Community Living Toronto is launching two pilot projects to better integrate participants into their communities, as part of the organization’s broader shift away from site-based day programs towards community-based activities.
Last week the Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services announced an investment of $404,097 in the organization, which supports people with intellectual disabilities and their families, as part of the province’s Employment and Modernization Fund. As well as the two pilot projects, the funds will go towards providing staff with the skills to develop community connections and provide participants will community readiness and travel training. They’ll also create a sustainable process for ongoing training-the-trainer programs.
“We’re quite excited. We’re always looking at ways to provide more choices for the people we support,” says Bob Ferguson, Community Living Toronto’s service development manager. “When writing for the grant, we realized we had a lot of components for this already, it’s just putting all these resources into new structures. Having these resources will really help us speed up the process.”
While Community Living Toronto traces its origins back to the 1950s, there’s been a shift over the last couple of decades away from the idea of “sheltered workshops” for people with intellectual challenges, to a more inclusionary model where participants pursue their goals for working, socializing, learning and volunteering out and about in their own communities. That means staff support has needed to become much more focused on finding and networking with community partners, like employers, to link participants with jobs and other opportunities.
They also have to work on making sure that both participants and partners have the skills needed to make the relationships successful. “Most organizations understand community inclusion, but we still need to provide information and support. Usually just having them get to know the person reduces any stress.”
Writer: Paul Gallant
Source: Bob Ferguson