Earlier career paths leads local woman to find her niche

Cheryl Hentz

Contributor

January 13, 2025

WINNEBAGO COUNTY – Marla Kopecky Penney – the founder of Focus on Freedom LLC and Empower Freedom – said the absence of comprehensive support systems for parents and caregivers of children and adults with disabilities in the Winnebago County region prompted her to take action.

Both businesses, Kopecky Penney said, are designed to better assist parents and caregivers in their day-to-day roles, empowering everyone along the way.

Kopecky Penney said she has spent the last 20 years working with children and adults with disabilities in many roles, including as an in-home therapist, respite care provider, special education teacher and evaluator.

She said she worked for both private and public sector entities, including the Oshkosh Area School District. 

During those two decades, Kopecky Penney said she saw a missing link in the system between community, home and school support systems.

For families with disabilities, she said, this meant limited time, resources and understanding – all resulting in the need for additional support.

“I have learned a wealth of knowledge, greatly in part because of the school system,” she said. “I never even realized all the different training that I’ve had over the years, and use today, as a result of working in the education system.”

Determined to help, Kopecky Penney said she founded Focus on Freedom in 2019 and Empower Freedom in 2024. 

Focus on Freedom LLC (focusonfreedom.org), she said, provides support and guidance for children and adults with disabilities (ages eight and older) and their families who live in Winnebago County – including Oshkosh, Omro, Neenah, Winneconne and even parts of Appleton. 

The nonprofit organization offers a variety of customized disability-focused services, such as daily skills training, communication coaching and career guidance – all things Kopecky Penney said she considers wrap-around care.

Focus on Freedom, she said, helps foster independence and improve quality of life for individuals with intellectual and/or physical disabilities, including autism, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome and spinal cord injuries.

Meanwhile, as a for-profit, companion business, Empower Freedom (empower-freedom.org) provides on-demand resources, guides and checklists to help empower parents and caregivers of individuals with disabilities – no matter where they live.  

Resources available to anyone, anywhere

Supporting families in Winnebago County through Focus on Freedom, Kopecky Penney said, sparked interest from other parts of the state and even the country.

“I was getting calls from people in other parts of Wisconsin and even other states who wanted the kind of help we were providing with Focus on Freedom,” she said. “While I couldn’t do that, I believed that I could develop something that would be of some benefit to them. And Empower Freedom was born in the summer of 2024.” 

Kopecky Penney said there are two levels of Empower Freedom membership: one for $25/month or one for $250/year, each giving members access to the entire site.

She said the site is broken down into three sections: blogs, visual supports and resources.

Blogs

Kopecky Penney said these are short reads of information, whether it be “how-to” material or something more informational. 

“An example of how-to material would be how to do something routine, like showering or how to brush your teeth,” she said. “Informational would be explaining about different types of service, such as ‘what is future career planning,’ or ‘what are daily living skills’ or ‘what is respite care’ – those kinds of things.”

Kopecky Penney said informational resources are done in a quick-read format.

“People who are short on time can get the information they need right away,” she said. “If they want more information they can dive into more when they have time. But a lot of people don’t have time for that, especially people in the caregiving world, which is why I’ve created this.”

Kopecky Penney said the Empower Freedom library of resources covers everything from daily life skills to emotional support.

Visual supports

Kopecky Penney said an example of visual support available through Empower Freedom would be a visual checklist showing the various steps one goes through to shower or brush their teeth.

Supports, she said, are done at different levels because people are on different levels. 

“I’ve been working on what I call my assignment tracker and my time management planner,” she said. “These are tools used by either teachers or caregivers who are supporting individuals who are going to go on to career and college aspects. I give an example of a tracker on the website and explain how to use it.”

Kopecky Penney said the time management trackers available through Empower Freedom help individuals break down tasks into manageable parts. 

“A lot of people say they do their best work under pressure, but the anxiety and all that comes with it isn’t always healthy, especially for a lot of our clients who struggle with anxiety already,” she said. “By giving them this tracker it breaks down the assignment into small, manageable steps with shorter dates that they must have them done by, and before they know it, the assignment or project is completely done.”  

Kopecky Penney said the visual aids, guides and checklists can help people with disabilities process and retain information more effectively – and furthermore, develop routines, master daily tasks and achieve more independence overall.

Resources

Here, Kopecky Penney said, subscribers can access several third-party information or tools she has curated through her years of work and research.

Depending on what it is, she said there may be a small cost involved to access certain resources or products, not included in one’s Empower Freedom membership. 

“So, if a parent or caregiver is working on some aspect of hygiene, for example, and it involves a product to make the task easier, and the person wants to buy that product, there is a link leading directly to the product on Amazon, or wherever it’s being sold through,” she said.

Kopecky Penney said she adds 10-20 pieces of new content each month – with more than 200 pieces currently available.

Getting here by accident

Being a business owner wasn’t necessarily part of her plan, but Kopecky Penney said life has a way of putting obstacles in the way, causing people to take a detour in their professional journey. 

While pursuing double majors in sociology and business at St. Norbert College, Kopecky Penney said a friend of hers talked to her about working with non-verbal and autistic kids as a line therapist in the home.

“I had no experience and wasn’t sure it was something she could do,” she said. 

However, as she approached the end of her college career and not knowing exactly what she wanted to do, Kopecky Penney said she told her friend she’d give it a try while trying to figure out her next step.

“That’s when I started, and I fell in love with it, basically through trial by fire,” she said. “I literally jumped in the deep end, but that’s how I’ve always done my biggest learning and my biggest growth. I jump in the deep end and figure out how to swim.”

Kopecky Penney said she was on track to become a senior therapist when the funding for that program stopped, and she was forced to change plans.

That pivot, Kopecky Penney said, led her to return to school for teaching and get a certification to teach special education.

In 2007, she said started working in that field in the Oshkosh School District and learning more about how the brain works. 

Then in 2019, again encouraged by a friend and colleague of 10 years, Kopecky Penney said she decided to leave the school district and venture out on her own, forming Focus on Freedom.

This move, she said, led her to enroll in the E-seed Entrepreneurship Training offered at the Venture Center at Fox Valley Technical College.

She said she credits the training for helping her get Empower Freedom off the ground.

“Empower Freedom is what I focused on through E-seed,” she said. “However, because I had both businesses and one that was already launched and running, I used some of the connections built through E-seed to also support the Focus on Freedom business. So I used the class for both businesses – to improve upon Focus on Freedom and to get Empower Freedom launched and headed in the right direction.”

The world is her oyster

Kopecky Penney said she feels like she’s still in the professional infancy with her businesses, because there are so many more things she could do with it.

Though she has no current plans to actively pursue other avenues, she said people can still benefit from the materials on her website. 

“The Empower Freedom website can support a variety of people working with a variety of disabilities in a variety of settings,” she said, adding that she wouldn’t mind eventually expanding Focus on Freedom to care for people elsewhere in Wisconsin, even nationwide.

Kopecky Penney said consulting and hosting training workshops could be a possibility in the future.

The sky, she said, is the limit.

But for now, Kopecky Penney said she’s focused on changing the lives of clients, one person at a time.