Steven’s Dream – by Chad Clippingdale

Three months ago I attended a course on Optimal Individual Service Design in Vernon put on by Michael Kendrick and Janet Klees. One of the aspects of the course was that we would be paired up with an individual from the local community who was presently receiving services and together we would create an optimal plan that would look to meet that individuals unique needs. Rumor had it that there was one individual who was really interested in drinking beer and watching hockey, two things I am extremely fond of myself. I silently hoped that I would be matched up with this person. Later when I found out that I had been matched up with a man named Steven, I inquired to some of the course participants who were familiar with the local agency and would you believe it, he was the one who liked hockey and beer.

I spent lots of time over the next few weeks getting to know Steven and working with him and those in his surrounding network to create a plan for what Michael Kendrick called a “good life”.  At the end of the course, my group and I presented our proposal for Steven to the rest of the course participants. One point of feed back was that we didn’t dream big enough in our proposal of what would constitute a meaningful life for Steven. Hearing this, I decided to throw out a question to the rest of the group: What if Steven had the opportunity to fly down to Vancouver, meet up with me, and watch his favourite team in the whole world, the Vancouver Canucks, from really great seats. People agreed that that would be really great, and that was the extent of the discussion.

During the break from the course I was approached by Gary and Henry, the directors of the two local community living organizations, who both mentioned their connections to being able to get Canucks tickets. We all agreed that Henry would look into getting Steven and I tickets through his connection.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks later and I hear from Steven’s mother, Joan, that Henry has come through with two tickets to a game on January 5^th, and that she is looking into flights for her and Steven to come down to Vancouver. Amazingly, January the 5^th is Steven’s birthday. A couple of weeks later the flights were finalized and there are plans in place for me to meet Steven and his mother at the Coast Vancouver Airport Hotel for dinner, before Steven and I go to the game. After dinner at White Spot on the night of the game, Steven and I headed downtown to GM Place. After parking at an overpriced lot, we walked over to the arena and tried to find a way inside. After walking around basically the whole building, we had still not found a wheelchair entrance (Steven had recently started using a wheelchair). We came to the outside entrance to the Canucks merchandise store and asked the man at the door if he knew of a wheelchair entrance to the building. He asked me where my tickets were. I showed him and he suggested going through gate 16. For some reason he decided to accompany us there. He asked about the tickets and I showed him where we were sitting. He replied that our tickets were not in a wheelchair zone. I said that was okay as Steven could walk with my support.

This is where things got interesting. The man asked us to wait while he got his supervisor on the phone, and while he was waiting for her to come and talk to us we got to telling him the story of how we got the tickets, finishing with the part about how coincidently the game happened to fall on Steven’s birthday. Once they found that out they were determined to get us a better set of seats.

We sat there for awhile while 3 members of the Canucks host team looked for seats for us. Eventually we were asked to follow them down a corridor, through a door, and into the bottom of GM Place. We got to there area where the zambonis were parked just in time to see the referees go running out onto the ice. It turns out they put us in some of the best seats in the whole place. We were at the glass, right behind the Canucks goalie, Roberto Luongo. By some chance of fate, the people who usually sit in the best seats in all of GM Place could not make it to the game on the night where Steven happened to be in town, which also happened to be his birthday. I’m not religious, but if that is not a miracle then I don’t know what is. Oh, and the game, the Canucks kicked butt. Pucks, sticks and bodies smashed the glass in front of us, Fin the mascot was standing beside us on numerous occasions, and hats flew over our heads after Alex Burrows scored his third goal of the game, completing his hat trick. The Canucks ended up winning 7-3.

The best part is that it couldn’t have happened to a better guy. Steven is an individual who is so friendly and accepting of everyone he meets and his positive attitude is contagious. He is a person that welcomes new people into his life without hesitation. I know because I experienced it first hand. He is a great guy, who got a great birthday present, and I am so grateful that things came together for him to make this night a reality. Someone once said “Dream no small dreams for they have no part to move the hearts of men”. Consider my heart moved.

