The Communities We Create

In this episode of Community Chats, Brad Saunders, CEO of Community Living Toronto, is joined by Sherri Kroll, Executive Director, Middlesex Community Living, for a conversation about creating inclusive communities where belonging is not just an idea, but something visible in everyday life.

Sherri talks about her journey and how both her professional and personal experiences have shaped her understanding of inclusion. The conversation explores how communities can move beyond good intentions to real, practical inclusion, and how belonging is built through everyday actions, relationships, and shared responsibility. 

As we conclude Community Living Month this May, Sherri also reflects on their Welcoming Community initiative, which encourages local businesses and organizations to create spaces that foster accessibility, inclusion, and belonging for all.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome to season four of Community Chats and to our special belonging series. In this episode, I sat down with Sherry Kroll from Middlesex Community Living. Sherry's a leader whose work and lived experience bring depth, heart, and clarity to what belonging really means. We talked about her journey into developmental services, what belonging means to their community, and how Middlesex Community Living is bringing that message to life through their own Community Living Month campaign. So grab a coffee, settle in, and let's chat. Because belonging starts with listening. All right, Sherry, thanks for joining us today. Uh how are you doing? I'm doing well. How about yourself, Brad? Very good, very good. So you're coming to us from Strathroy, Ontario, which is in the is it the county of Middlesex?

SPEAKER_01 0:56

It is the county of Middlesex, that's correct. Yeah, we're just west of London.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Okay. And is Strathroy sort of the heart of Middlesex, would you say? Or is it what are there a few towns? Excellent. Excellent. Are there a number of other communities that make up that part of the province?

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Yeah, a couple smaller communities. Um, but Strathroy would be the sort of hub, I guess, of Strath of Middlesex County and um Strathroy Caradock. Excellent, excellent.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Um, wanted to get to uh we uh today is or this month is uh community living month, and a lot of organizations across the province are really focusing on belonging and inclusion and what that means in their community. Um so we want to get to that, but first I wanted to start a little bit uh and and um get to know you a little bit. So can you tell us a little bit about your your journey in community living, how you how you arrived at uh at your current role?

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Sure, I'm happy to share that. Um so I was at university and uh my mom called and she had been talking with a board member at Middlesex Community Living who had shared that uh the agency was successful in getting a summer grant and would be looking for some students to work um in um during the daytime helping out with um um, oh, I can't think of the word of it, the the summer day camps.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

So I thought, oh, might as well give that a try. So threw my name in and uh was asked if I wanted to be a part of operating a summer day camp for kids with disabilities. So I did that for one year and then was invited back the second year, and they were taking a bit of a spin on that initiative. They were trying to integrate uh the summer day camp that the organization was operating with the summer day camp that happened in the community for other kids. Oh, great. Um, I thought, oh, that sounds like a great idea. So got involved, and that was my first exposure to working with people with disabilities. I really enjoyed it. I liked the work, I like the social aspect of it. Um, I like doing something in my own community. And uh at the end of that summer, I uh wasn't quite sure where I was going to go after university, and I was offered a full-time job. And I can remember saying to my mom and dad, oh, I'll start here. I'll I'll step into this realm and I'll just get started at work and kind of figure out where I'm gonna go. Well, almost 40 years later, I'm still here.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

That's that's great. That's great.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

It's it's just I know that I think that's a lot of people's experience. You you kind of get started someplace and then realize it really fits well with who you are and how you want to live your life. And it came very natural to me.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

So yeah, I was gonna say my my sort of story is similar, right? Where you start off, you try this, you start at a camp, and you you sort of go go from there. Now you you had a a sort of moment that changed the way you viewed community living um quite dramatically. Can you talk about that?

