Thanks for keeping this up, Alex. This portal has been useful for networking and communicating needs and availabilities. There have been many participants at the DSO webinars who I think would benefit by reaching out on this platform.

Our family has made some meaningful connections here, to the point where we have a placement for our son coming up in 2022. I’m happy to share our success with people who meet here.

Bruce Rosebrugh

Hey Rose,
Our support circle goes back quite a ways now. We started when our son was still young enough to work with the Toronto Family Network (TFN). As he aged out of that, P4P helped facilitate meetings and now Lights has bee involved too. But none of these supporters can set up the circle for you.

Yes it is hard to ask people to get involved, but you might be surprised how people respond when just asked. Remember, you’re not asking them to your job as a parent, you’re just asking that they know your child and his circumstances.

Our group isn’t extensive, but it includes a former neighbour who helped tutor when he was in university and our kid was in public school; his god-mother and her son; a cousin; another cousin’s husband, another neighbour, younger than our son but who has now grown up to be a teacher; and a former TFN summer student who stayed on as a friend and helper after the summer he was employed to help our son. Not everyone lives in Toronto, but Zoom helps with that. We meet 3 or 4 times a year at our house and have coffee and snacks just to catch up with what everyone is doing. When it’s not COVID we sometimes set up meetings for activities between our son and a circle member. That’s it so far… Hope that helps.

Hey Rose, Great to see more people connecting here. Alex’s programs are super, but it’s difficult to have a personal conversation in a Zoom group.

It’s never too early to start with this process. I wish I had started earlier… While you’re doing the toolkit make sure you don’t make any assumptions for your kids. You have to be practical but make sure you include them in your planning. I’ve made some assumptions I’ve had to walk back with my son. Nothing serious, just that he needed me to involve him with the plan.

Anyway, contact me any time if you’d like to talk. I am not a smart resource like Alex, but I listen well and then mansplain to solution to your problems really well.

Thanks everybody for your input!

Toby and his prospective roommate (I haven’t got permission to mention names) are looking to locate in North York. They need to be near transit to get to work, Toby downtown and roomy in North York.

Thanks for the input regarding the third wheel. I honestly think that is what would happen in a three person dynamic. But we keep our minds open.

As for moving forward, Toby and roomy are Lights clients and are currently doing the L’Arche TIFS programme. So far so good. I think we’re hoping to get the boys into an apartment next spring, before TIFS ends, so that questions an problems can be ironed out with professional help.

And yes, I too have to get a few more people on to this chat to increase the networking possibilities.

Cheers!

The workshop was great, Alex. I was wondering how people could network with other people in a similar position, and perhaps a little more broadly than the few who make it to Community Living/Lights/P4P meet-ups.

I think this forum would be brilliant. How do we promote it to the community at large?