I would like to thank everyone who made this experience possible for Steven: Michael Kendrick, Janet Klees, Henry from Kindale Society, Gary from North Okanagan Community Living, Joanne and Julie from Kindale, and Steven’s mother, Joan.

 

Spectrum’s e-newsletter for February

Happy Valentines day to everyone!   The Olympics are upon us, and we’re still not sure what things will look like for transit or busyness or closures…  let us know if you need assistance and we’ll do our best to help.   In this issue: our annual New Year’s tea, inukshuks, person of the month, Seth Godin’s idea of linchpins, a Spectrum Sun Run team, Policy and Procedure minutes…   if you have things you’d like to see here, please let us know: newsletter@spectrumsociety.org

We all had a great time at the annual Spectrum New Year’s Tea.   Thanks Debra, her team and her family for hosting such a special day – with great food, lots of goodies, and an Olympics Wii event!

 

Spectrum’s Person of the Month: Chad Clippindale

We welcome Chad to the Manager’s team! We look forward to working with him in this new capacity and being inspired by his great energy!

Who do you work with?

I currently work with a couple of guys who have graduated high school and are making the transition into adult life. Their names are Fraser and Charlie. They are really great guys and are lots of fun to hang out with. In addition to working with Fraser and Charlie, I also manage their program. I also manage Chris’s day program and am in the process of helping Ray set up a program for a woman named Helena, which I will also be managing. I also help out with the Community Inclusion group.

What is your favorite thing about your job?

It’s hard to choose one. I love the idea of recognizing people’s strengths and working with those. Each of us has a unique set of abilities to share with the world, and I believe that these are the areas in which a person can grow the most. I also enjoy the fact that this is a job where there is a constant opportunity to learn. Because this seems to be a field of work that is in transition to a new way of supporting individuals, there is no defined right way to do things. That leads to this approach where you are really forced to learn what works with a given individual and what doesn’t. Then it’s like you have to constantly critically evaluate what is good and what could be better, and then learn how to help a person make things better. Of course there are also the relationships that I have formed with the individuals I have supported in the past and the many interesting staff members at Spectrum.

What’s your favorite thing about Spectrum?

That we hire interesting people. I have met more cool people here than at every other job I have ever had combined. I think we often look for people who have dynamic personalities. I like that everyone who works for Spectrum has the opportunity to grow and to influence the growth of this organization through their input. I like the direction that Spectrum is heading, spending time with people like David Pitonyak and Michael Kendrick, and incorporating their visions into the support we provide for individuals.

What other kinds of jobs have you had before? 

I worked as a landscaper before coming to Spectrum. All I got out of that was a sore back. In high school I worked at a gas station and I spent some time doing construction as well. I also taught snowboarding lessons at Grouse Mountain. At university I worked as a lab assistant running people through psychological tests. One summer I worked as a support worker in a recreational summer camp on Vancouver Island and I enjoyed it a whole lot. I had never had a job where I actually looked forward to going to work before. After I finished university I was building my own landscaping company and decided I didn’t want to be doing that type of work for the next 30 years. Based on the great time I had at the summer camp I applied to a whole bunch of non-profits. Spectrum was the only place that called me back.
 
Tell us a bit about your life…

I am a Vancouverite, born and raised. I grew up on the North Shore and lived there until very recently. I went to school at Simon Fraser University, where I took Psychology. An education in psychology left me feeling like all that people were interested in was looking at what is wrong with people. We were knowledgeable on the symptoms and various deficits that went along with any given mental disorder. It was really frustrating because people were defined by what was wrong with them, and they were helped based on what was wrong with them. I came to believe that this might not be the best way to help people in a meaningful way, that the whole field of psychology was missing the boat, and that I had just spent tens of thousands figuring this out. I guess the result is that I really try to define people by what is great about them (which is always a work in progress). Some things that I enjoy doing when I am not at work are playing hockey, hiking, reading, and writing.
 
