Supporting People with Disabilities to Direct their Lives

Our goal on this web page is to share video and resource links that highlight ways to build capacity, and strengthen and support people living with disabilities, including their right to make decisions and be supported in their choices. Also important, is hearing what people and families identify as having the opposite affect so we can learn from those experiences. Scroll down the page to the topics you are interested in. Contents include:

Looking Differently at Disability and Decision Making. A good description of supported decision-making in this video by Open Society Foundations.
Individualized Funding Coalition for Ontario information including a VIDEO that demonstrates the values and principles of the ‘coalition’ in one man’s life.
SIS Assessment Video with comments from the Past President of People First of Canada and three family leaders from Windsor and Essex County.

Looking Differently at Disability and Decision Making

Michael Bach, Managing Director of the Institute for Research and Development on Inclusion and Society (IRIS), describes “supported decision making” clearly and simply in just 3 minutes! Click the brown title above, or directly on the ‘Open Society video’, for a beautiful outline on how people with disabilities, with the support of those who know them best, can have control of their decision making.

Learn more about IRIS’s work on legal capacity here: https://irisinstitute.ca/priority_area/right-to-legal-capacity/ . Learn more about the work of Open Society Foundations on disability rights: https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/topics/disability-rights

For more on supported-decision making – another video with Michael Bach – Article 12 – The Challenge of Imagining Differently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrvUk85zvrU . Video taped in British Columbia at the 2015 International Conference, Claiming Full Citizenship – Self-determination, Personalization, Individualized funding. This video offers further information on the importance of interpreting the intention, will and preferences of people with disabilities, and legal frameworks that might validate their decision-making. Approximately 10 minutes long.

Individualized Funding Coalition for Ontario

A provincial resource for people with disabilities, and those who know them best, who are interested in self-determination and self-directed supports like individualized funding, supported-decision making and independent facilitation.

The Individualized Funding Coalition for Ontario (IFCO) offers excellent and timeless resources and information about individualized funding rooted in the values of self-determination. Important to Windsor-Essex, this ‘Coalition’ also promotes the option of independent facilitation as a key to a good life. Independent facilitation has been a hallmark approach supporting the voices and choices of people living with developmental disabilities in Windsor and Essex County since 1997 through Windsor-Essex Brokerage for Personal Supports. Many people living with a developmental/intellectual disability have been using individualized funding with the support of others for over three decades as they build a good life at every stage.

HORSE ENTHUSIAST – A VIDEO: See how Sean from Essex County (outside Windsor) is living out a favourite passion, with the support of family, friends, an independent facilitator and his community. By listening deeply to his unique ways of communicating, they have supported his will and preferences in the creation of tailoured supports. Video by Inclusion Press. Check out this Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV01D4hMGHc

The Individualized Funding Coalition for Ontario (IFCO) has a solid history as a valued partner with Windsor-Essex Family Network for providing mutual support over the years. From local grassroots participation at a provincial symposium in Orillia in the late 90’s, to our first IFCO community engagement conference in Windsor-Essex in 2001, to the IFCO Workfest in 2004, and numerous local and provincial gatherings from then on thru the years. This coalition has worked hard at educating and lobbying government about the need to enhance and expand individualized funding options over the years. To learn more go to the IFCO website. You can click on the brown title link above or go here: https://individualizedfunding.ca/

To check out some stories about what individualized funding means to IFCO members go to this webpage: https://individualizedfunding.ca/people-and-places/

SIS Assessment Video – Comments from People & Families

People and families living with developmental/intellectual disabilities in Ontario have had strong opinions about the Supports Intensity Scale (SIS) being used as a way to assess people applying for supports and services. Other jurisdictions, including the Province of Alberta, have stopped using this assessment tool, favouring more respectful approaches to assessing the supports that people need for the life they hope to live. Kory Earle was President of People First of Canada at the time this video was recorded. Kory and three local parent leaders, mothers from Windsor and Essex County, share their thoughts openly and candidly. Click on the brown title link above to watch the video, or on the picture.