Intellectual Disability, Culture and Service Engagement for Newcomers to Toronto
Many newcomers who have a child with an intellectual disability are not familiar with the service, supports and funding available to them to help their child. Also many newcomers hide their child with a disability for a number of reasons including thinking that disabilities are hereditary and the community will look down upon them.
This session is to provide front line workers with information on intellectual disabilities, access to services and supports and our experiences working with various cultures and communities who have family members with an intellectual disability. We will provide the participants with our findings from the report on “Disability, Culture and Service Engagement among Chinese, Somali and Tamil Communities in Toronto”. Also we will share our work with community partners based on the report’s recommendations and provide information that would better assist settlement workers in supporting newcomer families with a child or youth with an intellectual disability.
The workshop will also include a presentation on ConnectABILITY. ConnectABILITY is a multi-language interactive web-site with many resources for families and staff in supporting people with intellectual disabilities.
Bob Ferguson is the Service Development Manager at Community Living Toronto. He has over 25 years of experience in the Developmental Services Sector including the lead within Community Living Toronto on Bridging Diversity and with the Report on “Disability, Culture and Service Engagement among Chinese, Tamil and Somali Communities in Toronto”. He also has managed residential, vocational, respite and community support services for people with intellectual disabilities.
Layla Ibrahim is a Family Support Coordinator at Community Living Toronto and has extensive experience in working with the Somali community in education and service access for people with an intellectual disability.