What are your goals?

I would really like to continue to support people as best as I can and to constantly improve my skills in that area. I would also like to help some people that I support to accomplish some really big dreams that they might have. Personally I would like to travel to Ireland, Nepal and Peru, and write a book one day.

If I could change one thing……

My socks. I only have one pair. Seriously though, I would change society in a way that would bring focus to the strengths of all individuals in society, especially those that have been historically marginalized. People with disabilities, at risk youth, those who are homeless, individuals who are elderly, people with mental illness, etc., would all be welcomed in society and seen as people who had meaningful contributions to make and important information to share.

 

Seth Godin’s latest great idea: who’s your linchpin?

From Seth Godin comes this terrific idea, on his blog.   ”Many months ago, I asked my readers to send me pictures of people who mattered, who made a difference–people they couldn’t live without. The result of that shout out is now published on the inside cover of my new book. …Celebrate the linchpins. We need more of them.”   Seth’s idea has been so popular, with people wanting to pay homage to people who’ve made a difference to their lives, that he’s created a new site for just this purpose:  linchpin   Check it out, upload a picture of someone who is a linchpin for you, see if you find yourself there…

I just uploaded a picture; see if you can find it

for a very cool “linchpin manifesto” that you can print out go here

 

Policy and Procedures Committee met on Jan 27th

Every three to four months throughout the year for the past 15 years, Spectrum’s Policy and Procedures Committee has met to review our policies and procedures, review concerns raised by teams, the folks we support and families, and explore ways to improve the services provided by Spectrum.  At Spectrum we believe that flexibility and creativity are important components in delivering quality services.  Policies and procedures may seem contrary to flexibility and creativity but the quality comes from the thoughtful balancing of the two concepts.   Consistent implementation of clear policies and procedures provides the people we support and our employees with a predictable experience.    Every year, we review and revise policies that people identified as needing clarification or improvement. 

The minutes of the Jan 27 meeting are on the Policy and Procedures website at:

• http://www.spectrumsociety.org/policy/default.aspx

The next meeting is scheduled for May 19th, 2010 at 4pm at the Spectrum Office.  We are going to try participation through a Skype connection for some staff that are not able to attend a four hour meeting without six hours of travel.

 

Inukshuks for the Olympics!

If you’re in Vancouver you’ll notice the Inukshuk symbol that was chosen from thousands of entries to represent the Olympics in British Columbia.   This design was created by one our friends, Elena Rivera MacGregor, who is a participant in a class that Susan and I have been taking.   Elena is, we believe, pretty much one of the faster thinkers we’ve ever met and it’s a gift to have her with us.  

Inukshuks are one of the oldest forms of art in the world, and are situated throughout the Arctic and into Greenland – they served many purposes, to direct hunters, to mark food caches and also as a kind of spiritual and tribal marker.   One of the things we like about them is the idea that some authors talk about, that an Inukshuk was made to simply break the loneliness of the isolation of what seemed to be an endless landscape of ice and snow, and that travellers would build Inukshuks at intervals so that, no matter where they were going, they would feel they were seeing a friend on the horizon.   From Wikipedia:

The word inuksuk means “something which acts for or performs the function of a person.” The word comes from the morphemes inuk (“person”) and -suk (“ersatz” or “substitute”). It is pronounced inutsuk in Nunavik and the southern part of Baffin Island (see Inuit phonology for the linguistic reasons). In many of the central Nunavut dialects, it has the etymologically related name inuksugaq (plural: inuksugait).

Despite the predominant English spelling as inukshuk, both the Government of Nunavut ^[9] and the Government of Canada through Indian and Northern Affairs Canada ^[10] are promoting the Inuit preferred spelling inuksuk.

