Message from the Executive Director

Increasingly, not for profit organizations are being asked to do far more to close the large gaps in social service in our community for far less than is comfortable to operate. With new leadership, new direction, new avenues of change and efficiency and and the promise of growth, inevitably change happens…. that has been the extraordinary story for the LDATD this past year.

Since February, I have had the pleasure of working with a dedicated Staff and Volunteer team, Board and Community Partners who have been committed to doing more creative, innovative, efficient, client geared programming for children, youth, adults and seniors across the GTA while maintaining a sense of our fiscal priorities. We have extended our “in house” programs from 3 sites in North Toronto to 7 across the GTA with new proposed sites in Scarborough to serve our growing community. We have successfully negotiated the S.T.Y.LE. program to 9 sites with a secured 3 year funding in priority neighbourhoods across the GTA which provides program and support to over 400 Youth annually. S.T.Y.L.E. Trillium, our City of Toronto Programs, Employment Programs, Seniors Programs and other Povincially funded programs continue to surpass their expected outcomes and help to provide social inclusion for many vulnerable populations within the LD / AD(H)D family. While this transformation has been successful, our priority remains firmly on developing stricter financial systems, internal systems and process, policies and procedures and data management practices to manage change effectively.

Awareness, promotion and information about the issues have also been a key area of focus for the organization and staff. The stigma and barriers associated with invisible disabilities has been a key area of exploration as we attended many local community events as well as participate as an advisory contact to the Ministry of the Attorney General Tribunals and Departments on Accessibility. Our outreach and promotion staff has been actively spreading the word about our services and programs and continues to further our mission. We will be able to reach new diverse community groups with the addition of the Outreach and Promotions Assistant position as we address the facelessness of LD’s within our ethno specific communities.

As we look ahead to the year to come, we are looking forward to continuing the growth and innovation that begun last winter. We will continue to build on our administrative and fiscal infrastructure, create solutions to gaps, community needs and develop a diverse funding strategy reflective of our clients needs. Programming for youth and adults with advocacy information and support with post secondary institutions and employmentwill continue to be an area where we will lend our voice. All areas being undertaken will contribute to a society where cocial inclusion, access and participation remain firmly at our core.

Cheers!

Valerie Martin

“Nobody can go back and start a new

beginning, but anyone can start

today and make a new ending.”

~ Maria Robinson

Learning Disabilities Association Toronto District

2012-2013 ANNUAL REPORT

Inside This Issue

1 Message from the

Executive Director

2 Community Outreach

3 About the LDATD

4 LDATD Staff

5 LDATD Volunteers

6 LDATD Programs

7 LDATD Programs

8 LDATD Programs

9 Funders/Foundations

10 Sponsors

11 Friends of LDATD

11 Fundraising Update

12 Contact Information

Community Outreach: Visibility

This year, July 2012 to June 2013, has been a real year for transition with the LDATD Outreach Department. There has been a conscious effort of spreading the awareness of LD’s throughout the City of Toronto and broadcast all of what our Agency has to offer. For this reason, it was important, albeit necessary, to market our services and programs to as many external agencies, resource centres, schools and institutions, as there are in our community and beyond. We also did this by accepting speaking engagements in the above organizations and attending educational fairs and forums. Through out the year we provided outreach in a number of schools for their support fairs. As well as reaching parents and ensuring awareness at that level, we have been able to connect with other resources and have information available to parents with needs not under our umbrella. This allows us to still assist them and give them comfort in the knowledge that we are a contact point and are relevant within the resource community. We have been present at both TDSB and TCDSB conferences and support services fairs. This reinforces our vision to make LDATD as visible an entity as any other. With the brochures made available to families living with a learning disability via the school system alone, the benefit of awareness is unprecedented. In addition to the schools, in the year under review, we had speaking engagements and information sessions at Humber College, Sick Kids in conjunction with a 3rd year Resident presentation on NVLD and U of T (Hart House) at the request of their Students for Barrier Free Access. We have been asked back for next year and will be doing a presentation in November for U of T (Scarborough Campus). Also, our presence in the social media arena cannot be over-emphasized. Through our website, Facebook and Twitter pages, we continue to attract surfers and fans. To all of the agencies, institutions, school boards, schools, colleges and universities, resource centres, and any other community organizations which accepted us into their ‘homes’, we say thank you very much. We hope our relationship will be strengthened in the coming years, for the sole benefit of people living with Learning Disabilities. Please check our website, www.ldatd.on.ca, under “Satellite Locations” to view our growing imprint in the City of Toronto.

