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

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

PATH – the Dream section comes first in the buffet of choices and plans…

PATH has seven sections and over the years each of them has captured my attention and, for a while, I think that part is the most important part.  But I was struck this week as I think about these ideas by this posting from Seth Godin, one of my go-to leaders (I ask my leadership students to subscribe to his blog and then try to use his postings for discussions over the semester).  Godin writes: What’s at the front of the line? A study of behavior at breakfast buffets showed that the first item in the buffet was taken by … Continue reading PATH – the Dream section comes first in the buffet of choices and plans…