Freedom Center Mission

The Freedom Center is a walk-in center for independent living (CIL) that is consumer-controlled, community-based, cross-disability, and nonresidential. It is a private, nonprofit agency. It is designed and operated within a local community by individuals with disabilities and is providing an array of independent living (IL) services. The Center’s staff and Board of Directors is more than 51% with disabilities. The Center is a membership organization to underscore its being consumer-controlled. Its mission is to provide services and supports to empower individuals with disabilities to lead self-directed, independent, and productive lives in a barrier–free community.

The Freedom Center provides the four core services including, but not limited to:

• Individual and systems advocacy,
• Information and referral,
• Peer counseling, and
• Independent living skills training to people with disabilities of all ages and disabilities.

The Freedom Center provides support and services to people with disabilities in Frederick and Carroll Counties. Independent living services and supports include, but are not limited to, equal access, removal of physical and attitudinal barriers, the availability of affordable and accessible housing, availability of accessible transportation, availability of personal assistance services, and equal opportunities for employment.

In addition, education and training that is necessary for living in a community and participating in community activities are offered as IL services.  Services are designed to provide resources, training, counseling, or other assistance of substantial benefit in enhancing the independence, productivity, and quality of life of individuals with disabilities because it is a necessary component of living independently. Community awareness programs will be available to enhance the understanding and integration of people with disabilities into the mainstream of life.  Most importantly, this center includes other services that may be necessary to improve the ability of an individual with a significant disability to function, continue functioning, or move toward functioning independently in the his/her own home, in the family or community. 

The philosophy of the Freedom Center is to promote equal access to independent living through consumer control, peer support, self-help, self-determination, equal access, and individual as well as system advocacy. This philosophy will maximize leadership, empowerment, independence, and productivity of individuals with disabilities as well as promote and maximize the integration and full inclusion of individuals with disabilities into the mainstream of American society. People with disabilities are particularly vulnerable when physical and attitudinal barriers are limiting them to being labeled as “special” or being held captive in the segregated setting.  There is the real need to remove these types of barriers and to promote and enhance the integration and full inclusion of people with disabilities in the mainstream of their communities.  They need to be included in the fabric of American life.  The individuals with disabilities in Frederick and Carroll Counties will be empowered with the IL Philosophy to promote the ideas of civil rights, consumerism, de-institutionalization, de-medicalization, self-help, advocacy, barrier removal, consumer control, and peer role models.