Center helps Bell overcome learning obstacles

By WILL STEWART Staff Reporter for the Southern Standard

For some, high school is the best time of their lives. But for Melissa Bell it was torture.

An epileptic since age 2, illiterate and suffering brain damage, the 20-year-old described her high school career, and her fellow students, as anything but pleasant.
“High school was a terror for her,” said her mother, Debbie Steinmann. “The kids were mean and cruel to her. She couldn’t handle it. She was withdrawn, hateful, at times she was suicidal.”

Bell’s attitude changed dramatically, however, shortly after her high school career came to a close in 2002 and she began attending Tennessee Rehabilitation Center.

Located in Smyrna, Tennessee Rehabilitation Center is operated by the state Department of Human Services and seeks to provide disabled individuals with the knowledge and skills they need to achieve their highest level of functioning so they can live and work as independently as possible.

Much like a college, the center’s students live on campus while completing job preparation programs and learning other special living skills.

Recommended for the program by one of her instructors at the high school, Bell first went to the center two years ago. She began her enrollment there in the six-month JOBS program, which serves to help those with disabilities learn basic work behaviors and expose them to the meaning, value and expectations of work.

After a two-month break, she returned to the center to take part in its custodial training program, which took her eight months to complete. During this time she learned professional cleaning techniques and how to safely operate custodial equipment.

Most recently, Bell was enrolled in the center’s transitional living skills course, from which she graduated in June. In this course she learned such vital skills as balancing a checkbook, how to shop and look for bargains, and how to wash clothes.

“Nobody made fun of me and called me names there,” she said. “They treated me like I’m somebody. I made some good friends. There are fun things to do and you learn a lot of stuff. I miss it.”

Steinmann said the center was a godsend for her daughter.

“She’s done a U-turn. Now she’s happy-go-lucky, smiling all the time” she said.

Bell attends a local DHS job training program once a week and hopes to find a job soon.