Upcoming Seminar: The Essential Support Role hosted by ABLE
Submitted by Diane Engelstad
For parents caring for an adult son or daughter with disabilities, the right paid help can provide the support for a good life, along with respite for family. But how do you ensure the support you engage is providing what you and your family member really need?
Janet Klees, Executive Director of Durham Family Resources, and a longtime advocate for families challenged by disability, will address this question on Wednesday, March 11, 2020, at Shiloh Christian Centre, in Fenelon Falls, at 7 pm. in a seminar called “The Essential Support Role: Interviewing, Hiring and Guiding Paid Workers.” The event is being hosted by ABLE, a local family support network. Shiloh Christian Centre is located at 183 County Road 8, 2 km west of Sobeys in Fenelon Falls.
Janet believes “paid support” is an essential bridging role to relationships. She will share her expertise and unique perspective on practical recruitment strategies; ideas on interviewing; language and the power of how we talk about and introduce people; and how to guide paid supports in a valuable role that is not “paid friendship.”
Janet Klees is passionate and articulate about the importance and value of everyone belonging. She delights in telling the stories of those thought by many to have been “unreachable,” reaching out and sharing their unique gifts. The focus of her work is to strengthen families, who go the extra mile to help their loved one enjoy the rich life we all long to have.
Janet is also the author of three books about her experience with several families who raised the Rougemount Housing Co-op in Pickering in the 1990s. The Housing Co-op remains a model for inclusion and participation of people with intellectual disabilities in a mixed residential setting.
ABLE is a family support community in Fenelon Falls that works to remove barriers to a good life for all. It is an initiative of the Kawartha Works Community Co-op. The group meets once a month, and sometimes holds seminars on pertinent topics to families. Visit the ABLE web page here.
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For information contact Diane Engelstad
705-887-7169
diane@engelstad.ca or ablefenelon@gmail.com