SPEAKER_01 3:38

Yeah, I really did, Brad. Um, I was working at Middlesex Community Living for about 10 years. Um from the time I started, I got married. Um, uh my husband and I got our first home, and it was time for us to have children. And it took us some time to have children. Uh, but um after being at the organization for 10 years, we were blessed with our first child, a baby boy. And within a year, um, we were given uh the news that he was had a diagnosis of an intellectual disability. So my son Jonah, who's now 24, has um been diagnosed with Williams syndrome, which is a fairly rare um uh disorder. Um, but it does have an impact on him and on his life. And uh it really changed my thought on the role I had within the organization. And I realized I had to go back to some families and apologize because I realized I often came to the table telling people what they should do with their sons and daughters and how they should live their lives. And um, I realized I was really doing a disservice to people that no family wants to or needs to hear that. They need to express their own story and be listened to and be responded to in an appropriate way. So um, yeah, it really changed how I look at the role of service organizations, how it changed the role, my role within the organization, really gave me an appreciation for families and a real value for the heart that families bring to the table. Um, and a big eye-opener over time in terms of how little information is available to families. So when you, you know, when you travel service from both the lens of a service provider and through the lens of a family member, you certainly realize that um nobody passes out good information to you about what to do with a child with a disability. There's no one that gives you the manual and says, Right, these are the people you need to connect with, these are the things you should be doing at any moment in time. Um, everything that we've discovered about um about services, I've learned because of the chair I sit in at this office, not because anyone provided that to me um, you know, as as my son was growing up and and connecting with his world. So very, very grateful.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

Yeah, that that's stunning though, right? That you you'll that you that uh it is that's uh there's such a lack of information. A lot of families and people with disabilities we've talked about, talk about those first few months, days, months, years. And I guess you the dog you said your diagnosis came a year in. So that first year was there a lot of what was that? What was that? Oh what was that like?

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Scary. Well, I think I think most moms would say, you know your child. And I kept looking at this little baby who was so precious, but just something kept telling me that something, there's something I need to know. And I never used the word there's something wrong because I I knew what I needed to discover wasn't gonna say something was wrong. It was just something I needed to know to ensure that he was living a good life. And um I'm a religious person and I was doing lots of praying to say, you know, please tell me what is it that I'm supposed to know about this child to help him live a good life? Um and that answer finally came. And when it came, I actually had huge relief. Um, I certainly wasn't gonna let a diagnosis dictate who he was or what his life was to become, but it was very helpful in understanding the diagnosis, what perhaps to expect with that diagnosis, recognizing he's his own person and he's gonna evolve based on who he is. But you know, what are the characteristics? What is what are some insights into the diagnosis that may help us think about does he need some specialized services or supports? In what ways might we help him and and ensure that he develops to be the person that he is today?

SPEAKER_00 7:17

Yeah. So um very uh the I I don't know that I've heard of anybody talking about going through that situation and then doing a bit of an apology tour to other families around man, if I knew then what I know now, yeah, kind of things. How was that what was that like?

SPEAKER_01 7:34

Well, it was humbling, that's for sure. But I for me it was important. Uh it was important for me to like those families we were still working with. So, you know, it was sort of at the next meeting, I did take that opportunity to say, you know, now that now that I am wearing the shoes and traveling the road that you've traveled, yeah, I I just wanted to reach out and say, if I ever came across as sounding as though I had all the answers, I clearly didn't.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

If I can confirm I do not.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

I can confirm I do not. Yeah. If I offended you by, you know, trying to say what I believed your child needed, I shouldn't have done that. Yeah. Um I I did honestly, I mean, I I think at the time I thought I was doing it for those families. I was probably doing it more for myself, just to clear a guilty conscience and to just um get it out that we don't have the answers in this system. And fam, we really need to be sensitive to families and to their needs and to recognize that they are the experts.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Now uh Jonah, your son, I've met him a couple of times. He's a lot of fun. He sure is very engaged, big personality. What uh what's uh how's that how did that play out over the last well is he is he in his 20s now, I guess?

