Category Archive

In my 50+ years with Community Living, I have known only one person who wanted to return to an institution. In 1972, that man was brought out of the institution where he had grown up in Orillia. There he had enjoyed a favoured role delivering mail to the staff, and he generally had the run of the place. He found … Read More

In an op-ed in December 2020, Judith Sandys and Trish Spindel spoke directly to Canadians who, themselves, have never been forced into insulting, disrespectful and inevitably threatening living (or dying) conditions. They argue that the time has truly come for society to provide appropriate funding and “real choice” rather than what, currently, we broadly refer to as “long-term care (LTC).” … Read More

The pandemic we have all experienced over the past year has reaffirmed to me the important role local associations for community living have in supporting people with disabilities in the community. I would like to share the journey we had with a gentleman we supported for over twenty years at our agency – South-East Grey Support Services. This gentleman was … Read More

Linda Till in her role as a policy advisor to Seniors for Social Action Ontario (SSAO) is quite qualified to comment on the illusion of care in the long-term care sector. Linda witnessed first-hand the effects of institutionalization in the 1980s on children with disabilities in Homes for Special Care when she worked for CLO. Linda deconstructs the myth of high-intensity … Read More

Judith Sandys, a long-time educator, advocate and thoughtful leader in the community living movement writes about the power of “assumptions” in determining the kind of life a vulnerable person may get to live out. Sandys calls out the danger of limiting assumptions that may put people in harm’s way. The relationship between how one thinks and how one treats another … Read More

Kay Wigle is a local association board member, social activist, and former Coordinator of the DSW program at Fanshawe College in London (retired). In this week’s Aging-in-Place series, Wigle raises the thorny question about the acceptance of long-term care placement as a normative part of the aging process. She challenges this orthodoxy for everyone, but especially for people who have a … Read More

In this week’s Supporting Aging-in-Place story, well-known community living researcher, activist, author and speaker Dr. John Lord writes through the lived experience of his parental role as he discusses the crisis in Ontario’s long-term care system. Expressing both joy and worry for his daughter, John reminds us of the concern shared by all parents – the uncertain future for their children. With … Read More

Community Living Ajax Pickering Whitby (CLAPW) offer a profound definition of “aging-in-place” and share with us their knowledge of and commitment to what it takes to support people lifelong. Lisa McNee Baker, Executive Director, describes the association’s work with end of life and hospice care, the need to tailor supports to people as they age, as well as recent efforts to … Read More

Our exploration of aging-in-place continues this week with a look at some of the remarkable work being done by Community Living London (CLL) to keep the people it supports out of long-term care. We spoke to Executive Director Michelle Palmer and Accommodation Services Manager Aileen Watt about CLL’s approach to supporting people as they age. To help people age-in-place, CLL makes every effort to be as flexible as possible to accommodate people’s needs as they get older. One … Read More

When discussing what can be done to reform long-term care, it’s easy to focus on what we’re doing wrong. People who have a disability, many of them young, continue to be dumped in long-term care facilities ill-equipped to meet their needs. Our elders – with and without disabilities – are too often stripped of their autonomy and forced into crowded, potentially dangerous congregate settings. Yet the future of long-term care may be closer than we imagine: Innovative … Read More