Incorporated in 1967, Pueblo Diversified Industries (PDI) serves individuals with disabilities and other barriers to employment. Beginning as a traditional sheltered workshop, PDI today is a unique hybrid of four quality-focused commercial businesses, and an efficient and effective human service agency. PDI offers a variety of work experiences to meet the vocational goals of individuals with disabilities, and three different life enrichment programs.

PDI's community-based and on-site vocational programs utilize work as the vehicle to an enriched and more independent life. Using the work performed for our customers, individuals learn specific skills and work productively in an environment that is supportive while challenging each individual to grow. Our consumers are encouraged and assisted to achieve their individual performance potential. With the aid of adaptive devices and a creative approach to production design, individuals with mental and physical limitations are able to excel in many different kinds of work.

PDI has three non-vocational programs, two of which are fairly recent additions to PDI's spectrum of human services. Through our strategic planning process it became apparent that, in spite of efforts in recent years to normalize the lives of individuals with profound disabilities, many still lead fairly regimented and restrictive lives. We took action by developing alternative programs to benefit our consumer population.

The Community Activities program has been around the longest of the three non-vocational programs. This service takes individuals out into our community and teaches them the living skills necessary to be successful, such as ordering from a menu, waiting in line at a store, making purchases or even attending movies. But community activities alone do not meet the needs of all people. The new Life Enrichment program broadens the spectrum of available opportunity to include independent living skills, personal hobbies, pet therapy and individual responsibility. A third program, Intensive Habilitation, is designed specifically for people with severe and profound disabilities. Staff provide sensory and motor stimulation in a secure and peaceful environment in an effort to improve the overall quality of each person's life.

BACK TO ABOUT PDI