A structure similar to an inuksuk but meant to represent a human figure, called an inunnguaq (ᐃᓄᙳᐊᖅ, “imitation of a person”, plural inunnguat), has become widely familiar to non-Inuit. However, it is not the most common type of inuksuk and is distinguished from inuksuit in general.

 

Spectrum Runners and Rollers – Join our Sun Run team!

There are many Spectrum folks and staff who have participated in the Sun Run in the past.  This year, the Policy and Procedures committee thought creating a Spectrum Team in the Sun Run would be a great way to build team spirit and encourage participation in a healthy community activity.  Th committee brainstormed ideas for a team name and chose “Spectrum Runners and Rollers” to recognize the many folks we support who also enjoy participating in the Sun Run.  Of course Walkers are welcome as well. 

The Sun Run will begin at 9am on Sunday, May 9 this year.  The entrance fee is $40.00. 

Online registration is available at: http://activenet1ca.active.com/vancouversunrun/ 

To register by mail or fax, follow this link: http://www.vancouversun.com/pdf/SunRunOnePageRegistration.pdf 

Sign up today – early registration for $40 is available until February 19th, 2010.  After February 19th, the price increases to $45.

 

“Song of Myself,” from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass

1
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.

 

our theme for 2010: Quality!

 

Spectrum leaders tackle collaging "Quality: what is it?" is a fun, fruitful and creative exercise. To see a larger version, click on the photo and open it in a new window.

Recently, we met with our Coordinators and Directors team and talked about, among other things, the idea of quality and how it differs for each of us, and how some things are the same.   The things that are the same are person-centredness, individualisation, family involvement, trying to provide the best workplace we can, ensuring people are trained for the work they want to do, that folks have choices.    These are some of the images that came out of that conversation in a collaging exercise that was fun and fruitful.  

In 2009 we found it useful to begin the year with a theme, “the sustainability tree.”   This conversation and the graphic that came out of it gave our leadership team things to focus on and pursue over the year, and clarified our direction and aim.   This year the theme that is coming us is that of “quality.”   For the last few years Spectrum has had a Quality Assurance department, headed up by Susan Stanfield and her team, and we’ve felt great about the improvements this focus has led to.    Many things are clearer, many ideas are more fleshed out, and much is feeling like we’re on the same page.    In our ongoing conversations leading to a strategic plan one of the themes has been “how do we ensure consistent quality?   how do we know what we’re doing is of the quality we intend?   how do we improve our quality of services?   how do we incorporate new ideas about what quality might mean?”   

It’s already been a fascinating range of discussions, with more on the horizon, involving Spectrum’s staff, affiliates, families, funders and leaders.   If you want to ensure your voice is heard, don’t hesitate to let us know by writing directors@spectrumsociety.org  

“Quality questions create a quality life. Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.”  Anthony Robbins

 

Spectrum’s January 2010 e-Newsletter

Happy New Year to everyone on our e-newsletter mailing list!

We’d love to see you at our annual New Year’s Tea at Van Dusen Gardens (this year we have an Olympics Wii theme!), first Sunday of the New Year, January 3rd, 1pm to 4pm at the Van Dusen Floral Hall.   Refreshments will be served.   For more information, email us at info@spectrumsociety.org .

What are you looking forward to in 2010?  What did you learn in 2009?   New Year’s Eve is often a time for making plans to do new things in new ways.  For example, I’m going to eat less meat this year.   I made this plan based on information I’ve read on the unsustainable farming practices used by factory farms to raise beef, pork and chicken.  I was also inspired by my daughter Tessa who decided that the Christmas turkey would be her last meat.  So we’ll be learning some new recipes and looking for those missing proteins and enzymes in other places.

What did Spectrum learn in 2009?  We learned that hosting David Pitonyak for a series of three day long workshops is inspiring, thought-provoking and somewhat stressful, but overall great experience for Spectrum.   Watch for more David P in 2010…

We learned that developing leadership is an ongoing priority for Spectrum.  Leadership comes in many forms.  We see it from self – advocates when they tell us what the priorities are in their lives, from front-line staff bringing new ideas to their teams, from managers building strong and inclusive teams around the people we support, from coordinators providng the resources and vision to their teams, from our Board of Directors when they identify priorities and objectives.

