H.O.M.E.S.: HEALTHY OPPORTUNITIES FOR MEANINGFUL EXPERIENCE
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Mission Statement
The H.O.M.E. Society (Healthy Opportunities for Meaningful Experience Society) was founded 20 years ago to support men and women living on the back wards of an Institution for the learning disabled. They had challenging behaviours including Mental Health and PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.) Today these men and women have good lives living in the community. HOMES continues to support a variety of men and women living with Learning Disabilities and a variety of secondary factors including Mental Health issues and Drug and Alcohol issues. We work with some of the most challenging referrals from across the province of BC. We use a philosophy of Gentle Teaching. We were mentored by Dr. John McGee the founder of Gentle Teaching until his death a few years ago. We are known across the world as leaders in the Gentle Teaching International community movement.
About This Cause
The H.O.M.E. Society better known as HOMES contacts with Community Living BC to provide 24/7 support to men and women living with a dual diagnosis of Learning Disability and Mental health and more frequently these days drug addiction. Today most of those referred are young men and women who though learning disabled have also become addicted. We provide warm caring homes usually with families, often with former addicts, work opportunities, counselling and psychiatric support. We support them through addiction programs when they qualify, detox and we are there when break down occurs. We are known for our willingness to take on the most challenging young men and women. They have often been on the streets for years as prostitutes (both men and women) and or have sold drugs usually not very successfully. Many come from homes where their parents were or remain addicted. Their lives are complicated by irrational mood swings, poverty, PTSD, violence and hopelessness. This is all with a back ground of being learning disabled. This learning disability qualifies them for funding not typically available for other street people. Most are referred as they turn 19 and from across the province. Our care givers are trained to be warm, caring, patient and skilled in providing support often to those who have been rejected by typical services. We use a philosophy of Gentle Teaching. The goal of Gentle Teaching is companionship. We train care givers to help people to feel safe and loved. We know that violence is triggered by fear and reducing the fear reduces the violence. From the Gentle Teaching International web site created by the HOME Society. Gentle Teaching is… • Focusing on being kind, nurturing, and loving toward marginalized children and adults—those who have been pushed to the edge of family or community life, • Helping those who have sorrowful life-stories feel safe with us and loved by us and others, • Helping those who have inherent vulnerabilities such as extreme poverty, homelessness, mental disability or mental illness feel safe with us and loved by us and others, • Looking at our role as teaching feelings of companionship and community, • Mending broken hearts — hearts that have been broken by tragic life stories or by the particular nature of a mental or emotional disability. Safe, Loved, Loving, and Engaged • Gentle Teaching is based on a psychology of human interdependence. It asks caregivers to look at themselves and their spirit of gentleness to find ways to express warmth and unconditional love toward those who are the most disenfranchised from family and community life. • It views our role as critical and requires a deep commitment to personal and social change. It starts with ourselves, our warmth toward others, our willingness to give without any expectation of receiving anything in return, and our intense desire to form feelings of companionship and community with those who are the most pushed to the very edge of society. • Gentle Teaching focuses on four essential feelings that need to be taught to those who are served— safe, loved, loving, and engaged. Caregivers not only need to ensure that those whom they serve are safe, but, more importantly, feel safe. Who Are Involved in Gentle Teaching? • Parents and families who are in a quandary as to how to help their children, • Teachers in classrooms who are having a hard time helping children and adolescents with life-stories filled with violence, harm to self, and meaninglessness, • Care givers in institutions who are trying to find non-violent ways to deal with impersonal systems, • Care givers in community homes who want to create feelings of companionship and community, • Care givers in shelters for the homeless, jails and prisons who want to bring a spirit of gentleness where it seems impossible to find, • Program administrators who want to implement a management style that establishes a culture of life, and • Policy-makers and legislators who want to initiate creative laws and ways to support marginalized people with dignity and respect. Who Needs a Spirit of Gentleness? • Those who are homeless—living on the streets and not knowing where their next meal will come from, • Street children in the Third World—little children living in sewers and gutters, finding their respite under bridges and door stoops, and making their meals from garbage thrown on the streets, • Individuals locked up in long term psychiatric hospitals—people with schizophrenia, manic-depression, depression, and a host of other diagnostic categories, • Institutionalized individuals with mental disability—sometimes tossed into warehouse-like settings, sometimes in more home-like places, but most sensing deep loneliness, and • Individuals being supported in community living and working settings—sometimes able to connect easily with a feeling of companionship and community, at other times left to live lonely, empty, and sad lives, • Elderly men and women confined in nursing homes—often forgotten and left to die alone, • Children and adolescents in public schools—children with “behavior” problems, children segregated from other children, children suspended from school, children who see violence as their only way to live their short lives, children who find meaning in gangs instead of in families. Individuals who are known for challenging and dangerous behaviour typically get very little contact, warmth or touch. At HOMES we talk about 1,000 hugs a day. Warmth is encouraged. We welcome those we support into our lives and into the lives of our families. Our managers including our founder and leaders Cam Dore, Dave Lappin and Diane Henry are available by cell/text or in person during and crisis and put in long hours. Whenever possible we use a family home model rather than a group home model. The Mission of the HOME Society is to Build warm caring homes, The link with neighbours and to support the community. We give back to the community and our moving crews our involved in many unpaid moves each month where we support single moms and children to move, often difficult circumstances. HOMES is a leader in innovative solutions to office space and related costs. We renovated an old wooden warehouse using recycled material and kitchens from Habitat for Humanity. We used a lot of sweat equity and our own crews. We now have 4 businesses which lease part of the large warehouse from us. We renovated their spaces as well. Our leasers, a Flooring company, a Martial Arts center, a Buddhist Mediation Centre and a Used car lots cover our mortgage and taxes. We also take pride in opening our building to other non profits. We try to make use of our training room, board and counselling rooms in the evening and on weekend when we are not there. Church groups, Ala-non, Diabetic self help groups, Drunk Driver training, and Special Olympics are a few of the groups using our site for meetings. We also partner and support many smaller non profits by providing office space and admin support. HOMES has been a notable supporter of the Self Advocacy movement among people with learning Disabilities. The focus is on Civil Rights and Leadership. We began and continue to sponsor the recent 14th Self Advocate Leadership Retreat. We have sponsored and mentored the development of the SelfAdvocateNet.com web site since 2000. In our agency we have employed 2 young men with learning disabilities to look after all of the repairs and setup of our computers for the last 10 years. Joe and Bryce the web masters of the SelfAdvocate site and the managers of our Geek lab are known across Canada for their innovative jobs and leadership in the Self Advocate Movement. The HOME Society operates with a budget of 11.5 million. We have 125 staff with about 80 FTEs. We support 75 individuals in 74 locations mostly in the Fraser Valley of BC. We are based in Abbotsford BC but accept referrals from across the province. We have just opened an office in Mission BC. 48% of the individuals we support are women and 70% are under 30