Options has four publications that are available for sale. To order, please click one of the book images below.

For secure online ordering for all of the books with a credit card (except PC's book) go to Atwood Publishing's website at http://www.atwoodpublishing.com/subjects/SOCIAL_JUSTICE.htm

Sharing Community: Strategies,Tips,and Lessons Learned from Experiences of Community Building at Options

Gary Messinger and Lisa Mills, illustrations by Kyle Fite. 2005. Softbound.

Strategies, Tips, and Lessons Learned from Experiences of Community Building at Options: How can we promote, facilitate and support building commnity? · developing opportunities for relationships belonging, inclusion, and meaning · you can help build community · the snowball effect listening and believing in people’s dreams · the art of asking · 20 tips for community builders stepping back · the stage manager as hero · the power of passion

Remembering the Soul of our Work: Stories by the staff of Options in Community Living

In 1992, Options published Remembering the Soul of our Work: Stories by the staff of Options in Community Living, edited by John O'Brien and Connie Lyle O'Brien.

The book is a collection of stories written by Options staff over the course of several years as a part of organizational efforts to reflect on the day to day work and our role in providing services.

Options' staff have been writing stories to read to each other at staff meetings since 1987, on a more or less regular basis. Currently stories are written and shared about every other month. Remembering the Soul of our Work is the result of story writing over a five year period. The Book includes stories written on the following themes:

Ordinary Moments, Everday Triumphs, Assistance, Sticking With People, Understanding How People Change, Dreams, Family, Friends, Money Matters, Fighting The System, Clienthood, Suffering & Death, Teachers, Words of Power, Love Stories, Commitment, Discrimination, Why I Do This Work, Last Night I Had a Dream, Community Building, A Future Vision for Options, What it Was Like Before, Writing Stories at Work

Celebrating the Ordinary: The Emergence of Options in Community Living as a Thoughtful Organization

John O'Brien, Connie Lyle-O’Brien, and Gail Jacob. 1998. 245 pages, softbound.

Collected stories, pictures, documents, and operational policies from Options' work in providing supported living services: People with developmental disabilities lead · autonomy and support can lead to liberation · conflict clarifies belief · high ideals grounded in daily demands · building relationships and agreements · policy on quality of life · ordinary connections · stretching the ordinary: · holding stress · acknowledging difficulty · relationships as a resource · designing support · effective personal assistance · generating flexibility · chewing on intractable problems · progress on community building ·

Cold Blooded and Damn Right Dirty II,

By PC, 2005

PC expands on ideas that he introduced in his first literary expression, “Cold Blooded and Damn Right Dirty”: All of us need to be respected. All of us need to be heard. PC tells some tough, painful stories of his past; and these experiences still evoke strong feelings of hurt and anger deep within. Throughout this work, though, PC returns to a message of hope, freedom and equality- standing up for the rights of those our society diagnoses and labels. PC challenges even those of us who consider ourselves advocates. How does our language of labels, although intended to be respectful, infect the way we see the people with whom we work? PC has a strong, unyielding message. Listen.

An Excerpt From PC's Book

select this link for samples of stories included in the books...

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