SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
MAY 2017
If you’re a Nova Scotia resident or even a one-time visitor, chances are you’ve felt the impact of the Nova Scotia Residential Agencies Association (NSRAA). Sure, a stop by NSRAA. ca will tell you that it’s “a coalition of non-profit residential agencies serving persons with disabilities,” but the mission of these 46 member agencies province-wide can be as diverse as the communities and people they strive to serve. Three representatives from the NSRAA spoke with Spotlight on Business Magazine from their respective offices in April about their collective mission to make communities whole and healthy. On the phone that day was Karen Lake, Executive Director of the King’s Meadow Residence Society in Windsor, N.S.; Kevin Walker, Executive Director of the Yarmouth Association for Community Residential Options and former Chair of the NSRAA; and Heath Spencer, Executive Director of the Shelburne Association Supporting Inclusion.
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SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • MAY 2017
By David MacDonald I ’m going to confess to a degree of ignorance here: I’ve always assumed that a service like the one you provide at the NSRAA exists because of the inclusive reality of neighbourhoods and communities across Nova Scotia, but I haven’t really thought about who endeavours to make this happen. Can you please give the readers a brief history of the NSRAA? KW: The NSRAA was incorporated under the Societies Act in 1993. It was basically a group of executive directors from non-profit organizations across Nova Scotia providing similar services who established it. What was in place before ‘93 were different institutional models in every corner of the province. This group had one belief in common, that people of all abilities belonged in community settings like everyone else. From this came many conver- sations about best practices in providing residential support for people with disabilities and their families in community settings. And how would you say this conversation has progressed during your tenure? KW: When I started working with people with disabilities in the late 1980s, children with disabilities who required support were largely supported by children’s training centres outside of the home. They weren’t living at home; they were living
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in large concrete buildings with a very institutional feel. There were often multiple beds in every room – even the furniture was institutional. They were supported by nurses, an administrator, and a variety of staff. It was government housing and everybody knew it. There was quite a variety of these training centres with each one serving particular disabilities, but more often than not, children were separated from their families by distance and policy. KL: Yes, the Kings Meadows group home here in Windsor was established in 1969 and throughout the ‘70s, the policy was that when someone came to the home, they weren’t to have any communication with their family for six weeks. It was, I suppose, believed that this was the best way to get residents to acclimate. This couldn’t be farther from how we operate now. Families are very much part of the life of res- idents. Families are constantly reaching out via Facebook and FaceTime. “To have success in a community, you have to help build a life – and that’s what NSRAA really does.” Just yesterday, I had a conversation with a resident’s sister who was vacationing in Myrtle Beach. Advance- ments in technology have made a huge difference. Families are involved in the daily lives of residents to provide the support we can’t – it’s really cool. KW: Absolutely. I think that the clinical feel that was in place before ’93 really moved the government towards the deinstitutionalization model. Thankfully, it was happening across the country and across the world. Everyone was recognizing how important it is to bring people with dis- abilities into the community. It didn’t make much sense, for instance, that someone with a hearing impairment in Cape Breton needed to live in Amherst or Halifax – that was happening quite often everywhere in the province. The new concept was to provide smaller homes in the commu- nity that were just like anyone else’s home: Less people in a non-institutional home, a regular house with no signs on it.
When this was starting to happen in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, it was non-profit organizations like ours who were trying to facilitate the transition into the community from the closure of training centres and other institutions. What kind of a role does the community play in the NSRAA’s mission and what does it look like when it’s happening? HS: Yes, community is the operative word here. It’s a com- munity for people, for families, and that’s been the vision from the beginning. The families were very involved in this process and in some cases were actually helping with the furnishings and the house in general. Being a part of the transition process meant they got to know the staff and the people that were going to be providing support for their children. It was a departure from the model that had been in place previously because it really did bring the family back into the forefront and it brought the people back to their home communities. Living amongst the people – relatives and friends and com- munity members – who had known them growing up was a huge juxtaposition from an institutional model where everything moved around the institution and its model. These small community-based models, these environments
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exist so that people can live in their homes.
