“Growing up with various medical conditions, I struggled with how society perceived my (dis) abilities and began documenting my experiences through poetry.”
We’re delighted to present this poem and photograph by Cara Jones, one of the five poems that were selected after we issued a call for poems earlier in the year.
Taylor Linloff writes about their experiences growing up in Cape Breton as a rural nonbinary femme on the autism spectrum.
News release: The Nova Scotia chapter of Autistics United Canada announces their inaugural neurodiversity flag raising event on Friday, March 29 in recognition of World Autism Acceptance Day. Neurodiversity is the natural diversity of human brains and minds.The rainbow infinity symbol symbolizes the great diversity in the Autistic community, and is widely used to represent the larger neurodiversity community beyond autism, such as ADHD and dyslexia.
“The other day I met this young woman who is on income assistance, and who nonetheless keeps having a positive attitude and remains full of hope that someday she will get off the system. Her life is hard, and Community Services isn’t making it any easier for her,” writes Kendall Worth
Kendall Worth with a short and sad story about a woman living with developmental disabilities and mental health issues who lost her job and is dreading the day she will have to apply for social assistance.
Kendall Worth sits down for coffee with three Income Assistance clients who are terrified of their annual review, mostly because they feel their caseworker is needlessly adversarial and disrespectful. Why have an annual review when you know your disability isn’t going to go away, Kendall wonders.
Lisa Bond explains what it is like to live the much publicized mental health crisis in Cape Breton. “With all of these hurdles facing us on this island, it’s not hard to lose hope. How are we as parents supposed to help our kids if we can’t even get them mental health help in a timely fashion? We can monitor their social media, watch their phones, have all their passwords….. but it still takes a village. We need and deserve access to the specialists that can help our kids.”