Helping the community welcome people with intellectual
disabilities to live, work, and play as valued citizens.
FESTIVE FAMILY FEAST DECEMBER 6
It must be the fall season because it's time to get your tickets for the annual Festive Family Feast, Friday December 6! Enjoy a relaxed evening with a turkey dinner (or alternative), a few brief ceremonies, and some holiday season celebrations. You are invited to wear the festive clothing (we always appreciate a great hat too!) of your choice, which is part of this annual tradition (but not required).
SUPPORT FROM IAN MARTIN GROUP
LiveWorkPlay is excited to be one of the first grant recipients from the Ian Martin Meaningful Work Foundation, with a contribution of $15,000 going towards our employment task force initiatives.
As always, it has been a busy time in employment supports, and we've been celebrating (National) Disability Employment Awareness Month (known as NDEAM and DEAM) with stories of new hires, like Stephanie at Public Services and Procurement Canada! Would you like to join our amazing Employment Task Force? Learn more here, we are actively recruiting!
Ontario is undergoing a massive change in the way provincially funded employment supports are delivered. LiveWorkPlay is doing everything possible to stay on top of these developments, including active participation at recent conference events in our local network (EARN) and provincial networks (OneStep and ODEN). While there is much that is still to be decided about the future of employment services in Ontario, what we have learned is that the quality of our work and the results we deliver at LiveWorkPlay are second to none, and that we are going to be an asset to the future system, however it is constituted.
GIVING THE GIFT OF...GIFTS!
LiveWorkPlay has been working with Bruce Anderson and the Core Gift Institute for many years now, and we are also part of a learning community across the world where we talk about practices and outcomes related to helping individuals and teams identify and demonstrate their gifts to the world.
Our People Connector Alex Darling is now offering Core Gift interview opportunities to volunteers, and is working with Community Connector Rebecca Coxon and others to extend this opportunity to supported individuals and others. Rebecca was also recently invited out to an event in Lanark County with learning partner Carebridge (formerly Mills Community Support) to take part in a panel session that also included our co-leader Keenan Wellar.
At the Ottawa Developmental Services Network gathering the team from LiveWorkPlay also talked about how gifts are an important consideration in the implementation of our Just Enough Support approach to helping the community welcome and value people with intellectual disabilities, autistic persons, and individuals with a dual diagnosis to live, work, and play as valued citizens.
Last but not least, it was standing room only (see photo above) at the Community Living Ontario annual conference in Thunder Bay, as Anna Nelson, Julie Kingstone, Rebecca, and Keenan presented an update to our Just Enough Support principles (now featuring "Honouring Personal Autonomy" as the centrepiece and thank you Tim Siebrasse for representing this in an awesome photo by Anthony Stratton).
FRANCES AND MARTIN CELEBRATE LIFE & RAISE HUGE DOLLARS
Frances and Martin, like many others, not only get support from LiveWorkPlay, they are supporters too! Along with their families they hosted a celebration and decided
it would also be a fundraiser for LiveWorkPlay. Although a few hundred dollars would have been awesome, it wasn't to be - instead, the couple raised more than $20,000! Everyone has their own idea of what constitutes a good life and a full life, but Frances and Martin are certainly an inspiration to many, with homes and neighbourhoods where they welcome and are welcomed, jobs and coworkers they enjoy, and mainstays at festivals and events throughout the city. Congratulations!
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY CELINE
it's been a mission to make sure each member of the staff team has a blog feature to share a little bit more about who they are as person and as a colleague. We are getting there! In September we
caught up with Celine Bussiere who named the
2019 CASE conference as one of her recent highlights.
WELCOME BACK FAMILY FEAST: A BUZZ IN THE AIR
This night was all about
connecting and reconnecting, with a brief staff recognition ceremony hosted by board co-chairs Michelle O'Doherty and Daniel Spagnolo. Milestone pins were awarded to Liam Pignat (inaugural pin) while Anthony Stratton and Jennifer Cunningham received 10 years of service pins! Check out the
amazing photo album.
NEW FAMILIES MATTER CO-OP VIDEO SERIES
LiveWorkPlay is pleased to have provided support to
Families Matter Co-Op for production of their new
"life after high school" video series! There's also an appearance by Keenan to talk about employment. The series covers a range of topics from community participation to education in short engaging videos of 3-4 minutes.
LEARNING EXCHANGE 2020: MARCH 5-6
LiveWorkPlay is an original member of the
From Presence To Citizenship collaborative, an Ontario network of agencies that shares inclusive values, and most importantly, a commitment to practices that lead to welcoming communities where people with intellectual disabilities are included as contributing citizens. The annual gathering has moved from February to March for 2020, so please save the dates! There is also a pre-gathering on the evening of March 4 for those who arrive in Toronto the day before.
BUILDING LEADERSHIP CAPACITY
With financial support from the Ontario Ministry of Colleges, Training and Universities, LiveWorkPlay has engaged David Chalmers and Nexus Human Capital for "
Building Your Leadership Capacity" a series of in-person training sessions as well as individualized coaching (and provocative reading and writing in between). The staff team would like to thank supported individuals, their families, and our partner organizations for helping make this possible through scheduling changes and other accommodations. This challenging course is going to strengthen staff as individuals as well as grow our abilities as a team, and we hope that all those who have helped make it possible will see the benefits!
IS IT REALLY 25 YEARS?
it really is! Save the date and buy your tickets, our
25th anniversary celebration will be Thursday, May 7th and it will sell out. This time we're going to have a musical guest (we are close to confirming but not yet!) and making sure this is more of a party and less about speeches. But of course we do have to take a bit of a walk down memory lane, and
add a new chapter to our 20th anniversary book!
We hope you have enjoyed this jam-packed edition of The LiveWorkPlay News. If you like what you see, why not make a donation? We've got a new and improved donation form that saves you time and gives you more options!
