Now for some thoughts on the learning this week...so far it has been intense, wonderful...challenging. We do workshops in the mornings, usually with guest speakers, which so far have explored the wide range if community inclusion based initiatives here which are frankly spectacular in their scope and vision....but....I guess I did expect or hope for some kind of disability Nirvana in Alberta - and there are definitely pockets of this, but the challenges are still significant and very similar to those we have in Australia, with some really disturbing trends to decline. Some of the observations on the first day were that families are increasingly tending to focus on transitioning systems rather than transitioning into adulthood. Even though Alberta has had direct funding for more than 30 years and is probably one of the largest examples of individualised funding in the world, this appears to be diminishing rapidly. There is urgency in terms of salvaging control for families and family managed supports. I found the degree of cynicism disheartening too around outcomes in the sector...the observation was made thatno agency in Alberta has ever lost funding because of lack of outcomes, and I am left contemplating how effective our own recent implementation of this system might be.
Its certainly not all doom and gloom...lots of truly awesome practice which I will write about tomorrow, but I am left with a deep sense of the urgency of not only getting but keeping inclusion on the agenda, and of the need for continued intention and effort.
