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current projects and on-going initiatives

Supported Decision Making Project

CACL is undertaking a project with Provincial/Territorial Associations for Community Living, People First of Canada, REACH Canada, and the ARCH Disability Law Centre to develop information tools about legal capacity and supported decision making for people with intellectual disabilities.

As part of the project we are conducting two online surveys. We are inviting both family members and community service providers that support people with intellectual disabilities to complete a survey on their experience in supporting adults to make personal, health care, and financial decisions. Please follow the link below to participate in the survey. The survey should take about 20 minutes to complete.

» Survey for Family Members
» Survey for Service Providers

End Exclusion 2009

In 2006, CACL partnered with the Council of Canadians with Disabilities to launch a national initiative called End Exclusion. The initiative has resulted in an annual gathering in Ottawa and the development of a Declaration for an Inclusive and Accessible Canada as well as a National Action Plan on Disability.

End Exclusion 2009 will happen in Ottawa on October 1, 2009. Event details are still being finalized. Please visit www.EndExclusion.ca for more information as it becomes available.

Community Inclusion

The Community Inclusion Initiative (CII) is a national community development initiative promoting the inclusion, full participation and citizenship of Canadians with intellectual disabilities and their families. CII is a pan-Canadian effort involving a partnership between the Canadian Association for Community Living (CACL), People First of Canada (PFC) and the various provincial/territorial Associations for Community Living (PTACLs), with funding from the Government of Canada, via the Social Development Partnership Program (SDPP). The goal of CII is to ‘assist communities to develop the capacities they require to successfully include people with intellectual disabilities in ways that promote their roles as full citizens’.

For more information visit Community Inclusion online and the Institution Watch website

» Community Inclusion Report, Pdf (1.1MB)
» CII Frequently Asked Questions, MS Word (37KB)

Engaging on International Issues and Development

CACL, with the support of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) is raising awareness and engaging with Canadians and Canadian-based development NGOs on the need to combat global poverty and exclusion of people with intellectual disabilties, and to ensure that international development efforts - including poverty reduction strategies and the Millennium Development Goals - are inclusive of people with intellectual disabilities.

CACL is inviting Canadians to join us and to engage and connect with our broader Federation - local, provincial/territorial, national and international - and development NGOs on the issue of disability and development.

» More about the CIDA Project

2007 Respite Guide

The Canadian Association for Community Living is proud to be one of eleven projects of the Care Renewal Initiative of the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation. CACL gratefully acknowledges the generous financial contribution of the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation to this Initiative.

The guide, entitled Real Respite for the Whole Family - An Advocacy Resource Guide for Individuals with an intellectual disability and their families offers information, strategies, checklists, contacts, resources, and questions for family members who are providing unpaid care to children, youth and adults with disabilities.

This resource outlines a guide for conducting a workshop for family members, providing information that will help them plan towards getting the type of flexible and individualized respite supports that they need, by negotiating and working with community-based support systems.

» Download Real Respite, PDF, 1.1GB
» Download Real Respite, MS Word, 23.9GB

UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

In December 2001, the United Nations established an Ad Hoc Committee "to consider proposals for a comprehensive and integral international convention to promote and protect the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities, based on the holistic approach in the work done in the fields of social development, human rights and non-discrimination and taking into account the recommendations of the Commission on Human Rights and the Commission for Social Development."

Since that time, CACL has been actively involved in the development of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The Ad Hoc Committee, at its Eighth session in New York in August 2006, adopted a draft UN Convention. CACL has worked collaboratively domestically and internationally with NGOs and States Parties on the development of a strong and progressive Convention.

CACL has contributed to several critical successes and accomplishments throughout the Convention development process. Including brokering support for a distinct article on children in the Convention, facilitating IDC consensus on the need to recognize the role of families in the Convention and support for a preambular statement on families, the recognition of the right of all people with disabilities to live in the community and the recognition of supported decision-making as a legitimate means for expressing legal capacity.

The Convention is currently being finalized and will be brought before the General Assembly for formal adoption. States will then begin the process of signing and ratifying the Convention.

Community Safety Audit

The Community Safety Audit Manual The Right To Be Safe - Addressing Violence against People with Intellectual Disabilities is a resource that provides an overview of the issue of violence against people with intellectual disabilities and it offers a practical step by step method that will enable key community organizations to examine themselves internally as well as directing them to analyze how they link and work with other community organizations and support systems. The intention of this guide is to alert communities to the issue of violence against people with intellectual disabilities and offer a particular type of approach for addressing this violence.

» Download “The Right To Be Safe”