Community Living Ontario

Workshop will focus on enhancing individualized supports for people exhibiting challenging behaviours

 -- Deron Hamel

Community Living Brant is “very excited” to be hosting Dr. David Pitonyak’s Positive Systems Summer Institute, a nine-day event that will be held in August. This series of workshops is aimed at examining ways to support people exhibiting challenging behaviours.
 
Pitonyak, a U.S. expert on creating positive approaches when working with people who exhibit challenging behaviours, will be discussing different types of supports people can use when working with people.
 
Underscoring Pitonyak’s presentation is the notion that when a person exhibits a challenging behaviour it’s the support provider that needs to change what they’re doing and never the other way around, notes Debbie Cavers, director of quality and organizational development for Community Living Brant.
 
Cavers, who has attended past presentations from Pitonyak, says the best outcome from his Aug. 3-6 and Aug. 16-20 presentations would be for agencies to have a better understanding about how to design services individualized to suit people’s needs.
 
“This is an opportunity for agencies to have the whole package of information; to have all the tools that they’re going to need to go back and not just make an individual change with one person they support, but to make a change within (their) broader agency about how (to) provide services,” says Cavers.
 
“We’re very excited.”
 
Cavers says there isn’t one specific group of people Pitonyak’s presentations are aimed at, adding that they workshops are open to everyone.
 
Some of the fruitful information Pitonyak has provided from past sessions with Community Living include ways to design supports and how to develop effective teams.
 
This type of information will be useful to leaders within the Community Living movement, says Cavers.
 
“Whether it’s the supervisors or managers within the agency — these are the people that are going to be providing some leadership within the agencies, in terms of being able to bring the tools back and figure out how to put those tools to work within the agency,” she says.
 
There are still spaces available for anyone wishing to attend. For more information, please click here.
  
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