LiveWorkPlay Building Productive Lives Making A Buzz In The Ottawa Community Serving People With Intellectual Disabilities Since 1995 ON OUR OWN TOGETHER II Interdependence - Independence - Self-Advocacy The Innovative LiveWorkPlay Approach To Long-Term Housing For People With Intellectual Disabilities MAY 4: DAY -4 Today the housing group did some more project preparation, including figuring out bus routes. For example, getting from Carleton to MBNA is easy, you take the 4 to Hurdman and then take the 95 to Blair. To get to Bayshore you take the O-Train to Bayview and then the 97 to Bayshore. The discussion around "access management" continued. There was some role-playing around strategies for how to handle different situations when people come to your door. There are a lot of options that you can chose instead of opening the door. There was more role playing about handling uncomfortable situations, like someone on the bus who is asking personal questions or invading your personal space. One of the interesting discoveries is that in a lot of situations it is better to stay on the bus and get help from the driver than it is to try to get away from the situation by leaving the bus, because there might not be as many resources (people to help you) when you get off the bus than there are when you are on the bus. Everyone did very well with this activity but Jen and Ryan did a really good job of saying the right kind of words and also demonstrating the right kind of attitude (positive and confident). Another discussion was about group management. Not about walking this time, but about eating. Interestingly enough, it turns out to be similar. For example, if you ask a group of people to go with you for a walk, you don't run ahead and start the walk without them. So, it's the same thing for eating a meal with a group. And while you are on the walk, you need to stop and see where everyone else is at once in a while so you aren't getting too far ahead. Same thing with the meal. And then when the walk is over, you don't want to be finished way ahead of everyone so that you are just standing there by yourself waiting. Just like you don't want to end up finishing your meal too early and sitting around waiting for everyone to catch up. There was a quick chat about nutrition. Everyone instantly came up with the number "1" as a reasonable number of desserts to eat. The cafeteria has good food, and no one is going to tell you to stop eating, so this is a chance to demonstrate effective personal management skills by making reasonable choices. PICTURES! No pictures today. Saturday is coming!