Meet Brennen Cabrera!

Brennen is a 21 year old self-taught artist in Louisville who has autism. Brennen’s passion for art began when he was only three years old. When his mother was preaching at their church on Sunday mornings, Brennen would sit in the pews and draw with just paper, pencils, and pens. After his parents began to take notice in his artistic ability, they would buy him drawing books that allowed him to free draw. Throughout elementary school, Brennen was put in a lot of art classes and camps. Brennen learned a lot of information from those art classes and eventually gained the confidence to instruct his own water color class at his church. Brennen was only in middle school when he began instructing art classes and workshops. From then, Brennen has instructed several art workshops through Zoom Group and The Council on Developmental Disabilities. Now he teaches art to a student at the School of the Blind. In his free time when he is not teaching art or working at the local Flower Shoppe, Brennen loves to paint whatever comes to mind. Brennen believes the inspiration for his work comes from all of the different emotions he feels on a daily basis. “I want people to feel what I am painting” says Brennen. He has a lot of his paintings hanging to decorate his apartment and others that he has sold to people in the community. Brennen has had the opportunity to have one of his paintings hanging in City Hall. There will be a press release for all of the artists to showcase their art. The date for the press release is to be determined. Brennen loves being able to participate in art events that aren’t just for people who have intellectual disabilities, because he wants people to know that his autism doesn’t define him as a person. “I want my art to be reflected as great art, not ‘great art for someone who has autism’” Brennen says. Path Forward loves seeing Brennen sharing his art work with the Louisville community. His unique personality is expressed in all of his artwork and gives us a glimpse of who Brennen is. Thanks for sharing your passion with us Brennen!

Path Forward employees participated in a teambuilding day on Oct 12^th at Pinot Palette in St. Mathews. We painted a painting inspired by Bob Ross called “Paint it like Ross”. You may ask what painting has to do with providing life support services. In a world where we’re more virtually connected than ever, it seems that our teams are more disconnected that ever. Path Forward has employees throughout the Louisville, Bluegrass, and Bowling Green areas. Path Forward makes it a priority to take time to invest in relationships and team building. Positive, high-performing teams are built through communication, shared experiences, positive interactions, and challenges.  At Path Forward we try to create a positive work environment that exhibits our core values in our day to day work which is called the PFK Way: compassion, education, honesty, integrity, respect, commitment and rock solid teamwork!

The Waiver Coordinators attended the KAPP conference on September 26-28^th at the Marriot East. This was the 4^th annual conference and this year’s theme was Mission Possible. The Waiver Coordinators attended several interesting breakout sessions regarding Guardianship, Medicaid Eligibility, Preventing Burnout, Stable Accounts, and Technology Enabled Supports. Path Forward of Kentucky is a proud member of KAPP, which stands for Kentucky Association of Private Providers. 

On the last day of the conference, KAPP host an Annual DSP Celebration Award Ceremony. It is everyone’s favorite event by far because you get to see and hear about the amazing work done throughout the state by DSP’s! Path Forward’s FHP Butch Bene was honored as 1 of 8 Distinguished DSP Award winners! Butch is an outstanding DSP, who consistently goes above and beyond by thinking outside of the box. It is an honor to have Butch Bene as part of our Path Forward family. He truly exhibits the PFK Way and we could not have been more proud to celebrate Butch at the Award Ceremony.