This article is about 2 Canadian charities, Nidus and PLAN. They deal with families who are involved with people with disabilities.  Nidus works to help people with disabilities have proper representatives.  PLAN mainly works at making sure people with disabilities have good social networks and people they trust who can suport them.

Canada is at the forefront of independent living. They have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and have pioneered representation agreements. These two organisations, Nidus and PLAN, are prominent in Canada and were involved in a study visit Inclusion Europe took part in last April.

The 2 organisations involve guardianship issues on the whole. The first, Nidus, deals mainly with representation agreements. PLAN deals with creating social networks for people with disabilities to ensure their future will not be a lonely one.

Nidus

Nidus, based in British Columbia, is currently Canada’s only community based resource devoted to personal planning and is a non-profit charity. Nidus is the Latin word for nest – a symbol of safety and support.

The group was founded by citizens and community groups who were involved in community based reform of adult guardianship legislation in British Columbia. They wanted to ensure the public had a resource for information on personal planning.

Personal planning means taking control of your own future. Nidus tries mainly to enable people with disabilities to use representative agreements as an alternative to legal guardianship.

Representation Agreements allow a trusted person to act as a person with disabilities’ representative. Rather than legal guardianship, which strips a disabled person’s voice and restricts their rights, representation agreements allow others to speak on their behalf.

British Columbia’s Representation Agreement Act was part of the inspiration for Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (UNCRPD)

This article calls on governments to implement legislation that ensures all adults receive support with decision making without taking away or restricting rights.

As well as dealing with these representation agreements, Nidus enables people who want to plan for the future, to use powers of attorney in the event of mental incapacity due to illness, injury or disability.

Nidus provides public legal education on personal planning, training for volunteers, coaching in best practices for attorneys and policy consultation for third parties who need information.

You can find out more about Nidus here.

PLAN

“Who will take care of our children when we are gone?” – this unpalatable, but very real question for parents with children with disabilities  forms the basis of the work of the Planned Lifetime Advocacy Network (PLAN)

PLAN is a Canada wide, family led organisation founded in 1989 by parents to secure the future for their children with disabilities.

The most important aspect of their work is to provide a network of caring relationships for people with disabilities so that when the inevitable happens, there will be a community of people who care about them to look after them.

The families who founded PLAN searched and discovered solutions to securing the future for loved ones with disabilities. They also realise that planning for the future, changes the present.

PLAN is also an international organisation which provides a model for over 40 family led organisations.

PLAN’s work is guided by 4 key principles. Cultivating caring relationship networks for people with disabilities, ensuring people with disabilities are recognised for their contributions, and striving to be independent from government funding to work effectively on behalf of individuals and families. Finally, PLAN is structured to ensure it will always be directed by, and accountable to, families.

PLAN inspires and supports personal networks through series of online courses and resources available on their website. PLAN provides many seminars to help people plan for the future also.

They choose Community Connectors who are knowledgeable in the community and match them with families who could benefit from the feeling of community that can be provided.

You can find out more about PLAN at their website here.