Imagine! Excellence in Customer Service Award: March 2017

Congratulations are in order for Nichole Ricke, who works for Imagine!’s CORE/Labor Source (CLS) team, on being selected as the March 2017 recipient of the Imagine! Excellence in Customer Service Award.

Here’s some information from Nichole’s nomination, which ably demonstrates why she was selected as this month’s recipient:

Nichole brings an awesome atmosphere to CLS. She is always smiling and in such a great mood that it inspires those around her, even in tough times. She is extremely patient and understanding with the individuals that we serve and takes the time to slow down and make every experience a learning opportunity. Nichole is also very self-motivated and has worked on several projects in the past year. She has been working with an individual with an extensive behavior plan who attends only community based services. Typically, we have a sort of "primary" for this individual who knows his plan very well, but in this case we haven't for a while. Nichole volunteered to do an in-depth training for this individual and has taken a leadership role in learning who he is and how best to interact with him, and even did an in-depth training on his behavior plan for all of our staff. We have been trying for the past few years to get our "Project RISE" program going, involving in-depth community independence and job skills, but it had fallen through several times. Nichole has been instrumental in getting this program moving and has taken a lead in the process. She created an extensive curriculum, determined class activity days, and has provided each individual with a progress journal that they can write their daily activities in. The ongoing success of the program is due to her diligence in creating quality services and supports for those we serve!

Great work, Nichole, and congratulations on this well-deserved honor!