when he can, and during his downtime, he loves watching the soaps and the Yankees. This just didn’t happen before. It wasn’t that long ago – ten or fifteen years ago, maybe – that for someone to retire to the group home that they’d been living in for perhaps up-to 40 years was a rare thing. Usually, they were forced to go to a nursing home. HS: The range of ability, the huge range, of people we support shows you that our belief in people’s success is genuine. When our clients take-on the responsibility of acquiring life skills so that they can gain and maintain inde- pendence, that really speaks to me. You have to understand that some of our clients come from institutions where many of the needs of daily life are provided. There is a misper- ception that these high level support clients cannot even make choices and that their abilities are extremely limited and that’s just not true. We see changes throughout the NSRAA every day that are really quite profound. Choice is a powerful motivator and, I think, the most basic human element that we provide. KW: I think that was spot-on. There are so many positive things going on in communities across Nova Scotia that the NSRAA has facilitated that you could not even begin to quantify them, nor could you qualify them. When you start to, you realize quickly that some things are so small to the average human being that could be so huge to others. The small gains are huge and only the people who work closely with clients get to see those moments and milestones. One of the high points for me personally is the Shanty Cafe in Yarmouth. It’s a restaurant and coffee shop that’s earned a certificate of excellence on TripAdvisor and it is recog- nized not because of anybody who works there in terms of their disabilities, but it is recognized for the quality of service that people get and the quality of food that they get. It just happens to be the social mission of the Shanty to hire people with barriers to employment. It’s the perfect example of how a successful plan can thrive while enriching the community. There is one young man in particular who’s employed at the Shanty and it’s really giving him his identity as a young man and as a working man. He loves to go into work every day and he feels good about who he is. He also loves to be recognized and that he’s become the unofficial face of the Shanty. He comes from a small community on the French Shore and the people in the community all rec- ognize this guy as being the face of the Shanty and it’s really caught on elsewhere. When they come in, his fans, I mean, it gives us an incredi- ble feeling of who he is now and it validates who he is and anything that validates a person as an individual in this way is benefitting the whole community and surrounding com- munities. People we support have been stigmatized and they have been excluded from many things for many, many years and it is a wonderful thing when you see people being recognized for the value they bring to a community. There is certainly an element of diplomacy to what you do at the NSRAA, isn’t there?
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MAY 2017 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
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