ARTbrain Cedar Summer – learning about Truth and Reconciliation

I think that Truth and Reconciliation is the most important conversation of our times, and full of so many interesting aspects for all of us.  Yet people with disabilities are almost always left out of the conversation.  There are so many parallels to our stories that we think it is important to foster discussion about it.  As Indigenous people were moved into Residential Schools and Indian Hospitals, people with disabilities were hospitalised.  I talked to retired social workers from Woodlands who took Indigenous children out of Indian Hospitals and into Woodlands to keep them “safer.”  The Woodlands Memorial garden contains … Continue reading ARTbrain Cedar Summer – learning about Truth and Reconciliation

Love Carefully –

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 –

Planning for Vulnerabilities with Self Advocates

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