{"id":24670,"date":"2019-09-12T17:12:16","date_gmt":"2019-09-12T21:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=24670"},"modified":"2019-09-20T17:46:40","modified_gmt":"2019-09-20T21:46:40","slug":"kerrys-place-marks-anniversary-with-renewed-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/kerrys-place-marks-anniversary-with-renewed-mission\/","title":{"rendered":"Kerry’s Place marks anniversary with renewed mission"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kerry O\u2019Neil\u2019s parents knew\nthey had a mission when their young daughter was first diagnosed with autism,\nbut the first question they had to tackle was an all-important \u201cHow?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That answer came when they\nteamed up with other families travelling the same journey to establish a home\nfor kids living on the autism spectrum at a farmhouse near Collingwood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was nearly a\nhalf-century ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The landscape has changed\nsignificantly in the intervening decades, but one thing has been a constant in\nthe organization that still bears Kerry\u2019s name: the dedication of Kerry\u2019s Place\nAutism Services to help individuals and families living on the spectrum live\nbetter, healthier lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kerry, accompanied by her\nsisters Kay and Dawn, was on hand last week to mark the milestone 45th<\/sup> anniversary of Kerry\u2019s Place Autism Services,\nwhich now serves more than 250 families across Ontario.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Kay said she and her\nfamily were honoured to take part in the 45th<\/sup> anniversary of the organization, it was a\nbittersweet anniversary in the sense that when the O\u2019Neils and other founding\nfamilies laid the groundwork for the organization, they were hoping \u201cthere\nwould be a cure long before this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo much work was done during\nthe first 10 years of development of this organization to make the foundation\nfor what Kerry\u2019s Place is today,\u201d said Kay. \u201cIt was a lot of hard work and so\nmuch credit goes to the staff that worked with the students. They knew nothing\nabout what to expect from persons with autism [but] they stuck with it, learned\na lot about children with autism, loved their job, loved the children, and they\ndid a lot of work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe first 10 years provided\nan enormous learning experience for all: staff, students, parents, medical\nprofessionals, educators, government agencies and members of the community. The\nstudents taught many people to become more tolerant, more understanding and\nmore understanding of persons with disabilities because at that time everybody\nwas told [to put impacted children] in institutions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot can happen in the space\nof a decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beginning in 2000, Kerry\u2019s\nPlace began putting an increased emphasis on the \u201cclinical\u201d component of what\nthey did. Since then, they have become very well-known for the clinical support\nthey provide their clients, a level many organizations don\u2019t have. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe still envision a future\nwhere all persons with autism are participating fully in their communities,\u201d\nsaid Dr. Sue Vandevele-Coke, President and CEO of Kerry\u2019s Place. \u201cOur mission\nis to enhance the quality of life for those individuals and for their families\nthrough evidence-based supportive practice. That remains today. We have about\n250 people we support. We have lots of community supports, which includes\nrespite, camps, so from growing from a small group of four or five homes, we\nnow have eighty homes and apartments in which we support individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While those values are\nholding firm, the landscape surrounding autism and its treatment here in\nOntario is not. In the last few months, the Province\u2019s approach to autism\ntreatment has changed rapidly, leaving many families angry and uncertain.\nKerry\u2019s Place, however, is rolling with the punches and these changes on the\nProvincial front are reflected in their new Strategic Plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ontario Autism Program,\nsaid Dr. Vandevele-Coke, is \u201cin chaos\u201d but \u201cwe\u2019re ready for the new program,\nwhich we know will be evidence-based and probably based on the choice of the\nparents, and it will probably be fee for service.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat means we will change\nfrom a provider, which gets funding by the Ministry, to a fee-for-service model,\u201d\nshe said. \u201cWe have developed a model where we have costed out all of our\nsupports that we would provide and we\u2019re ready. We just need the clients from\nthe waiting list. I want to assure you that even though it seems like it is\nchaos out there, we\u2019re inviting parents who want to join our program. Whatever\nhappens, we\u2019ll be ready.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kerry\u2019s Place is also putting\nincreased emphasis on helping a group they have watched grow over the last few\nyears who seem to get \u201cforgotten\u201d in the larger picture; that is, individuals\nbetween the ages of 18 and 30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey are not getting any\nfunding, they have never gotten much funding either from grants, and we\u2019re\nreaching out to that group [and] providing them with employment counselling,\nwith teaching, communication skills, increase in social skills, and these\nprograms for people who are seeking employment, we have had some great success.\nThrough our funding, through fundraising, we\u2019re keeping this program and we\u2019re\nhoping we can demonstrate positive outcomes for the program and people get\njobs, are able to secure jobs, and eventually we hope we can get government\nfunding. In the meantime, we will continue to raise money and continue to build\nthis program.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, there are older adults,\nincluding those founding teens like Kerry, who are now over the age of 60.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have to plan for the\nfuture,\u201d said Dr. Vandevele-Coke. \u201cWe\u2019re observing, many of our individuals are\nhaving chronic health problems just like everyone else when they turn 50 to 60\nyears old. We\u2019re looking at what can we do to help those individuals? We\nstarted with funding an end of life program, where as people who are in that\nage category, we\u2019re meeting with families and we\u2019re talking about what will\nhappen if a catastrophic event happens. What are your plans? What do you want\nto do? I know that sounds difficult to talk about death and to talk about\nchronic disease, but that\u2019s the reality and we have to plan for it. That\u2019s what\nwe\u2019re doing. We\u2019re having an end of life program that we\u2019re putting into place.\nIn addition to that, we\u2019re hiring a nurse practitioner who will be responsible\nfor a group of individuals who have extensive health care problems and they can\nbe a liaison with physicians and they can have a plan for what are the needs of\nthe individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kerry O\u2019Neil\u2019s parents knew they had a mission when their young daughter was first diagnosed with autism, but the first question they had to tackle…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6pU","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-20 11:17:24","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24670\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}