Founded in 1971, the Learning Disabilities Association Toronto District is committed to supporting the needs of children, youth, young adults, adults and seniors that have Learning Disabilities and/or AD(H)D. Programs and services of the Learning Disabilities Association Toronto District are available in a number of your neighbourhood schools, community centres and at LDATD’s Head Office location.

Learning Disabilities Association Toronto District

To become a member, please visit our website and download the Membership Form. Some benefits of becoming a member include: Opportunities to get involved with Board

Committees including Programming, Fundraising, Membership and Administration

Access to Newsletters & Commumique Discount on fees for special programs Keeps you in the local loop in terms of

activities and events

LDA Membership 2012 - 2013 Board of Directors Chair Matthew Press Vice Chair Connie Vergura Treasurer Mark Kovats Secretary Valerie Shuttleworth Directors at Large Elliot George Paula Keyfitz Antonietta Savo SEAC Rep - TDSB Michelle Brick SEAC Rep - TCDSB Randy Reid

Donations

Your donations are greatly appreciated! Donations of $10.00 or more are eligible for a tax receipt. You can make a Donation by: Visiting our website and completing a

Planned Giving form to initialize an ongoing donation on a monthly or annual basis

Sending a cheque payable to LDATD Calling our office and providing us with

your Credit Card information .

"I have not failed, I've just found 10,000 ways

that don't work."

~ Thomas Edison: Inventor

PAGE 4 LDATD ANNUAL REPORT 2012 - 2013

Employee Profile: LDATD Agency Staff

Valerie Martin Executive Director

Charlotte Jones Resource Coordinator

Stacey Brookes Program Coordinator

Katie Bushie Program Manager S.T.Y.L.E.

Lucy Malarkey Program Coordinator S.T.Y.L.E Trillium

Bipul Dev Program Coordinator LDEEP

Brett Reneau Employment Facilitator LDEEP

Indra Hansrj Administrative Assistant LDEEP

Alessandra Turnavani Seniors Coordinator

Kofi Adu-Parko Administrative Assistant/ Outreach Coordinator

Program Staff

Friendship Club Damindra Liyanage Amanda Saavedra Simone James Steven McKendry-Lisi Sarah Greenhall

Mindfulness for Kids Sarah Greenhall

Keyboarding for Kids Jamie Chan Hillary Hoffman Anu Vasuthevan

Junior Academy Simone James Sahar Sefer

Smart Kidz Tutoring Christina Ferri

Program Staff

Assitive Technology Anu Vasuthevan Jamie Chan Hiliary Hoffman

Keyboarding Montcrest Jaimie Chan

Young Adult Group Dennis McDermott

Summer Computer Camp Josh Christina Ferri Tabitha

Parent Support Group Dr. Audrey Huberman

Adult Support Group Wayne Harrison

Program Staff

Parent Workshops Presenters Dr. Audrey Huberman Diane Vandenbossche Simmy Zaret Anne Irwin Bob Almak Mitchell Curci Tracey Addison Maria Zangnilli Kim Krahl Vivienne Li

LDEEP Workshops Presenter Dr. Adam Lodzinski

S.T.Y.L.E TRILLIUM Natasha Rajaratnam Keisha Toby Brian Wishart Jenny Gao Valerie O'Meara Michael Luu Sima Badri Anna Naccarato Koa Azaria Thornhill Sumbal Saeed Connie-Ann Garcia Deborah Sivaneswaran Katlyn O'Brien Natasha Sterlin Riddhi Pandit Jennifer Winters Violetta Cupial Ciragh Lyons Zainab Mirza Shalini Singh Anita Advani Arielle Buium Eilaf Abdel-Rahim Floyd French

