Our event page provides opportunities for families to connect and experience new activities in a stress-free, accepting space. Check out our special events below for more information and dates. This calendar is updated regularly, so please check back often. Please get in touch if you have an event to share with us.
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Current services and supports for people with an intellectual disability have emerged from a long and complicated history of fear and oppression, charitable beliefs, pseudo-science, human rights and economic priorities that date back hundreds and even thousands of years.
Beginning almost 200 years ago, across Canada, and later in British Columbia, the institutional model was originally considered a progressive and compassionate response to meeting the needs of people with disabilities. Despite the failure of institutions in meeting people’s needs, the model has persisted, and people continue to be institutionalized in several provinces. The closure of large institutions in BC in the 1990s was achieved through the perseverance and sustained advocacy organized by family members, service providers, allies in government and especially, people with disabilities themselves. Continuing our conversations about the history, values, and beliefs that guide the movement is vital to sustaining ourselves – and the vision of community living for all.
This two-hour session explores the roots and history of institutionalization of people with disabilities and the emergence of the community living movement in BC and Canada and the perspectives of survivor-activists who have fought and continue to fight for justice for people forced to live in institutions, past and present. This two-hour session explores the roots and history of institutionalization of people with disabilities and the emergence of the community living movement in BC and Canada and the perspectives of survivors-activists who have fought and continue to fight for justice for people forced to live in institutions, past and present.
Family Support Institute of BC (FSI) is a provincial not-for-profit society committed to supporting families who have a family member with a disability.
FSI is unique in Canada and the only grass roots family to family organization that has a broad volunteer base.
FSI SUPPORTS AND SERVICES ARE FREE TO ANY FAMILY
227 6th Street
New Westminster, BC
V3L 3A5
(604) 540-8374 ext. 523
Support Line:
1-800-441-5403
Did you have a great experience with FSI? Please let us know!
As a provincial organization FSI acknowledges that our work spans across all of the traditional, ancestral, and unceded Indigenous territories in BC. Therefore, we respectfully honour all First Nations, Inuit and Métis people, as well as their ancestors, who have lived here and cared for these lands. It is with gratitude that we can live, learn and do our work in the province now known as British Columbia.
©2024 Family Support Institute | Privacy Policy | Registered Charity Number: 105629497RR0001. We acknowledge the financial assistance of the Province of British Columbia.
