Canada housing models

[Guest guest]

An interesting perspective on DD housing models from Canada. Apparently some,

in Canada, are moving away from staffed group home models toward ‘shared

living’ arrangements. Makes you think, doesn’t it? Here we’re still

trying to get people out of institutions and INTO group homes, when maybe a

group home is not the answer for many. Read this if you are interested in

housing...and for those of us who live in Illinois/Dupage County, when you read

the name “Spectrum†this is NOT the same thing as our Little Friends adult

services in Naperville – this provider is in British Columbia.

Shared Living: It’s All about Relationships

November 1, 2011

tags: collaboration, CommunityLiving, facilitation, family, friends, home,

leadership, planning, self-determination, SharedLiving, Stanfield

by Stanfield

“The match is everything. When the right people show up in a person’s life,

most of what he or she needs will happen. Ninety percent of what works is

finding the right people and making sure they stay a while.†( Pitonyak)

You’ve no doubt seen the recent media coverage about Community Living British

Columbia (CLBC). One issue that’s getting a lot of attention is the question

of moving people out of group homes into less costly shared living situations,

and whether individuals and families are being included in the decision-making

and provided with enough information to make informed choices about their living

arrangements. CLBC has acknowledged that there are problems in the system that

need addressing, and while we don’t speak for CLBC or for any other service

provider, we can say that we are very proud of Spectrum’s shared living

services and our incredible team of caregivers. We are concerned that shared

living as a residential option not be tainted by a few bad examples, and so

we’d like to share some of our insights based on the successes we’ve seen

over the past decade here at Spectrum.

Spectrum has always believed that people should have a range of options to

choose from, and be fully involved in any planning that affects them. As

people’s needs change, and as we’ve gained experience with new ways of

supporting people, our services have evolved to become ever more personalized.

In our own lives, most of us will try out a variety of living situations and,

according to statistics, we tend to move every 7-10 years throughout our

lifespan. It seems reasonable, then, to expect that people with disabilities

will also want to make changes to their living arrangement, especially if they

started out in a home that someone else chose for them (as is often the case).

Since 2001, about half of the people in Spectrum’s services have chosen to

make changes to their living arrangement. Many have chosen to move out of

staffed homes into a more natural shared living arrangement with a caregiver,

couple, family or housemate. In fact, shared living has become our most popular

service offering, and the residential option that people are requesting more

than any other when they come to Spectrum.

It’s been a very deliberate and thoughtful process that has brought us down

this path. Done right, shared living provides safety, security, and

opportunities for personal growth and development that meet or surpass anything

we’ve seen in 25 years of providing residential services to over a hundred

individuals and families. But it has to be done right, and it all hinges on the

relationship between the caregiver and the person being supported.

Our friend Lynn, who lives with and on the Sunshine Coast, is an

example of someone who has flourished in shared living. Lynn came to Spectrum

from Woodlands in 1989, moving into a staffed home in East Vancouver where she

lived for the next 14 years. In 2003, Lynn’s overnight support person,

and her husband decided to move to the Sunshine Coast and suggested that

Lynn (who everyone agreed would benefit from living in a more rural setting)

come with them, and they would become her shared living caregivers. Over the

course of several months, plans were put in place to make this happen, and Lynn

eventually moved over to the Sunshine Coast – and she’s never looked back.

It was obvious to everyone from the day she arrived in her new home that she was

indeed, home. The personal attention, flexibility, fewer people coming and

going, and most of all and ’s welcoming of Lynn into their lives as

part of their family have had a transformative effect. Lynn is happier and

healthier than anyone could have predicted. At 60, Lynn (who has Down syndrome

and limited vision) climbed the Grouse Grind with and . She goes

swimming at local beaches with her new friends, sits on the patio of her home

taking in the panoramic views and sounds of nature, goes for long hikes in the

woods – things she loves to do that we were challenged to do with her in the

city. And wherever she goes, she sees people who know her, who are glad to see

her, and who would miss her if she wasn’t there. She’s a valued member of

her community.

Through Lynn’s example, and countless others, our shared living services have

grown, mostly through word of mouth. There are many reasons why so many people

have chosen this model over traditional staffed residential support, but the

most important seems to be the opportunity for building an authentic, reciprocal

relationship with a caregiver or family who genuinely want to share their life

with the person. When we get this right, everything else starts to fall into

place. People with long histories of challenging behaviour suddenly start to

settle down because they’re living with someone they’ve chosen to live with,

who listens to and respects them, in a home that truly feels like home.

People’s health improves, under the watchful eye of a caregiver who knows the

person intimately, sees them every day, and can attend to things that might get

missed in a group home with a revolving door of staff coming through.

Some would argue that shared living needs more bureaucratic oversight, more

regulations, more standardization – as if these are the things that will keep

people safe. The fact is, caring relationships keep people safer than any

system ever could. As a service provider, our focus should be on supporting

people to build strong relationships and personal networks, keeping the

bureaucracy away from them as much as possible, not adding more bureaucracy to

their lives. That’s not to say we don’t need standards or that we

shouldn’t monitor the service – quite the contrary – but it means that our

standards and monitoring need to honour and support the relationships that are

at the core of the service.

“Many people with developmental disabilities are more vulnerable exactly

because they lack opportunities and assistance to make and keep good

relationships. But most current policies and practices ignore these vital

relationship issues, and most service dollars are spent on congregating people

with developmental disabilities in settings which segregate them. By suggesting

that people could be kept safe and well in settings where strangers can drop in

to check on quality of life, current approaches to safety fundamentally

misdirect attention away from people’s most important safeguard, the safeguard

that most service settings are most likely to discourage or disrupt.†(

O’Brien and Connie Lyle-O’Brien)

Programs and systems don’t keep people safe. Relationships keep people safe.

And now, a few fun facts:

a.. Spectrum started providing shared living as an alternative to staffed

residential services in 2003.

b.. Requests for shared living have increased with each passing year, to the

point that we anticipate more people being served in shared living by 2012 than

in our traditional staffed residential services.

c.. Spectrum has only ever operated one group home, the first home we opened

back in 1988 (which is actually a duplex, with two self-contained suites).

Everyone else in our residential services lives in their own home or with one

other person with a disability, supported by staff, or they are in a shared

living arrangement.

d.. Many of the people in our shared living services have lived in group homes

in the past. None has asked to move back into a group home.

e.. The rate of caregiver turnover in Spectrum’s shared living services was

9% in 2010, compared to 20% turnover in our staffed residential services.

On behalf of , Ernie and the rest of Spectrum’s leadership team, I want

to express our heart-felt appreciation to all of our shared living caregivers,

and to those who support them.

For more information on shared living, click here or follow the links on the

Spectrum website, www.spectrumsociety.org