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Yeah, yeah, he's 24. So he um he has made so many connections in his life. And um, you know, it's funny, we we do a lot of things, him and I in the community. He likes to go places, he likes to explore things. And um often, almost every time we're out, even if when we venture in Toronto at an event, there's almost someone that comes up to him and goes, Hey, Jonah! And I'm like, How? What's the connection here? And it'll be someone that he met at school or someone that he met at another event, but he is a memorable character. And so he he meets lots of people. Um, he's had a wonderful life. Uh, the school that he attended was was very a great school. Um, he's been very fortunate to have good people come into his life. And I think, I think good people attract good people. So maybe there's been a bit of a draw that other people wanted to meet him and he's given back something to them. He had a great experience, as I said, through school. Um, he actually ended up being the prom king uh the year he graduated. Um, and he was asked to the prom by someone that was in an integrated class with him in a music class. And when she invited Jonah to the prom because she asked him, I reached out to her to say, you know, how how thought how thoughtful I thought it was. And I was so grateful that, you know, she was thinking about him. And I said, I have to ask though, why Jonah? Like you're like she was a really attractive girl. And I said, I'm sure you could have had lots of people either ask you to the prom or accept an invitation from you. And she said, Jonah makes me laugh every single day. Why wouldn't I ask him? And I thought, wow, that's beautiful. Like that really speaks to this community and um and that school and how they really value people and relationships. So um, yeah, it was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Excellent. So um uh Middlesex Community Living has done uh in this month of May, as we're talking about belonging and inclusion, a whole lot of work around uh sort of an initiative to highlight what the community does really well. And as you've talked about how they supported uh Jonah and your family um throughout uh throughout his life and beyond, tell us uh tell us what you did.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

Sure. I'm gonna back up to to tell you the story. I want to talk about sort of the original um initiative, which for us started back in, well, the idea started back in 2017. So we were doing some um strategic planning at that point in time, and we recognized that there was a lot of community issues that needed a community response. They weren't things specific to people with disabilities that we needed commute, the community to come together on some issues like housing, like inclusion, you know, belonging, those sorts of topics. And uh it really kind of sparked an interest in us at the strategic planning session, so much so that after that we hosted a professional development day and really wanted to talk about that with our employees. And from that, this notion of recognizing our community partners came up and really building a momentum within our community where people were trying to create a better community for all of us.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

Um, and so that sort of started this thought about how do we, how do we partner with our community? How do we recognize people that are really contributing to making this community a better place for all of us? And um, the timing for that worked out quite nice because the government had just announced those employment and modernization grants. Right. So we put in um a grant proposal and we were successful in 2018 in receiving a grant for $100,000 for a, I think it was a four-year period, maybe a two-year period, sorry, two-year period, I think it was, um, to try to bring those ideas together and to create something. So we we started um a committee, and the committee was not just people of middle sex community living. We brought forward what we would describe as sort of prominent people in our community, so people that had some status and kind of pitched the idea of what we wanted to do. And um, it started to build up some excitement. So from there, we decided that we would um hold a community forum to bring people together to talk about how welcoming, uh inclusive um do people see Strathroyd Caradoc today? What could be done to make it more inclusive, more welcoming, provide that sense of belonging within our community, and how might we make that happen? And the community forum sparked some really, really fun, great ideas. Um, we had um uh a speaker's corner set up so people could, just like the old speaker's corner kind of thing, they could talk into back in the day, they could talk into a bit video uh program that would record what belonging meant to them, what inclusion meant to them, um, why they wanted to see Strathroy Caradoc sort of on the map as a community where everyone belonged. And we captured all those stories. Um, we had a creative corner at the um uh forums with our uh public to where people could draw what ended up being a decal of distinctions. So uh to draw something that we could give to community members that were sort of on this campaign with us. Um and we took all the ideas back from those community forums to say now that we've got ideas and we've heard from our community, what could we do around an initiative? So the committee came up with five criteria or attributes that would result in a welcoming community where everyone belonged. And with those criteria, we came up with three indicators for each of those five criteria. So just to provide kind of a description about what they meant. And we took the drawings that we had from uh the forums and we hired um a creative artist to help kind of take those ideas and create it into what we called our decal of distinction. And so at that point in time, we had uh the criteria developed, which included um to be accessible, to be compassionate, to be friendly, to be helpful, and to be safe. So if you met one indicator from each of those five criteria, you could receive what we called a decal of distinction. And the decal is like a simple peel-off sticker that you put in your window to just. For businesses or or mainly or for individuals as well, or how does that uh we focused on businesses the first year and then we started expanding it out a little bit. So we we really wanted to target the downtown core, which is a lot of smaller businesses, and thought if we can get some momentum in the downtown core, then we'll start branching out a little bit. So we were able to um uh, you know, we we got some communication out to let people know what we were trying to do. Uh, we really talked about this idea of being a welcoming place where everyone would be included. And as I said, we told the businesses if you can meet one, just one indicator in each of those five criteria, you can get a decal of distinction. And what that says is that your place of business is a welcoming place. Everyone is welcome in here, everyone belongs here, and it was a way of kind of boosting your business. So we launched the idea for this at the 2019 Mayor's Breakfast. And that was an annual event that we had pre-COVID, where we would bring our community together, and it was a lot of our business community together to kind of profile um during community living month to profile the achievements of people with disability and to celebrate our champions and our community that were helping us along. Um, so we used the 2019 Mayor's Breakfast to really talk about this campaign and really get people excited. And we wanted people to want to be a part of the initiative, which is kind of why we made it so easy. Like we didn't want people having to jump through hoops to get that decal of distinction. We thought the more out there, the better.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

