We are free to be.
About Our Own Lives
Formed in 2023, Our Own Lives is a new disability services organization that will begin providing direct services to the disability community in Southwest Colorado in July of 2024. We serve individuals and families in Archuleta, Dolores, La Plata, Montezuma and San Juan Counties. Previously the direct services arm of Community Connections, Inc., we have decades of experience providing person-centered, inclusion-focused supports to the disabled community on its own terms.
From our backbone of Direct Service Providers, to our leadership team, Board of Directors, and Client Leadership Council, Our Own Lives has people with disabilities driving our work. Even our logo was designed, refined, and chosen by people with disabilities. Because we are the experts in Our Own Lives.
The mission of Our Own Lives is to provide quality support on our own terms, for us to be free to be ourselves. We center the disabled community to be heard, and we build each other up to change our world. We are all experts in our own lives.
Our Mission
Our Vision
We envision a world where people with disabilities are included and accepted for who we are, and we are valued for the contributions we make.
Our Core Values
At Our Own Lives:
You are the expert, and in charge of your own choices.
And Together:
We create communities where everyone belongs.
We support and advocate for each other.
We are creative and embrace change.
We help each other, work together, and leave nobody behind.
About Our Logo
In 2024, Our Own Lives put out a call to people enrolled in services with us to submit art that inspired them and reflected the mission, vision and values of Our Own Lives. Submissions were then reviewed by the Client Leadership Council and the finalist was logoized to become our Organizational logo.
The Tree Hand logo was submitted by a very talented artist in services. He tells us he draws a lot in his free time and has been drawing his whole life. He prefers drawing with pencil in his portfolio sketchbooks, and liked to draw monster trucks, jeeps, dinosaurs, giant octopi, and American flags. He uses a lot of custom colors and is currently working on improving his composition of hubcaps and wheels on vehicles. When drawing complicated shapes he usually creates a boxy outline and then works down into the specific detail shapes.
For the Tree Hand image that became our logo, he used his left hand as the model for the hand. He then drew a tree with the roots connected with the veins, and at the time he was thinking of a scientist creating a tree that grew out of one’s hand.
When choosing the Tree Hand image as the preferred logo, the Client Leadership Council liked that the symbols suggest togetherness, connectedness, and growth. The submitting artist is honored that people see those values reflected in his art.
About Community Connections
Community Connections is the state designated Case Management Agency (CMA) in Southwest Colorado, and has been serving children and adults with intellectual, developmental and other disabilities since 1985. Contact Community Connections to start the journey into intellectual and developmental disability services with Our Own Lives.