Tag: community inclusion

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Community Inclusion Month!

Hey everyone, October is Community Inclusion Month! With the ongoing response to COVID-19, we are celebrating a little differently this year — check out Kelowna Mayor Colin Basran as he proclaims October Community Inclusion Month, an event that has in past years included the Pathways Inclusion Chain:

How are you celebrating Community Inclusion Month this year? Let us know in the comments!

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Great News! Funding for Home Share in BC Budget

Hi everyone, we are very excited to pass along the recent news about increases to home share funding in the BC provincial budget!
Some of you may have heard about this via the Central Okanagan Professional Caregivers Society, who have been working to improve home share supports through the Home Share Working Group – check out the message from COPCS (below).  You can read the announcement (and about CLBC’s plans to implement the upcoming funding increases) by clicking here.

Let us know what you think – leave a comment!

We are pleased to confirm Carole James (Minister of Finance) announced today that Home Share Providers across the province will be receiving an increase in the 2019 provincial budget.  This is a long overdue and a well-deserved increase for Home Share Providers.
We want to take this opportunity to thank our members for your assistance and valuable input.  The COPCS executive has been working for the past five years to bring our members concerns to CLBC and to the Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction.  Our concerns for shared living rates were heard and addressed in today’s budget announcement.
The COPCS executive will continue to participate in the provincial Home Share Working Group to improve the Home Share Program.
The full announcement from CLBC can be found at the link below:
Sincerely,
Executive members of the Central Okanagan Professional Caregivers Society
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Further to this…. anyone in Victoria for this presentation? Exciting news indeed… Brian

Provincial Government Event Invitation – Feb 28, 2019Download
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Today is International Day of Persons with Disabilities!

Today is International Day of Persons with Disabilities!  Today, we join people all over the world as we celebrate how far we have come in support of community inclusion.  And, we also join in as we look forward to “what’s next” in this movement.

Since 1992, the United Nations has celebrated International Day of Persons with Disabilities each year.  Looking ahead to the future, this day is a big part of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which pledges to “leave no one behind.”  You can read more about the UN’s Agenda here.

More locally, here are some of the ways people are looking at this year’s theme, which is “empowering persons with disabilities and ensuring inclusiveness and equality”:

The BC Government has put together a series of articles on their website that reviews how the province has supported removal of barriers – and how they plan to keep removing barriers in future.  The list includes resources that are already available (such as CLBC, CAYA) as well as new ones.  One new strategy is a Cross-Ministry Disability Strategy Reference Group.  This group, made up of 18 assistant deputy ministers, is going to explore ways that ministries and government agencies can better collaborate in providing supports for people with disabilities.

The SelfAdvocateNet website has a page for this day and how it remains relevant.  They’ve also included information on events, including the Film festivals taking place in our communities.  CLBC has also added film festival information on their events page.

Our Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, also took this opportunity to highlight the steps Canada is taking, including the proposed Accessible Canada Act – our first national accessibility law.

So, let us know what’s going on in your community and how you will be celebrating today!  Leave us a comment or send us a photo.

Accessibility