And even yeah, but it like it uh just to pause for a second there. Sure. It it you still have to be intentional around it, right? Like you have to look at these five things that most people would say would agree on and go, well, gee, I've got to how do I do these things? So you've got to think through and say, well, we probably do one or two or three of the five. Yeah. Um, so it it's not just a giveaway, like people. It wasn't just a giveaway.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

No, you actually had to fill out a form indicating what you were doing. And if there were things you were working on, we encouraged you to identify that as well so that you would sort of hold yourself true to it because it was a self-declaration process. We didn't go around and look at environments and you know, test out people's knowledge of accessibility or anything like that. It was a self-declaration, but uh our goal was we would hold each other accountable. Um, and if you're and what we tended to find is if uh a business here and both people on the other side of them had the decal up in the window, the guy in the middle was calling to say, I want one of those. Like I'm feeling left out. So that momentum was helpful in getting a lot of decals out in our community. Um and as well as we started messaging things, we started getting like our local um radio station called to say, We're hearing about this initiative. Do you want to come on the radio and tell your story? And we're like, Of course we do. Um, local Rogers Cable TV reached out to ask to do a little story. Uh, there is a um a magazine uh that gets published quarterly in Strathroy, and we got a call from them to say, Would you like to do a story? So we were centered page. Yeah, it really started to grow over time. Um, so the first year that we ran it, we were able to distribute over 50 decals within our community, and it included um large and small businesses. We also attracted like our city hall, our fire department, police services, ambulance services, um, hospitals. Um, and we started to get the attention of some of our service clubs and schools, but we didn't really focus on them right away. Uh, we've we've sort of included them as it as it's moved along. Now, unfortunately, what happened is, of course, I'm talking 2019. So before we hit 2020, um before we hit the mayor's breakfast 2020, which is when we wanted to bring this back to people. So we were collecting stories as uh people were getting their decal. Uh, I let me just back up a little bit. When they when they signed up to receive the deckle, a member of the committee, so it wasn't always MCL staff, it was just a member who sat on the committee, would deliver the deckal of distinction. We would take a picture um of the the business so that we could promote the business as being welcoming and belonging. And then COVID came. Yeah, and then COVID came. But we also captured stories. So when you got the decal, if you were to receive one, Brad, I would, you know, have a little interview with you if you were willing to do so, to say, what does this mean to you? What does it mean to your business? Tell us a little bit about why you want to be a part of this initiative. So we started capturing those stories from people. And at the 2020 Mary's Breakfast, it was our intent to put all of that together into a video to really celebrate our community as being a welcoming place where everyone belongs. Of course, that didn't happen. But the but the passion for the initiative happened. And um unfortunately, like many organizations following COVID, we were really shy on our management team and we were kind of building up the organization. We didn't have anyone dedicated to continue on with the campaign. So it was still talked about in our community, but we weren't aggressively trying to push it forward until this year, or I should say last year, 2025, and we recommitted to getting the campaign up and going again. So we reached out to our community. We um called everyone that had an original decal and said, I bet you need a refresh because over time they faded in the sun. And that kind of got us in. I uh, you know, it got us back out meeting with community again, delivering those decals, capturing those stories again with with our community.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

Were you able to pick up on that momentum from the first time and really continue it on?

