WHO WE ARE
Community Living Trent Highlands provides a range of services to people living with a developmental disability and their families. We are a charitable, not-for-profit organization serving the City of Kawartha Lakes, Haliburton County and Peterborough.
MISSION
To inspire respect and equality for people with an intellectual disability by promoting community knowledge, organizational excellence, and individual quality of life.
VISION
Diverse, inclusive communities where every person is accepted, leading their own destiny and valued for their contributions.
GUIDING PRINCIPLES
Self Determination and Citizenship
All persons should be supported to exercise their rights, privileges and obligations as full community members.
Inclusion and Equal Opportunity
All persons should have access to a full range of experience offered by their community – including an education, a secure home life of their choosing, and opportunities for meaningful work and recreation.
Relationships
People will be happier, less vulnerable and have greater opportunities for development if they have networks of relationships and if they are included as participating members of the community.
Continuous Learning
It is important to learn from experience. All persons will be encouraged to make the time to talk with each other about experiences based on what we have learned.
Collaboration
All persons should be supported to seek constant improvement to work with others at the individual and organizational level. Working together can produce mutual benefits and strengthen the capacity of the community to include and support people who might otherwise not be included.
Respect and Support for Families
Families are the fundamental sources of support for their members and a key building block of inclusive communities. Services and supports should be planned for, organized and delivered in the context of the family. Families are unique and valuable resources to each other as well as effective agents for social change. Agency activities should foster strength, stability, competence and knowledge that families can offer each other.
Accountability
Everyone involved with the Agency shares the responsibility to be accountable for the effective and trustworthy use of resources. Accountability is not just about resources. It is also about treating each other with respect and doing what you say you are going to do. All persons will be supported to be accountable.
WHAT IS COMMUNITY LIVING?
Community Living is something most of us do as part of our daily lives, without thinking about it. We live in communities, our children go to local schools and we can work at real jobs for real money and to help out in the community as productive citizens.
But, for many people living with a developmental disability, community living is a dream, something they have not yet had a chance to do. As children, they may go to special classes at schools far away from other children; as adults they are, for the most part, kept out of the workforce. At all ages, many people with intellectual challenges face physical and social barriers that keep them from being a part of the world around them.
For almost 60 years, Community Living associations across Canada have worked to bring people and their communities together:
- We help people as they develop their ability to live, learn, work and take part in all aspects of living in the community; and
- We help the community be able to welcome and support people who have not always had the same chance as the rest of us to take part in community life in meaningful, productive ways.
The help that we provide is important for many people living with a developmental disability and their families. Others simply need changes in other people’s attitudes so that they can make their way in the community. Helping people to give of themselves and to take part in the community makes good economic sense and results in communities that are vibrant and strong. It is also the right thing to do.
Our name, Community Living Trent Highlands, makes sense. Rather than name ourselves after the labels that are used to categorize and therefore separate people from their dreams, we take a different approach – declaring in our name the vision of the people we help and the goals that we strive to achieve . We believe that this is a vision and goal that you would share for your community.
Adapted from Community Living Ontario.
Resources
AFFILIATES
Working with our affiliates we identify, address and share important resources around the challenges that face our sector, organization and those we support. Click on the logo in the middle to learn more about our affiliates.
Funders
Our services are made possible through financial support from these funders.
