Month: July 2020

aaron johannes, barb goode, disability, education, inclusion, LGBTQI, person centred planning, personal development, Sue SharplesLeave a comment

Love Carefully –

Aaron

There are so many interesting things in here it’s hard to know where to start.  Perhaps with Sue Sharples – recently retired after a successful career supporting folks with learning disabilities in the UK, then applied to the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust for funding to look more closely at some things that she had a good but as yet unsatisfying grasp on.  Like, relationships and folks with disabilities and sexuality. When Sue enquired about what was going on in B.C. she got a few names, and then Barb Goode and I decided we would like to talk to her.  Barb … Continue reading Love Carefully –

aaron johannes, advocacy, belonging, books, community, community living, disability, facilitation, research, toolsLeave a comment

Planning for Vulnerabilities with Self Advocates

Aaron

Why is there a photograph of Woodlands Institution in a posting about planning for vulnerabilities with self advocates?  Because, once upon a time, our society thought that the best way to keep people safe was to look them away.  Ken Scott, in his historical research article, The BC Public Hospital for the Insane, 1872-1902, writes of the earliest institution being built in 1878 and in 1894, only 16 years later, with a total of 117 patients there was already a royal commission into abuses: . . . to investigate questionable practices . . . when a male patient died after … Continue reading Planning for Vulnerabilities with Self Advocates

aaron johannes, belonging, community, community living, critical disability theory, disability, person centred planningLeave a comment

Stories about access and cognitive dissonance

Aaron

“In A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (1957), Leon Festinger proposed that human beings strive for internal psychological consistency to function mentally in the real world. A person who experiences internal inconsistency tends to become psychologically uncomfortable and is motivated to reduce the cognitive dissonance. They tend to make changes to justify the stressful behavior, either by adding new parts to the cognition causing the psychological dissonance or by avoiding circumstances and contradictory information likely to increase the magnitude of the cognitive dissonance. “Coping with the nuances of contradictory ideas or experiences is mentally stressful. It requires energy and effort to … Continue reading Stories about access and cognitive dissonance