Southwest Collaborative Communities’ members share a commitment of providing person-directed supports to individuals with developmental disabilities. By coming together, we are better able to improve the quality of life for individuals and families. 

A board of directors, compromised of 2 individuals from each member, oversee governance matters. The advisory group (the 5 Executive Directors) meet on a regular basis to brainstorm issues, develop solutions to common challenges and share understanding of sector issues. 

To reach our vision of building a community that is fully inclusive and values all its citizens, there is strength in collaborating with other developmental services organizations. By sharing knowledge, expertise, resources and training, we are able to better support individuals to live their best lives. Other benefits include cost effeciences, expanded training opportunities, leadership development, self-advocacy development, and more. 

Like everywhere in the province, workforce recruitment and retention is a challenge for all agencies but the shared values-based training provided is seen as a benefit by employees and is helpful in our recruitment efforts.

Different groups of employees also meet jointly and learn from one another. For example, the HR and Finance Managers meet regularly, and individuals involved in person-directed planning are beginning to meet to share their individual experiences and approaches.  

With our organizations primarily serving rural communities and spread across Southwestern Ontario, we feel it's important to retain local leadership. This means having Excutive Directors for each organization who come together to form our advisory group. 

The Executive Directors are able to: 

• develop deeper relationships with other community services
• improve visibility in each community
• leverage community resources 
• bring the disability lens to other sectors like housing and transportation

In addition to the benefits listed in above questions, we have also partnered with ARCH to support local self-advocates to increase their knowledge of rights restrictions and having their voices heard.  

As a collabortive, we are always looking for new ways of supporting indivduals in their personal growth. This includes self-advocacy, training and more. 

The workplan for SCC includes the development of stronger understanding and implementation of a Diversity Equity Inclusion (DEI) approach.  This is particularly important as the workforce is continuing to diversify with many newcomers now employed in the sector.  This demographic is also seen as a potential part of the solution in the staff recruitment and retention challenge.