MacDonald Training Center

MacDonald Training Center's mission is" to empower people with disabilities to lead the lives they choose."MacDonald Training Center ( MTC) is dedicated to continuously improving the quality of the vocational, employment and residential services we have been providing to people with disabilities in the Tampa Bay area since 1953.

MacDonald Training Center was founded in 1953 by J. Clifford MacDonald and a group of visionary parents of individuals with developmental disabilities. At a time when the only alternative to being sent to a state institution was to sit at home and do nothing, these individuals rejected both options and proceeded to create innovative educational, vocational and residential alternatives. MacDonald Training Center began as one of the first pre-schools in the State of Florida for children with developmental disabilities. In tandem with the school system to develop educational programs for children and young adults, MTC evolved to become a premier provider of services for adults with disabilities. We allways focus on the capabilities of the people served, not their disabilities.

Over the last 5 decades, MacDonald Training Center has forged ahead as an advocate, a progressive influence , a leader and innovator in services to people with developmental disabilities in the state of Florida. In the 1970's MTC was one of the first organizations to develop supported employment services so that individuals could find and retain community based employment. We began to offer in-home supports as alternatives to traditional group homes in the 1990's. In 2002, MTC became the first organization in the state of Florida to close all of our group homes. All individuals to whom we currently provide residential services live in their own homes, regardless of their service needs. We provide care whether it is for 24 hours a day, or simply a monthly check up to make sure the bills are paid. Many other organizations across the state have modeled their residential programs on ours. We have gladly served as mentors.

Today, MTC's primary areas of service include educational, vocational and residential supports for persons with disabilities. MTC 's day services includes vocational skills training and life enrichment activities from computer lab and fine arts instruction to recreational outreaches for people with developmental disabilities. Additionally, MTC provides supported employment counseling and placement services for people with a wide variety of disabilities including hearing impairments and many other physcial and mental challenges.

Realizing the increasing need for the organization to be more self-sufficient, our Leadership adopted a more business-based model in 2008. We abandoned the old sheltered workshop model and embraced a career development path for the people we serve. Throwing out the model of the sheltered workshop where inferior work was often the norm, we committed to becoming a premier provider of business solutions to our community and a much more realistic provider of job skills training for the people we serve. We successfully bid for and won the contract to package the SUNPASS transponder for the Florida Department of Transportation. With heightenedl expectations, we wrote a new curriculum, based on becoming an ISO compliant industry. The people we serve rose to the occassion and many have found outside employment based on the skills they have aquired training on the SUNPASS contract. To date over 3 million transponders have been successfully packaged at MTC, with less than a 1 % error model has allowed MTC to withstand the increasing cut-backs in state funding for services for people with disabilities and to be more firmly self-reliant.