So we at Spectrum will be taking this experience and learning and applying it to the strategic plan we are developing for the next three years.  Stay tuned for your opportunity to participate in the strategic planning process. 

What are some of your New Years’ Resolutions?  Leave us a comment below!

You can subscribe to the newsletter on our website http://www.spectrumsociety.org or see it as a blog at http://sscl.wordpress.com/  Click on any heading to read the full article.  Feel free to forward this to those you think might be interested.   Our other e-publication is also a monthly newsletter that documents our work with Personal Support Networks around the province.   You can access this at http://101friends.wordpress.com and you can find out more about our project at our site www.101friends.ca   You can also subscribe to our 101friends newsletter from this site.

 

Spectrum’s Person of the Month: Virginia Adams

1. Who do you work with?

I work at the Spectrum Society office with Judy, Barb and Donna. I began working at the office in 1989 and continued working until I retired a few years ago. I help with banking, mailings and keeping the office forms ready for all of the folks we support.

2. What is your favorite thing about your job?

I enjoy helping people. I look forward to coming to the office to help everyone. Sometimes I am asked to come and do banking on my day off and I am happy to come in and help out. I always wanted to have an office job.

3. What’s your favorite thing about Spectrum?

I enjoy going on outings with my staff and my roommates. We go out for coffee, shopping, to the park for picnics when the weather is good and we have gone on vacation together as well. This past summer we took a trip together to Whistler. We had a nice time.

4. What other kinds of jobs have you had before?

When I lived at Woodlands I volunteered making beds.

5. What are your goals?

My goal is to continue to volunteer at the Spectrum Office.

6. If I could change one thing?

When I have big projects to do at the office I would like to stay longer
and finish them.

 

Thank you for being part of the Spectrum Family!

In December, we sent out special thank you cards to employees who have been part of our family for a long time.  Each employee received gift cards chosen by Judy, Naomi and Amy. 

Employees who have been with us since 1989 (20 YEARS!) are Aaron Johannes, Anne Maria Fulop and Frank Lam. 

Employees who have been with us since 1999 (10 YEARS!) are Tracey Hulme, Sarah Woollacott, Lisa Hartviksen, Carlos Costa, Jaro Welz, Joanne Collier and Vivica Littlejohn.

Employees who have been with us since 2004 (5 YEARS!) are Terry Piercey, Brenda Zeimer, Julia Mah, Tammy Leah Wilson, Breda Kolar, David Petersen, Steve Goodsell and Serge Pelchat. 

Thank you to each of you for the care and attention you provide to the people we support.  We hope you have enjoyed working with us as much as we have enjoyed having you on our team.

 

Person Centred Planning Part 2

Often, we find that people have turned “Person Centred Planning” into something more complicated or less meaningful than we feel it is.   We believe it is at the heart of everything we do.   To really see what we mean, you need to be still and thoughtful for a moment and just feel those hearts, the hearts of those we support, beating…  and the heart of the agency, beating and everything trying to stay in synch.    So if you really hold on to that image, there’s an aspect there of something that’s a sacred trust – not a process demanding to be accomplished or a paper that needs to be filled out, but something vital and central to all the rest of what we do.  

In some conversations, one has to hold on to the questions, the intangible, the numenous rather than look for the answers that will fit into the spaces on a form and look concrete at first glance.   The intention is always to make, as Susan says, the implicit, explicit – to make the intangible, tangible and doable… but for at least a moment just hold that idea of a heart beating: what do you want out of life?  where do you want to go?  who do you want to be with?  how do you want to do things?   Can we ask these questions of the folks we support without asking them of ourselves?  