S.T.Y.L.E TRILLIUM Cont’d

Damini Gangapersaud Carmela Andriano

Sarah Palozzi June Pottinger

Tharsina Thurendranathan Shana Baptiste Nina Sadovska

Kalisha Mohamed Manbir More

Debra Castellano Palmer Pastor-Baranek

Shivani Ruparell Raja Al Turkmani

Jonathan Rubenstein Priyanka Sharma

Daman Grewal Raymond Kybartas

Michelle Hutchinson Monica Kim

Dasha Shestakova Tina Phung

Young-Hae Cho Cherry DiGregorio

Volunteers LDATD Marilyn Taylor Matthew Press Mark Kovats Lina Zacharopoulos William Shone Loris Bennett Valerie Shuttleworth Dr. Audrey Huberman Elliot George Connie Vergura Mimi Hoffman Hillary Hoffman Christina Ferri Valerie Martin Katie Bushie Lucy Malarkey Stacey Brookes Charlotte Jones Alessandra Turavani Brett Reneau Bipul Dev Indra Hansrj

PAGE 6 LDATD ANNUAL REPORT 2012 - 2013

Programs

Resource Program: Reaching over 10,000 people in the City of Toronto with Learning Disabilities this program provides a resource centre that includes information, education, advocacy, coaching and tools necessary to accommodate for success. This program is the one-stop-shop for all things LD where parents, professionals and adults can seek assistance. The staff can handles up to an average of 10 to 15 calls a day.

Funded by the City of Toronto, CSP Program

Adult Support Group: A bi-monthly meeting group comes together in a non-judgmental environment, where adults share their challenges and experiences with LD/AD(H)D. This group provides a place for open discussion and support where LD adults can learn from and support each other in developing employment, life and social skills. There has been a fairly consistent interest in the program since last November and 20 adults have gone through the intake process and started attending group on a semi-regular basis. The average of ASG attendance is up from 6 to a minimum of 12, most times 18, since last fall.

Funded by the City of Toronto, CSP Program

Overview

Programs were very successful for the year of 2012 – 2013, with increasing numbers from the previous year. Enrollment hit 91% of the year’s original target. Seven out of the twelve programs hit over 100% of their targeted enrollment. The top achieving programs of 2012 – 2013 were Assistive technology, parent group, keyboarding, Smart Kidz Tutoring and Mindfulness. Two new programs were introduced to the portfolio during this year, one of which was Keyboarding at Junior academy, which launched in the Fall of 2012and ran throughout the entire school year, hit 130% of targeted enrollment. The other was Mindfulness for Kids which also ran for its first entire program year. This program also finished with higher numbers than projected.

There were both returning and brand new participants across all the programs. We had positive feedback from the parents and participants. All the feedback was taken into account and used to move the programs forward successfully into 2013 – 2014.

Numerous new program sites were solidified towards the end of this year for the upcoming program year. Prior to 2012 – 2013 concluding, we had created a working partnership with the YMCA Academy to run a Youth Group downtown. Program sites in the Beaches and Etobicoke had also been sought out. Not only have new sites been underway, but certain programs were being revamped in order to better meet the needs of our clients.

Programs for Children and Youth:

Friendship Club: A Social Skills/Socialization training program for children and youth that are having difficulty making and maintaining friendships. In this program, participants are taught concrete skill building concepts. There is a strong core emphasis placed on teaching our LD kids communication and problem-solving strategies. This past year, we surpassed our previous year’s number of participants and have been positively praised by children and parents. For the upcoming year, we are going to look at different and creative avenues of reaching a larger segment of the population in need of training to let them know that we are here to help. Building sustainable program capacity will be a prime goal.

