By: Sue Hutton

The Self-Advocates Council (SAC) loves to learn about what staff are doing at Community Living Toronto. When Brad Saunders became Community Living Toronto’s CEO, the SAC invited him to a meeting to talk about self-advocacy.

The SAC talked to Brad about things that are important to them. The group talked about the Inclusion workshops the SAC are doing in schools. They talked about the importance of making their own decisions. They talked about listening to each other, and learning about what’s going on in Community Living Toronto programs.

The group then talked to Brad about how important plain language is to people labeled with intellectual disabilities. Nelson added that most self-advocates don’t read at all. When people with intellectual disabilities need to learn about something, they need to have people explain it to them in a way they understand. The group was reminded about the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) which is a government rule for making things accessible for people with disabilities. For people with intellectual disabilities, that means being able to understand things. For people who use wheelchairs to get around, it means being able to get to the places they want to get to – by having ramps available.

Brad talked about a job he used to have where he had to write a lot of speeches. He said that he had to write the speeches in a way that everyone could understand. He had to use plain language so that it was as accessible as possible.

Brad told the group that Community Living Toronto is going to be thinking about what it wants to do in the future. He said it’s like a “person-directed plan for the agency”. Brad asked the SAC to think about what they would like to see happen for the agency. Brad would like the SAC to get involved in this person-directed planning for the agency. Sounds like an exciting thing to think about for the SAC.