Friday, September 05, 2008
   
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Hamilton Family Network in the News!

These models wear smiles

The Talk
October 18, 2007
The Hamilton Spectator

Catherine Abrams wasn't too sure she wanted to join the modelling team for the Hamilton Family Network fundraiser.

But close friend Maria Paz Gonzalez coaxed her until she agreed. And Emily Burke-Gaffney said yes, too.

They are young women with disabilities who enjoy clothes and the chance to wear new fashions. And they love working with their special friend, Tina Travale, an independent fashion co-ordinator for Weekenders Canada.

 

To read more, please click here

 

Waterdown is some kind of wonderful

By Catherine O'Hara

News, September 7, 2007

 

Isn't it wonderful to live in Waterdown? The Rotary Club of Waterdown, the Hamilton Family Network and local resident Vanessa Szkut certainly think so.

For the past eight weeks, Szkut, 22, alongside her entourage of friends and family, has traveled to local businesses, setting up shop each week and giving away a product to shoppers as part of the Rotary Club's "If I Had a Thousand Dollars" campaign.

 

In March, the Rotary Club of Waterdown appealed to the community. Groups and individuals were encouraged to submit their thoughts on how they would spend $1,000 to help support local groups, projects and families in need.

 

Hamilton Family Network's Carrie Leo spearheaded the "Isn't it Wonderful to Live in Waterdown Day" initiative, which wrapped up last week. Inspired by a recent episode of Oprah, in which the talk show host awarded each of her audience members $1,000 with instructions to pay it forward, Leo and Szkut drafted a plan similar to Oprah's project for the Waterdown community.  To read more, please click here

 

Family Alliance Ontario Election Issues

Affirm Choices for people with developmental disabilities and their families by:

 

1.  Meaningful individualized funding  not $6M out of $200M – should have been $60M  

 

2.  No more budgets of $200M with $191M to disability industrial complex and $9M to people and their families

 

3.  Alternatives to group home living:  funds directly to people to live (rent/own) like other citizens in Ontario communities

 

4.  Independent planning to live in typical community – stop funnelling people into services that segregate and congregate, creating new ghettos

 

5.  End fiscal discrimination:  Close the wage gap between family employers and agency employers.

 

6.  Stop withholding individualized funding and forcing placement in long term care facilities. 

 

7.Work with Family Alliance and People First, listen to the primary stakeholders

 

8. Honour self-determination and citizenship

Families Send Feedback to Ministry

On November 30, 2004, Family Alliance Ontario submitted a report to the Ministry of Community and Social Services in response to the Ministry's call for advice on how the Developmental Services System should be transformed.

See the cover page for links to the 5 sections of the report produced with input from family networks.  

 

The KIT: Keeping it Together

Available at the McMaster University Bookstore!




See flyer for details
 
Free Stuff


The Toys "R" Us Toy Guide for differently abled Kids is available at the Network office. Some cute ideas for kids since Christmas is not far away and some really cute photos of kids with disabilities enjoying themselves.

SchwabLearning's Parent's Guide to helping children with learning differences and other free educational publications can be downloaded here. SchwabLearning is affiliated with Dr. Mel Levine's organization called All Kinds of Minds which can be found online at http://www.allkindsofminds.org/

Please keep us updated with any information about your organization's news and we will post it!

 

Letter to Premier McGuinty

To Premier McGuinty:

 

This communication is to request an urgent meeting with the Family Alliance Ontario to address the following critical issues facing families  throughout Ontario.  The Minister of Community and Social Services met with Family Alliance Ontario representatives prior to the budget but her staff have not returned calls or emails for another meeting since budget announcements.

 

In May 2007, the Minister of Community and Social Services announced a $200M budget for Developmental Services.  $9M went to people with developmental disabilities and their families to hire support workers to enable participation in community life.  The remainder has gone to the "revitalization of traditional agency infrastructure and wages." The Minister has promised a transformation "of developmental services to enable people with developmental disabilities to live lives of independence with full citizenship.”  Pouring millions of dollars into the old system will not accomplish this.

 

The Passport Program, which provides direct funding to persons with developmental disabilities and their families to hire support workers, has been devastatingly underfunded. Out of the $200M only $6M was dedicated to this program.  What does that mean?

 

Throughout the province, youth who have finished high school applied for Passport only to be overwhelmingly rejected.

 

In Hamilton, 174 people applied for Passport.       4 are funded.

In Niagara,                                                       1 person funded.

Eastern Region, Ottawa area                              24 funded.

In Peterborough, 102 people applied.                  7 are funded.

In Toronto, over 400 applied.                             33 are funded.

In London area 262 applied.                               11 are funded.

Durham Region (Pickering to Port Hope) 35         8 funded.

Windsor-Essex 120 applied                                 6 funded.

*numbers approximate

  

Throughout the province, the story is the same.  Many 100's of young adults with developmental disabilities are left with no support and will languish at home.  How are families, the largest care-giver group in Ontario, supposed to survive with no meaningful support to help them do their job?  Are parents expected to quit their jobs to remain at home with their young adult who cannot participate without support?

 

We also wish to draw your attention to another issue.  We are at a loss to understand why workers employed by families through direct funding have been left out of the "wage gap funding."  Over the next

four years the Ministry of Community and Social Services has committed to allocate $200M to agencies including this wage gap funding to address the need for increasing the salaries of support workers.  Why

is the ministry denying wage gap funding to support workers who are hired directly by families?    The Family Alliance Ontario has communicated with the Policy Branch of MCSS and they have confirmed

that the wage gap funds are strictly reserved for agency staff.  This feels discriminatory against families who are wishing to have control over the people who work so intimately with their sons and daughters.

 

It is well known that workers who are hired directly by disabled individuals and their families typically have lower salaries and fewer benefits than workers hired by agencies.  Yet the ministry has deliberately excluded them, thereby threatening the sustainability of supports administered by families.

 

Over the past four years, the present government has consistently excluded families from periodic distributions of funds for salary increases.  Families have patiently endured this as they participated

in discussions of "transformation" with MCSS at the Partnership Table.

 

The issue of uppermost importance to us is the treatment of people with disabilities as full citizens with the right to choose the life they want to live, and the right to self-direct their supports.  We expect the government to honour families and to invest in families.

 

The promised "transformation" is unacceptably slow. Families are waiting impatiently for the day whey anyone who is eligible for disability supports can choose the options of self-directed supports through individualized funding; a custom long established in other provinces.

 

We request a meeting with you in the next few weeks, prior to the provincial election to discuss these critical issues.

 

Sincerely,

 

Family Alliance Ontario

 

The KIT can help...

Are you overwhelmed by the amount of information you receive about services for your child and family? Are you fed up having to repeat the same information over and over to each new servie person you meet? If so, a new project by CanChild and the Hamilton Family Network can provide you with a KIT -- a ring binder and manual filled with information about how to make good use of your time and ideas. The KIT is a way to organize the informtion you give and receive about your child with a disability and your family.

 

Now, with the support of the Easter Seal Society, it is ready to be field tested by people like you.

 


What's involved? We would like interested people to try out the KIT and to keep a record of its use. We want to know what you like about it, what should be improved. We will ask those who sign up to use the KIT specific questions about it three times over the coming year. No personal questions will be asked -- we only want to learn about your impressions of the KIT itself.

To find out more, please call:
Salina Jaffer at CanChild: (905) 525-9140 ext: 27660 or
Jan and Therese at the Hamilton Family Network: (905) 526-7190

 

 
'SPIRIT' by Andrea Michaluk

"SPIRIT" by Andrea Michaluk

Find more beautiful art work
http://www.geocities.com/rgilez/
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