Keyboarding for Kids: A technology based program aimed at providing basic and essential typing skills. These skills will equip children/youth with the ability to use the computer to assist them in all aspects of learning. Consistent and repeated attendance has supported this program extremely well this past year with some Saturday mornings seeing us hosts more than our usual two groups!

Keyboarding for Kids Summer Camp: Our camp occurred this year over a period of 8 weeks, and it was very well received! The agency was buzzing with 63 kids learning to enhance their keyboarding skills.

Keyboarding at Montcrest: This downtown location saw 26 participants this year. This was a 38% increase from last year!

Smart Kidz Tutoring Program: This exciting program was very well received this past year. Offering two levels of tutoring for younger and older children, proved to be a good model that parents found beneficial. This support service provides LD-specific remediation that takes into account various learning styles. Studies have shown that this is exactly what LD children/youth need to be successful at school.

Mindfulness for Kids: This program successfully launched in January of 2012! This program aims to increase participant’s awareness and ability to focus in the present and develop awareness of their thoughts, their feelings and their environment.

Skills Training for Youth through Learning and Education (S.T.Y.L.E):

STYLE during its 5th year (2012-2013) saw both leaps and bounds to what has been a progressive 5 year project to date.

STYLE staffed 25 part time staff across 6 program sites. 5 of the program sites were located within TDSB schools. For the first year, 1 school was located in TCDSB. Our program sites as are listed:

• Lester B Pearson S.S • Bendale BTI • L’Amoreaux C.I • Northview Heights S.S • CW Jefferys C.I • ST. Basil, The Great, College

In our 2012-2013 programming year, STYLE serviced on average close to 400 youth a night. This exceeded our projected 310 youth daily that was proposed to our funders- Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport.

During the hours of 3pm-6pm Tuesday- Thursday during the academic year, youth continued to see the supports/services of our rich and diverse programming as it surrounded our pillars of academics, life skills, social skills, recreation and nutrition.

STYLE saw it first cohort of foundation year youth (1st year youth from 2008) go from grade 9 to grade 12. A total of 40 youth were captured in this statistic. Feedback from the youth and their families is that STYLE provided for them what other academic, community driven and supportive service others were not able to. Youth felt they were given the opportunity to create tangible goals in the areas of their life they wanted to and through the guidance of staff, they felt “enabled” to succeed.

Projected for next programming year (2013-2014), STYLE looks to expand into 4 new schools.

PAGE 8 LDATD ANNUAL REPORT 2012 - 2013

Skills Training for Youth through Learning and Education (S.T.Y.L.E) Trillium:

STYLE added four new volunteer led sites (Birchmount Park C.I, Madonna Catholic S.S, James Cardinal McGuigan Catholic S.S and Downsview Park S.S) this past year through gracious 3-year funding from the Ontario Trillium Foundation. STYLE saw 48 dedicated volunteers come through its doors to ensure that 240 students were supported academically, socially and recreationally. The youth were busy with homework, studying for tests and applying for summer jobs! It was definitely not all work and no play though! We all ensured to take a break to learn some Zumba, Yoga, have ping pong competitions, do

arts and crafts and cook some delicious meals including fajitas, sweet potato fries and homemade granola bars. Plans are already in the works to make our second year even more stimulating! A BIG THANK YOU to all of our amazing volunteers that made it all possible! Young Adult Group: 2012 brought the addition of a specialized program to guide young adults through this transition phase into adulthood. Young adults will develop social skills, employment skills and problem solving skills so they feel ready when faced with decisions about post-secondary opportunities, advocating for services, and navigating the workplace.

Programs for Parents:

Parent Support Group: The Parent Support Group is a friendly, non-judgmental place where parents can come to practice their skills as it directly relates to supporting a child with a learning disability. Again, the number of participants virtually doubled this past year.

Preparing the Parent Workshop Series: This multi-informative workshop series provides parents with free of charge access to the latest information on Learning Disabilities and/or AD(H)D. It covers topics such as Organizing the Disorganized Learner, Dealing with Difficult Behaviours, Helping Your Child/Youth Develop Positive Self-esteem, etc. We are happy to report that more professionals are now aware of these workshops and are thus attending with greater frequency.