SPEAKER_01 20:07

Yeah, we really did. Um, it didn't take long before, you know, if we were missing somebody, they were calling us to say, oh, I saw my neighbor had, you know, the fresh decal. Um, mine is fading as well. Can I get a fresh one? So people remembered it um and and wanted to be part of it again. There was no one that was part of that original 50 that didn't ask for another one unless the business had closed. Um, but we were able to bring in new businesses that may not have been around in 2019, and then we started to grow it. So we I we talked earlier about, you know, Strathroy is a town within the county. We really want to build this out into the county. So we've started reaching out beyond Strathroy into some of the smaller communities and areas to get them involved as well, um, and really kind of spread the word about it. So we're now up to a hundred decals that have been distributed. Yeah, which we're really proud about. I I, you know, for a small community, I do think that's something to really celebrate.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

So that's that is that is something to celebrate. That's fantastic. And the ability to get it back on track after the sort of disruption of COVID, so many things sort of derailed and then uh to varying degrees of the struggle to get to get back on. Have you seen, um, having been a few years into it, and I recognize there's a gap in the middle there, but have you seen or have you heard of sort of tangible um changes in the community or or what what's the impact been of this that you've seen so far, recognizing that it's still fairly early days?

SPEAKER_01 21:34

Yeah, yeah. Um, and it's you know, it's always hard to know what came first, the chicken or the egg, and what prompted, you know, other ideas. But generally, um, I do think that it's having an impact on our community and has had an impact on our community. I I should have said earlier, and I'll I'll say it now we didn't do this with the intent of of creating a campaign for people with disabilities to be included, right? This in the beginning. Um in 20 2019 when we started this or 2018 when we started this, we didn't we didn't even run this through under the umbrella of middle sex community living. We took our name out of it and said, we're just trying to create this group is trying to create a welcoming community where everyone will be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

We want to add value, what's the value proposition of community of middle sex community living to our community? Right.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

Correct. Yeah, that's it, correct. So um, you know, it was always our goal that if we can if we can get people to buy in, they'll recognize things like, you know, if you have a welcoming community, you're gonna attract new residents and you're gonna keep the residents that are currently here because it's a nice place to be. It's a good, you know, culture in your community, that if we have a good, strong community base, that's gonna bring in more businesses and growth and business is good for all of us. Right. Um, and if we're cognizant of those five values and attributes of a good community, if we're safe, if we're accessible, if we're friendly, if we're kind, if we're helpful, people are gonna want to be a part of this community and it's gonna kind of help put us on the map as being a great place to live. That's how I kind of pitched it to the mayor and got him on board. And he in turn uh provided one of his staff to serve on the committee to keep kind of to keep the profile up and connect it with, you know, town hall, but you know, also just because he really believed in it, it was a good gesture to say this is something we should we should really commit to as as um as a town and really kind of build it up. Um I certainly have found that um having this campaign out there in our community has opened the door to conversations with community members. So if there is an ask of middlesex community living, sometimes that's the way in, right? Right. So, oh, I see you have in your window one of the decals. I'm actually with the organization that, you know, is supporting that. And and you know, the idea for that came from this organization. So that's led to a couple jobs for people that we support.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

Oh, great.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

Um, it has it, I mean, it just generally helped us when we're looking um, you know, for fundraising, uh, to build connections, to develop partnerships.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

Of course, any way you can introduce people and see, you know, that that's that's great. Do you have plans to expand it? You find that common ground. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Do you uh do you have aspirations or plans to expand it elsewhere? Have you thought about that?

