"It will result in better outcomes and better lives."
Rather than offering a set of services based at Avalon, the new focus was on customising community-based programmes to each client. Individual planning sessions lasting up to 20 hours saw the disabled choose what fitted their potential and capabilities.
"The thing that people with disabilities want is to live ordinary lives. They want to be part of where they live."
Mr Driessen said Avalon would tap into services provided by community groups and organisations to integrate the disabled into the community. They would continue to run programmes like teaching clients to manage their emotions.
Avalon planned to open a satellite base at Katikati, with the possibility of other bases at Papamoa and Te Puke. He said they had received overwhelming support from stakeholders.
Avalon's change manager Helen Brownlie said it was amazing how finding ways to include the disabled into the community lifted their self esteem.
Individual planning involved working out what their clients would be doing, where and when they would be doing it and who with. Avalon would continue to deliver a service to those more challenged but she was confident about the ability to outsource services.
Mr Driessen said Avalon's commercial activities, including the shop on SH2, had never been successful. Goods sold in the shop were produced more by facilitators.
The new focus followed Avalon going back to its constitution to see if what they were doing was required and of value.
He said that when parents said Avalon was great, they were saying it was great for them.
"It is not so great for the child," he said.
The new approach would be great for the child and not so great for the parents, and it had taken some parents months to get to the point of accepting this.
Commercial manager Tania Wilson said the old group culture in which large numbers of disabled from Avalon descended on facilities like the Mount Hot Pools had reinforced community prejudices, whereas when it was one-on-one, prejudices started to change.
"That is what is really exciting about this model."
She said the way Avalon currently segregated its clients was a step backwards for young people who had been mainstreamed during their school years.
Parents were being asked by their disabled children why they could not have a life like other young people.
Avalon did not know what would happen to the Te Puna property, for which it paid a commercial lease to a property trust.