NSRAA agencies now typically provide residential support for home living for adults, although we do have agencies that continue to support children in children’s homes, as well. I think it is fair to say the main focus is for adults now and as we progressed into that community living option, what used to be quite informal when it began has become quite formalized. KW: Yes, the majority of the service providers provide support to adults. There are a number of service providers that have dual services for children and adults – about three or four agencies out of the group. “That’s what community living is: community solutions.” But it’s important to note that a lot of the adults who we support now were those same kids coming back home from the training centres in late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Many of them can say that they grew up in the community with their family. Under the Homes for Special Care Act, the process is much more regulated and there’s still a lot of room for improve- ment. It really wasn’t tailored for home living or living in the community in the 21 st century. It is quite dated and still needs a lot of improvement. Amending or changing the Special Care Act is a constant state of affairs and certain- ly we work very closely with governments to try to come up with solutions that work better. There’s a great deal of due diligence that needs to be done and then coordinat- ed on the community and government ends of things. It may require an act of the Legislature to motivate the kind of change we want to see on the provincial level. Are most people surprised when they learn that yours is a struggle that invokes the most basic statutes of the United Nations and Canadian Human Rights Act? HS: Yes, absolutely. People don’t realize, usually, how much change there still is to make in Canada. What motivates these changes is a process we call ‘Transformation,’ which will inform you a little bit about the government’s efforts.
KW: Yes, the previous NDP government began this process and the current Liberal government has signed on to follow through with ‘Transformation.’ At its most fundamental level, ‘Transformation’ is a process across governments which are really trying to change services for people with disabilities. It aims to provide a more person-directed approach and by person-directed, that means the person who is receiving the support has more of the control over what supports they receive and how they receive them. It’s the driving force or mechanism that has allowed us to basically close down the numerous institutions and bring people back home and move them into their home com- munity in smaller and smaller settings. This is something that is going to occur over time and there have been cer- tainly lots of deadlines met – and deadlines broken – and certainly a lot of work on behalf of the government and on behalf of the community agencies. But it’s not some- thing that anyone can do in a vacuum; I think in order for the services to be available for people in all communities, urban and rural, you also have to have the department of health on board. You need access to numerous resources to support people with various needs, like psychiatric and mental health support, general health practitioners, com- munication specialists, and social workers. Some of these services are difficult for anyone in Nova Scotia to acquire. We still have a long way to go when it comes to access to reliable transportation, education, and physical activity and help. The bottom line is this: The more complex the needs of the individual, the more supports they need within their community to succeed. “Families are very much part of the life of residents. Families are constantly reaching out via Facebook and FaceTime. Just yesterday, I had a conversation with a resident’s sister who was vacationing in Myrtle Beach.” HS: Some options are small options where three to four people are living in a community home. Some options are
a little bigger with four, five, six, or seven people living in a community home. There are, remember, 46 NSRAA agencies across the province, so the needs vary from place to place. The Independent Living Support Program sees residents of these communities applying for an apartment of their own, for instance, and then after approval they are setup with an independent living support worker who works with them for a number of hours a week, assisting them with what we would call activities of daily living. KW: That reminds me of something that Michael Kendrick, an internationally recognized consultant in human services and community work supporting people with disabilities, always says: It’s not enough to just build buildings. To have success in a community, you have to help build a life – and that’s what NSRAA really does. KL: I couldn’t agree more. The NSRAA helps build lives and I think where the brick-and- mortar model failed, the com- munities are succeeding. The people we assist really have a purpose in life. Many of them go to work, school, they have big social circles and participate in community activities like church groups and sports teams. All of the things that you would put together and collectively make up a life. Historically, people with disabilities were “protected” from all of this and I think the push toward community living and inclusive living has been breaking down barriers every- where that it exists. Full acceptance from the community makes the community stronger. What people in communities need to realize about what we do is that it’s up to