Programs for Seniors:

Computer Skills: Provides one on one support to build basic computer skills while reducing loneliness and social isolation of older adults (55+) and seniors.

Yoga for Wellness: This program increases the social well-being of seniors and older adults (50+) by improving their cognitive, reasoning and problem solving skills and increasing their social skills. This program helps participants to control stress, decrease anxiety, reduce depression, achieve a greater capacity for relaxation, develop a positive attitude in challenging times and build their self-esteem.

Funded by New Horizons for Seniors Program

LDATD Statistics: Who we reach

Funders

To all of our funders, we greatly appreciate your support!! Thank you!!

Foundations

Crane Foundation Nathan and Lily Silver Family

Foundation

School age children (5-14

years old)

Young youth (15-19 years

old)

Older youth (20-24 years

old)

Adults (25-64 years old)

Seniors (65+ years old)

PAGE 10 LDATD ANNUAL REPORT 2012 - 2013

Sponsors

To our sponsors, thank you for your generous donations. Your gifts have enabled us to continue assisting persons with learning disabilities in meeting their needs by providing support, guidance, programs and services.

MEERC Inc. Joel Landau Adina Isenberg Saul Press Press Family Rayjo Charitable Lifetime Developments

Elliot George

PCL Constructors Canada

Vaughan Mills

Friends of LDATD

Fundraising

Acura of Oakville Adina Izenberg- The Great-West Life Anna Commisso Assurance Company Ben & Jerry’s Vaughan Mills Big It Up Bruce & Joyce Dundas Christina Ferri Dave Toye Diane Rosen Dillon Opticians Elliot George- Royal LePage Elmwood Spa Essential Nails & Tanning Faye Airst Francine Fass Gabriela Pineda-Aguirre Gladstone Gordon Haas Dental Centre Helen Drezner James Farmer Juliette Robinson- TD Securities Lifestyle Magazine Jump Math Katherine Boland L.A. Optical Group Leadership Reframed Lifetime Developments

Lydia White Marilyn Gotfried Mary James Witham Meerc Inc. Menchie’s Miami Fades Mideastro NOBLE Paisano’s Italian Garden Café Patrick O’Hanlon PrintCloud.ca Rachel Press Rayjo Charitable Trust-Underwriting Hope Fund Sara Fass Saul Press SBA of U of T Sharen Green Shirley Rothman Solar Stage Children’s Theatre Spin Kicks Cycle & Fitness TD Securities The Bookman Textbook & Educational Outlet Inc. The Fitness Centre Sevan Art Gallery Ltd. Tom Fischer Umbra Ltd. Upper Village Spa Sheppard Wine Works Wanda Chmiel Yorkwest Plumbing

Ben & Jerry’s

Free Cone Day 2012 was celebrated on April 9, 2013. With the help of Gloria Ren and Simon Wang from Ben and Jerry’s, the LDA Toronto

celebrated this very special day by scooping ice cream for eager customers and raising awareness for our agency. With line-ups stretching far, the

LDA Toronto District staff and volunteers scooped their way to a very successful

fundraising event.

Casino Night

On November 23, 2012 the LDATD hosted its fourth annual Learning Disabilities Gala at The

Avenue Banquet Hall. The hall was buzzing with excitement while guests played everything from Bingo to Roulette to Poker. The night was filled

with games, music, a delicious poutine station and a great crowd of people showing

their support of the programs and services that the LDATD provides!

PAGE 12 LDATD ANNUAL REPORT 2012 - 2013

Contact Information

Learning Disabilities Association Toronto District

121 Willowdale Ave., Suite 100

Toronto, Ontario M2N 6A3

Tel: (416) 229-1680

Fax: (416) 229-1681

Email: admin@ldatd.on.ca

Website: www.ldatd.on.ca

Hours of Operation Monday - Friday

9:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.