To be a person centred plan, the process needs to be comfortable and familiar to the central person – they need to know what’s going on and to be in agreement with the way things are unfolding in the meeting.   Usually, almost always, they’ll want their families there and they’ll want their families to be comfortable.   Sometimes, they won’t want their families present and that’ll be important too – and then part of our job is to negotiate that with those family members who are used to being present.   No one should be surprised that a planning meeting happened without them when they’ve been involved previously.  In my experience, families that understand the rationale for their child wanting to take the leadership for a planning meeting are often quite moved and supportive of this effort.  

Always, careful and respectful listening will be involved.   Some people are really great at this, some of us need to keep working on it.    Part of the way that I learned how to do PATHs was by attending a day at TASH with Jack Pierpoint and the late Marsha Forrest and one of the things that they did was hand around a judge’s wig and everyone in the room got to hold it for a minute and ask themselves whether they wanted to wear it – did they want to sit in judgement or could they pass the wig on and be comfortable to not judge?   It was quite a long and incredible process to have the wig moving around the room, through fifty pairs of hands, as we prepared to be present for the focal person of the PATH, a young girl that hardly any of us knew, who was willing to be vulnerable so that we could learn something that she thought was important to our work together.  

So a person centred planning meeting can happen anywhere, any time, with any group of people or with the person alone – or they could just write down their plan, give it to the agency and that would be what we’re working on.   Our job is to facilitate, which means to make easier, the process.   But some of the folks we support are already great planners.   Planning and planning and planning again – which for some reason seems to be happening in a few of the places we’ve been invited into – often leads to a kind of deadness, a kind of ineffectiveness.   Often the initial goals aren’t being accomplished in the way the person wanted, so the people around them are tempted to have another meeting and create new goals…  there’s no bad intentions, but it’s always a good thing to look at what’s happened, what’s not happened, and debrief about what might have worked better. 

One powerful self-advocate invited me to her PATH and started by pulling out her last PATH and going step by step through it, looking at all the things she’d accomplished, things that hadn’t worked out, debriefing as she went, and also preparing us through that process to get ready for supporting her PATH for the following year.   She wasn’t looking for more ideas or better ideas, she was looking for buy-in as she planned for upcoming changes and new goals and built on accomplished goals.   In fact, through the PATH she would stop us and say, “Just a reminder, this is my PATH, it’s my life and I’m the one who is in charge here.”    I think this was one of the most perfect planning meetings I’ve ever been to.   On another occasion a man who was used to meetings that focused heavily on his family’s ideas for him, asked instead to meet alone and go for coffee.   We talked to his family, and they were happy to hear that he was making this move forward into independence.   It was an amazing, positive, thrilling conversation.   We went for coffee and he walked me through a list of five things that he wanted to work on over the next year.   That was also a great planning meeting.   Did I mention he has little verbal language, so most of the communication was in utterance and gestures and pointing.   One of his family’s concerns was that the people around him wouldn’t understand his communication and respect it, so they were very excited.

Things aren’t always comfortable to facilitate; sometimes people have very different ideas about what they want to do, or what they should do, than we have.   Sometimes they seize the opportunity of a planning meeting to confront us or their families with things that surprise us.   In a few meetings I’ve been given notice that my supports aren’t needed any more, after weeks of preparation for the meeting in which notice hadn’t been mentioned.   Often if we think back, after those moments, we realize that whatever it was probably wasn’t really a surprise.   We were, as Peter Block, would say “in collusion,” in making nice and pretending there were no issues and nothing to resolve.  

Next month: Person Centred Planning Part 3 – What’s a PATH?

 

Reading and talking about Peter Block: Join us!

Some of us who have been reading Peter Block’s Community: Structures for Belonging are feeling like we’d like to get together and talk about his ideas…  or about other ideas around building community that we’re reading about.   If you’d like to join us for a monthly group and talk about where we might meet and what we’d read and talk about it, let us know: psn@spectrumsociety.org     This offer is open to anyone at all who is interested in this conversation.