March 18, 2021

Hello from Christian Horizons Advisory Council!

We’re a new advisory council at Christian Horizons and we’re made up of people who use services.

Our members are representatives from the various Our Voices Matter advocacy groups that are within Christian Horizons. We meet together online each month.

The purpose of our group is to advocate for our rights and have our views and wishes genuinely considered when decisions are being made about our lives and services.  

We want to:  

  1. Make sure our voices get heard and our rights are respected.   
  2. Work together with the organization to advocate with the government and our community.   
  3. Share our perspectives and our knowledge on topics that impact us and other people who may use developmental services.  
  4. Raise awareness of what advocacy is and why it is so important to us.   
  5. Advocate and work together with Christian Horizons on changes or ideas we have about services.

One of our members, Dzidra, is our advocate representative to Christian Horizons Board of Directors. She shares the perspectives and ideas of service users and reports on the advisory council’s progress and priorities at the board.   

Here are some things we’ve been working on lately:

ONE: Information Session

We held an information session on how staff can support advocates at the local Our Voices Matter advocacy groups

We shared tools and resources on ways staff can support the advocates. The Christian Horizons Advisory Council is planning to put together their own resource on how to support advocates well.

TWO: Research Group

Dzidra, the Advocate Representative to the Board is leading a research group on ways that people using services can be more involved in service planning and government advocacy.

Right now, we are interviewing other organizations to see how people using their services have their voices heard in their organization. We are putting together an accessible toolkit on how to include people using services in organizational decisions, planning, and advocacy. We’ll share these ideas with Christian Horizons.

THREE: Stay Connected Network

We were invited to join the Staying Connected Network. This network is a group of advocates from across the country. The group is led by the New Vision Advocates group from Community Living London.

The purpose of the group is to advocate on things important to advocates, like: 

Poverty 

Affordable Housing  

Employment  

FOUR: Having our Voice Heard

The Chair of our Christian Horizons Advisory Council, Elizabeth, was asked to be a member of the Christian Horizons COVID-19 vaccination webinar working group.

Elizabeth joined and advocates for us by sharing the questions we have about vaccines.

Please share this article with people who use Christian Horizons services.

Submitted by:

Dzidra Halar, Advocate Representative to the Board of Directors and Co-Chair of Christian Horizons Advisory Council & Elizabeth McDonough, Chair of the Christian Horizons Advisory Council

Check out this video of some of our members!