SPEAKER_01 24:11

Or well, part of the um grant that we received, we had to commit to um sharing the resource. So when we developed the initiative and we had hired a consultant, so the consultant helped kind of create um a work plan for the initiative, right? And we have made that available to many people. So um I've spoken or members of the committee have spoken at different conferences, and we always share the QR code that describes our initiative and the steps that we went through. So if anyone wants to replicate it in their community, there's a resource that will kind of help you walk through the steps that we took to get us to where we are today. Um and the mayor, now this was a former mayor, but a former mayor of our town who was involved in the original, uh, she shared it at some of her, at some of her, I don't know what they call the mayor's meetings. Um, and I had some calls from mayors, I had two calls from mayors across the province that said, we've heard about this initiative. Oh wow. Can you share it with us? So that was, yeah, that was exciting.

SPEAKER_00 25:09

It's a great idea. Like at Community Living, we had one of our strategic goals is to helping to foster community in the city of Toronto. And Toronto's a bigger place, obviously than Strathbury. But the issues are the same. Uh, and this is the the what this project that you've done is a really practical, uh, achievable way that again is quite inclusive and and and is measurable to a degree. And I love the the way that you've got communities or organizations sort of self-reflecting on how they can do this and holding each other accountable as opposed to coming in with a clipboard and and uh sort of checking off what uh what it might mean.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

Yep, very much so.

SPEAKER_00 25:49

Yeah, so the now you I just we'll we'll share a link in in the in the notes for this, but you just produced a video uh that came out uh as we're recording this on the 19th. You you that came out over the week over the long weekend of a video that you did. Tell us about that. Great, great production, by the way. It was really well done. And I I one of my pet peeves is things that go too long, and this was a nice tight 90 seconds. It was great.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

Yeah. So in preparation for community living month this year, um, in April, we hired a professional company to help us create a video to showcase that this community, Strathra Carado.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

Do you want to give them a plug?

SPEAKER_01 26:31

Oh, sure. Yeah, one shot. Go ahead and stop and think one shot is the name of the um of the company. Um, they helped us to create a video that showcased that Strathroyd Caradoc is a welcoming community where everyone belongs. So um our focus was really on that word belonging. And uh, we created a bit of a script where we recorded a few people. There was a member of the board, someone that received services, a manager and myself, just talk a little bit about what we value and the focus on being a welcoming community where everyone belongs. Um, and then in the video, uh we gathered together community members. Um, we had some prominent people there. Our mayor was there, and the deputy mayor was there, police services. Um, some of the employers that hold those decals of distinction joined us. Many of our staff joined us, people that receive our services. And the town was gracious to allow us to uh block off uh two ends of the main downtown core, which is where our main office is located. And we kind of marched the street with placards that held up words like inclusion, belonging, welcoming, community. And we got a couple drone shots and uh they set it to some nice music just to show that people come together for this kind of initiative to really create a better place for all of us.

SPEAKER_00 27:49

So you and uh I think it's very cool that you shut down downtown. You weren't just faking it. You did you got uh you got permission to do that? And that was actually now. I also noticed you were wearing some swag or a number of people were that with the hashtag we all belong. Uh and that's that's our thing, right? So it is you were gracious enough to buy a number of those to to share with the your participants. Um thanks for doing it.

unknown 28:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

Well, we weren't sure if people would want the stuff it works for us, we do it across the organization, but we thought, well, let's get a few extra and see if others wanna want to participate. Um, uh how did that work out as well?

SPEAKER_01 28:27

It worked out great. I mean, it it couldn't have been better because the hashtag we belong fits in, ties in so nicely with our welcoming community where everyone belongs. So we purchased a number of the hats, a number of the t-shirts, and just had them available that day. They were gone within seconds.

unknown 28:43

Oh, good.

SPEAKER_01 28:44

You know, the first hundred people. I know where you can get more.