the people with disabilities who we serve who ultimately figure out what their needs are and how to put together an individualized plan. When you see someone with a disability living and working and partici- pating in a community, it’s because they want to be there doing what they do, what they love. Are there any particular approaches that have seen more success than others in regard to community living? KL: I wouldn’t say that there’s a specific contextual program that we all follow, but we certainly all reach toward the goals set out in our mandate. Those mandates focus on per- son-directed programming, valuing, and listening to what people say. Everyone we serve knows to some degree how they want to participate in their own communities, so it’s not about what we think is best or not. Do you ever work directly with property developers and real estate agencies? KW: There are certainly individual landlords who work with a variety of the agencies throughout Nova Scotia and there is actually a lot of discussion about how to go about doing this. It is, for example, very difficult to secure the financial backing to buy a house as a non-profit. The hoops you have to jump through aren’t any easier on our end of things. Many of the smaller communities have even more difficulty when
it comes to financing property and finding support. Gener- ally, the larger agencies have a better relationship with their banks and are able to come up with more creative ways of financing. When you’re dealing with one or two houses it’s more dif- ficult than when you have a lot of homes. So in terms of real estate, some of the agencies own their own homes and some rent their homes. It’s important to remember that all of these agencies are governed by a board of directors, because they are non-profits. Each of the 46 agencies has a slightly differ- ent view of how things should go or what they’re willing to support. The training centres tried the one solution model and we’re not willing to go back to the one solution system. That’s what community living is: community solutions.
That’s about as grass roots as it gets.
KW: It is very grass roots. Our board, for example, has been in existence for many years. It began as a group of aging parents who had children with disabilities and they were scared about what was going to happen to their children when they could no longer provide support for them in their
own home. This isn’t a unique situation to Yarmouth and Digby. They worked as hard as I’ve ever seen anybody work to get this off the ground – and it didn’t happen overnight. It takes incredible commitment and I’m sure my counter- parts have similar stories. KL: Yes, that’s the basic need that got us rolling in the town of Windsor: People looking for supports for their family at home. HS: The move from institutions into the community clearly necessitated increased capacity, but it’s a need that persists across the province. More community homes need to be built and I’m sure everyone else in the NSRAA would agree with that. And that requires the release of more capital funding from governments. “Everyone we serve knows to some degree how they want to participate in their own communities, so it’s not about what we think is best or not.” I sit on the board for the Western Regional Housing Author- ity, so I know first-hand that it’s an issue that’s tied-up with many more issues. The question of housing models and independent living apartments are directly connected to our clients’ rights to land, their ability to own their homes, and their rights in general. We’re always watching devel- opments closely and working with governments to move things along. But there are hundreds and hundreds of people in institutions waiting for our services. We can do better. It seems like it’s not an issue pertaining to inclusion, but one of community enrichment. KW: And that’s just it. Everyone belongs in the community to enjoy and contribute to laughter, love, happiness, and friendship. That should be everyone’s goal. KL: I agree. One of our clients here at King’s Meadows, who’s been there for over 40 years, has recently retired from work. He worked in the community and was involved in the community. He’s just a driven man. He worked at a local garage and, like a lot of people, struggled with his decision to retire. He’s 67 now, so needless to say the decision took him a few years. One of his supports, his advocates, sat down with him and told him that if he retired, they’d get him drumming lessons once a week so that he could take on a new challenge post-retirement – and reminded him that he could shovel more snow if he retired, which he loves. He’s also taking French classes at a local library as well, because, he says, he has French heritage and it brings him a lot of pleasure. He still stays involved with Special Olympics,
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SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • MAY 2017
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
