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Owner of Baton Rouge ABA clinic highlights training model, praises local cafe for inclusive hiring
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Summary
The owner of Grace Therapy Center described creating STIR, a workplace-training approach for teens and young adults with developmental differences, and praised a Baton Rouge cafe that hires people with disabilities as an example of incremental community impact.
The owner of Grace Therapy Center said she switched course in college from speech therapy to applied behavior analysis and opened Grace Therapy Center in 2021, an ABA clinic serving children with autism and other developmental differences. "In 2021, I left and opened up Grace Therapy Center, which is an ABA clinic for kids with autism and other developmental differences," she said.
The owner said many clients leave school without workplace opportunities and that prompted development of STIR, a program she described as teaching job skills in settings that can accommodate cognitive differences. "That's kind of where STIR came about is, you know, how do we teach these guys to work in a workplace and that's accommodating to them or that is, you know, able to teach them those skills," she said. The owner described the program's tagline, "grounds for growth," as a play on coffee and personal development.
A public commenter applauded Katie Jenkins, owner of Stirr Coffee in Baton Rouge, for hiring people with disabilities and creating visible opportunities in the community. "A big shout out to Katie Jenkins, owner of Stirr Coffee in Baton Rouge, a cafe that primarily employs people with disabilities," the commenter said, adding that the business helps employees "expand their expertise, sharpen their skills, stay involved in community despite the challenges they face."
The owner described families traveling from other Louisiana cities to visit employees at work and said participants frequently exceed low expectations. "Sometimes I'm finding that, you know, they'll set a really low expectation of what they're able to do, and then they come in and they just kind of blow that completely out of the water," she said.
The public commenter framed inclusive hiring as a right and a source of community benefit: "Every American, including those with disabilities, deserves the freedom to work and reach their fullest potential," the commenter said, praising the cafe's owner for making "Louisiana and our world a better place."
The transcript records testimony and public comment about the clinic's training approach and local inclusive hiring; no formal actions or votes were recorded in the provided text.
