“What got us here Won’t get us there”!

AHRC Nassau empowers people to live fulfilling lives together with family – friends and community.

A family-led organization and a Chapter of The Arc New York, AHRC Nassau has continually grown to meet the evolving needs of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and their families.

AHRC Nassau provides person-centered supports to over 2,200 people throughout Nassau County. Our organization partners with a family of organizations including Brookville Center for Children’s Services, Citizens Options Unlimited and Advantage Care Health Centers, so that together, we can provide a true continuum of services and supports across a person’s lifetime.

AHRC Nassau has been designated a COMPASS agency by New York State Office of People with Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD). As a COMPASS agency, we are recognized for our commitment to engaging all stakeholders in working together in a person-centered environment with the goal of promoting and achieving valued outcomes for the people we support. Of the more than 750 provider agencies in New York State, only four (4) are currently designated as a COMPASS agency.

in 2018, CQL | The Council on Quality and Leadership recognized AHRC Nassau with Person-Centered Excellence Accreditation With Distinction, its highest designation. CQL promotes excellence in person-centered services and supports that lead to an increased quality of life for people receiving supports and services. There are only 9 organizations in the United States who have achieved this accreditation which is reflective of our unparalleled commitment to the people supported by our services, our staff, families and the community in which we all live.

AHRC Nassau, and partnering organization Citizens Options Unlimited, are the only two agenciesin New York State to achieve both COMPASS designation and CQL’s Person-Centered Excellence Accreditation With Distinction.

AHRC has also been named as one of “America’s Best-In-State Employers” by Forbes alongside exceptional employers across New York State.

As the only disability agency featured, AHRC ranks 41st on a list of 88 top New York employers. Of the four Long Island-based organizations featured, AHRC (#41) was recognized beside Northwell Health (#33), Broadridge Financial (#48) and Adelphi University (#67).

Dr. Hassan M. Abdulhaqq, Vice President of Talent Acquisition, Development, and Engagement has been a Pivotal part of the agencies success in the past 3 years.

In his his extremely active and productive Career Dr. Hassan is also involves being an adjunct Professor on Contract with NYU, Columbia University, MCNY, Vaughn College & Medgar Evers College. He credits his success on being engaging, communicative and a change agent. Dr. Hassan teaches his sons Darius Nasir & Markus Amir, accountability, social responsibility, and hard work. He wants his sons to be compassionate, Driven, and principled.

Dr. Hassan’s first hand experience as a Direct Support Professional in the I/DD space started when he was asked to work overnight weekends in residential and intermediate care for six months to understand the IDD community. Dr. Hassan immediately grasped the difficulty of 24-hour care for people with significant disabilities and behaviors. Coworkers carefully taught him how to help the elderly with daily duties and praised his efforts. While handling medical or behavioral emergencies with skill, compassion, and tenacity, the care team faced challenges. His residency was difficult, but it strengthened his mission dedication. He respected the community he wants to aid after seeing residents and care providers' hardships and successes. It also taught him to support the selfless teams who do this hard but rewarding work.

Doctor Hassan promotes servant leadership, accountability, goal-setting, employee empowerment, and excellence. Leadership should cherish people, he says. His priorities include needs assessment, obstacle elimination, coaching, and team growth. All levels of trust and ownership rise with servant leadership. Dr. Hassan's six-month frontline experience shaped his leadership. His HR strategy involves empathy and understanding and identifying the right talent to hire for this vulnerable population. His Talent Acquisition team was awarded the Talent Acquisition Team of the year by OnCon. The team applies unique, creative, and best practice solutions to attract talent in a competitive labor market.Dr. Hassan’s Retention, Learning & Professional Development & Health and Wellness team encourages professional growth, Emotional Intelligence Workshops, Competitive employee health challenges, Conflict resolution and team work skills to make employees feel valued and purposeful and deliver specialized services to people with developmental impairments and their families.

Dr. Hassan wants his Human resources team to be known for compassionate treatment, working with a sense of urgency, and exceptional results that promote independence and quality of life by valuing, encouraging, and motivating staff.

As Vice President Hassan continues to evaluate talent sourcing, screening, onboarding, and engagement. His team looks at HR inefficiencies and gaps by involving stakeholders from different roles and departments. His team applies Best Practice strategies like adding Culural Competence training, Professional communication courses, data and metrics. The HR team teaches hiring managers how to overcome biases, develop extensive onboarding programs that stressed mentoring, teamwork, and cultural integration. Supervisory Training is offered with a keen focus on engagement, onboarding, and Key Performance indicators. This focus resulted in supervisors altering hiring and retention approaches that boosted recruitment, retention and overall employee morale. As a result of this the organization was nominated by Forbes as one of the top places to work in Long Island.

AHRC Nassau, and partnering organization Citizens Options Unlimited, are the only two agencies in New York State to achieve both COMPASS designation and CQL’s Person-Centered Excellence Accreditation With Distinction.

Their dedication and strategic problem-solving enabled them to achieve organization wide goals despite expected obstacles. Dr. Hassan improved HR-organizational alignment by redesigning critical HR operations. He guided corporate partners' improvements using workshops and focus groups that focused on employee feedback. The team swiftly built new employee onboarding programs, engaged a first-year retention specialist, toured sites, and enhanced manager and employee engagement.

He immediately changed their strategy to beat the competition, utilizing behavioral insights, analytics, and statistics. Building a talented team, acquiring knowledge, cooperating cross-functionally, responding promptly to impediments, leading with compassion and urgency, and evaluating progress against goals were needed to solve problems.

KPI-based organizational goals and measurements promote accountability. Management provides verifiable goals for each function, says Dr. Hassan. Progress and statistics are tracked, and continuing development demands focus. He believes everyone has great ideas, and he encourages his team to think creatively. His personnel have flexibility and the tools to succeed. He believes staff results often exceed expectations.

Dr. Hassan is dedicated to constantly improving his leadership and technical skills. He effectively coaches his team and provides feedback based on industry benchmarks. Under his leadership, his teams thrive and prioritize serving others and achieving excellence. Over the next three years, Dr. Hassan aims to maintain industry leadership, transform HR into a strategic business partner, and encourage innovation and growth within his team. To achieve this, he will prioritize servant leadership, goal-setting, empowerment, and operational excellence. Furthermore, he plans to implement programs to improve staff wellbeing, growth, and engagement and address retention issues through real-time pulse surveys.

Dr. Hassan will continue to make HR a business partner instead of an administrative function. Finally, empowering product teams boosts competitiveness and growth in innovation. By giving cross-functional teams more autonomy, decision-making power, and resources, productivity will soar. Dr. Hassan will use Guardrails for compliance, budgeting, and industry-leading best practices. He believes effective HR teams should be encouraged to launch ideas without bureaucracy.

As an HR leader, Dr. Hassan actively learns about recruitment best practices, analytics, and workforce planning to improve his HR skills. He can inform operational and executive teams on significant talent management decisions thanks to his self-education. He devoured professional books, HR certification classes, and seminars to keep learning. He wants to become a trusted strategist who optimizes human operations.

Dr. Hassan believes they can achieve their 3-year target by relentlessly prioritizing, being metrics-focused, and leading by example. A creative company with top talent, strong operations, and frontline-to-executive alignment will result. Overall, Dr. Hassan wants to improve as a father, educator, and business leader. He will benefit his family, pupils, colleagues, and community by investing in these personal growth areas.”