be in our 24-hour homes, where four to six residents live at a time. Others may be in a community living setting where staff checks in on them regularly, prepares medications and transports them to appointments but do not stay within the home for long periods of time.

In our 24-hour homes, we help residents start their day, organize and administer their medications, prepare breakfast (at times I doubled as a Coney Island manager to meet the different breakfast requests!) and get them ready for the day. We make sure they complete their chores, make it to their appointments and the Activity Center, as well as to volunteer programs throughout the cities surrounding Southfield.

But we’re not doing everything for them, we’re also teaching them new life skills all the time. From how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to microwave skills and measuring laundry detergent to folding their clothes. We get them involved with pieces of every life skill project to the level of their ability. And because of this, sometimes our clients will graduate to another home because their new skills help them live with less assistance.

Now that I’m an area manager, I have the privilege of maintaining five area homes, coordinating transportation and schedules on a larger scale and working on licensing new Kadima homes to expand our ability to serve more residents.

It’s very fulfilling to know that parents of our residents feel reassured and pleased to have the support for their loved ones in Kadima homes. They know they can call us at any time to get clarification on the care of their loved ones or get access to additional resources. We’ve even had families from out of state pick Kadima, as far as Illinois and Florida.

For our residents, we instill in them that Kadima homes are their homes. We tell them, “This is your place. This is your home.” We do a lot to make sure our residences are as comfortable in a homelike setting as possible for their stay with Kadima.  We coach them on how to care for themselves and the homes they live in to really make them their own.