HS: Well, we’re always heading towards a greater synergy and partnership between the NSRAA and provincial orga- nizations, chambers of commerce, and local business com- munities. For me, everything really begins with residential services. It’s these services which really provide the founda- tion to security and the safety of a home that is an impera- tive part for anyone’s life progression. The confidence, the sense of achievement that comes from a permanent sense of place isn’t like anything else. Daily activities, like employ- ment, depend on this level of support, this level of security. And considering that we employ a holistic approach, a com- munity living model, really, that also emphasises recreation and leisure, we do reach out to individuals, businesses, and programs all the time. But we’re seeing, more and more, that they’re reaching out to us, which is great. Is there an urban and rural divide in terms of the quality of the delivery of your overall services across Nova Scotia? KW: I think access to services is the biggest issue. There is certainly more access to medical and specialist services of any sort in a city like Halifax. Even getting a doctor can be difficult in a place like Yarmouth where you may be on the waiting list to get a general practitioner for longer than you’d like to think. That’s not to say that people in Halifax don’t have a difficult time finding a GP, but even if you can’t get to your own doctor there are plenty of clinics there. You can’t do this; we can’t serve our clients in a vacuum. We have clients who wait in outpatients at hospitals around the province for upwards to 48 hours. It takes much more to support people
to be successful in the community. This is time away from home, away from family, away from work. As a province, we can do better and learn from our mistakes and missteps. HS: This is absolutely something that comes up time and again in meetings with DIRECTIONS, our sister council that provides vocational services. The social return that govern- ment departments see when they invest in our services and the people we aspire to serve is nothing short of transfor- mative. To speak to Kevin’s point more directly, an influx of medical support workers and doctors into communities with complex needs is desperately needed. It’s something that whole communities would benefit from. Are the NSRAA’s retirement plan initiatives something that is more personalized as Karen spoke to earlier? KL: If I could just again comment on that: I think it’s very much an individualized process at its core, which it should be. It’s all about addressing how the individual wants to meet the change in their life and if they want to make that change now, next year, or even further down the road. So it is very personalized. KW: There’s no question that with an aging population that the need for multiple levels of support increases. We’re dealing with what many care givers across Nova Scotia are dealing with: Things that were not issues ten years ago have become bigger issues now in terms of support.
Bill is helping someone enjoy a better life. Bill O’Farrell visited Summer Street on several occasions and always admired what he saw. When he began to think about gift planning he decided to call Executive Director, Bob Bennett and went on a full tour. “I had no idea how much was really happening there. The enthusiasm and sense of happiness and well-being I saw were truly inspiring.” Now retired, Bill spent 55 years in the automobile industry, most of that time as owner of the GM franchise in Pictou County. His generous gift of shares realized a significant gain when they were transferred and made an even greater impact than originally imagined. Have you thought about Planned Giving? Summer Street and other Directions Council members rely on your support to sustain programs across the province. Talk to your lawyer, accountant or financial planner to learn about your options.
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Everyone wins with Summer Street Works! When you hire through Summer Street Works you gain a loyal employee with a strong desire to do a good job. You also give someone an opportunity for greater independence and inclusion in ways many of us take for granted. Our clients are trained in a variety of vocational skills as well as workplace safety and expectations. We provide job coaching, help with orientation and ongoing support for employers and new employees. Options can include full and part-time employment or subcontracting for specific tasks. Enrich your workplace through diversity and inclusion. Join over 60 businesses and organizations in Pictou County who are experiencing the benefits of hiring through Summer Street Works. Contact us today to get involved or learn more.
Contact Julie Dignan 902-755-1745 ext. 242 julie@summerstreet.ca
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www.cbcha.ca Everyone wins with Summer Street Works! When you hire through Summer Street Works you gain a loyal employee with a strong desire to do a good job. You also give someone an opportunity for greater independence and inclusion in ways many of us take for granted. Our clients are trained in a variety of vocational skills as well as workplace safety and expectations. We provide job coaching, help with orientation and ongoing support for employers and new employees. Options can include full and part-time employment or subcontracting for specific tasks. www.bonnyleafarm.ca Enrich your workplace through diversity and inclusion. Join over 60 businesses and organizatio s in Pictou County who are experiencing the benefits of hiring through Summer Street Works. Contact us today to get involved or learn more.
Contact Julie Dignan 902-755-1745 ext. 242 julie@summerstreet.ca
When you hire through Summer Street Works you enrich your workplace and help build a better community.
SUMMER STREET IS A MEMBER OF DIRECTIONS COUNCIL NS
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as spotlighted in the MAY 2017 issue of SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
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