SPEAKER_00 28:46

I know where you can get more.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

Well, I I've got people saying, I didn't get one, I want one. Um, but yeah, we people wanted to wear them. And it and it was that idea of, you know, this sort of one voice, one look, one message. Um, and it was powerful, I think, in the video to see so many people wearing either the hat or the shirt or both, um, which really promoted this notion of we're all in this together. And this is about making an environment where all of us benefit. Yeah, it was really fun.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

And and it's it's nice that organizations like yours and uh, you know, members of your organization and people around the province are shifting away from, or maybe not uh are are moving towards a sort of a mindset of we're contributors to our community, we're a net positive, we've got a lot to bring. We can learn, you can learn from us, and we're help, we're we can add to communities. Uh instead of sometimes there's you get othered, right? People will say, Well, that's somebody else. They don't quite look like me, they're a little different. Um uh and there's a hesitation, but this leaning into we're places where people belong, and we want to be part of our communities and contribute. This is a great example of of you sort of doing that with a with an idea that started quite small and uh and really blossomed into something to the point where you shut down the downtown streets of Strathroyd to make a video.

SPEAKER_01 30:05

Well, it's it probably sounds better than it actually is when you look at the size of Strathroyd, but yeah, I hear the point.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

I'm I'm joking a little bit, but that was fun. That was fun. Yeah, it was fun.

SPEAKER_01 30:15

It was fun. The other thing that happened that day is we were we had done some of the production, we had captured a lot of the videos. Um, and we someone came up with the idea, and I can't have I don't even know who to to thank for, but someone said, Oh, wouldn't it be fun if we had people that speak different languages say I belong in their native tongue? And I went, Oh my gosh, that would be fabulous. So having no idea whether, you know, having no idea whether we had people around that could do that, just sort of reached out and said, Does anyone speak anything other than link other than English? And we had a number of people come forward that said, Yeah, I I can speak Polish, I speak Portuguese, I speak French, I speak Hindi, I speak like it went on and on. So we gathered those people together, and the production company filmed all of them in in kind of unison, um, saying, I belong in a language that uh that they could speak. And I thought it was a nice add-on to the video.

SPEAKER_00 31:09

Yeah, really promoted the message. It uh it it was for sure, it fit in uh really well. Nice, nice touch. Um, just in the last couple of minutes that we've got, um the the ministry, and there's a policy that ministry is working on called Journey to Belonging that talks about what the future of developmental services may look like. And part of that ties in with community and people uh with a disability who live with parents, and parents are aging, and sometimes the future can be a little bit unsure. Uh for you, both professionally and personally, as you look forward in the next sort of five years, what do you what would you love to see? What's one or two um things that you'd like to see happen in Ontario to make it a more inclusive place that uh helps people with intellectual disabilities and their families uh belong more?

SPEAKER_01 32:01

That's a great question. Um, you know, I think there's a lot of work that can and should be done. And I think initiatives like this, so helping to build a welcoming community and your initiative around I belong will be paramount as we go forward. Um, I think we have to abandon some of the old mindsets that people with disability don't belong in community or are different, are other. I think we have to work aggressively to stop that narrative and help people to rethink the role of all members of society. And I think we do that by showing people that it's possible, right? Profiling the abilities of people with disabilities and not focusing on the disability and really highlighting those stories of achievement and showing how you know people are neighbors, they're business partners, they're out contributing to their communities, they're attending churches and involved in social groups and organizations. I think once people see it, they start to believe it. And I think that allows communities to be more accepting of all people and to create that opportunity for everyone to be a part of the community that they naturally should be a part of. So more work in that area for all of us, whether you're with a community living organization or another kind of service organization or a member of your community. We're all part of groups with other people. You know, if we start having that mindset, how might we, how could we, what could we do different? I think we'll get there eventually.

SPEAKER_00 33:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:24

Um, but it'll take a little bit of time.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

Great, great way to great way to wrap things up on an optimistic, hopeful note and give us all some homework to do as well. We didn't get to this, but you also do a lot of work um across the province with organizations through the provincial network and through uh groups that are working, supporting government as they implement uh journey to belonging and uh and obviously clearly provide great uh great leadership for your organization within your community. So thanks for all your contributions and thanks for taking the uh bit of time this afternoon to chat with us.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

You're most welcome. It was my pleasure. Thanks so much, Brad.

SPEAKER_00 34:01

Great, thanks, Sherry. Thank you for listening, watching, and sharing. We release a new episode of Community Chats on the 15th and the 30th of each month. So don't forget to subscribe to stay up to date.