The CCRW Speaker Series is a series organized around the theme of creating voice for diverse communities through the lens of disability.

About this Event

The CCRW Speaker’s series will be host to panelists that will speak to their professional experience and lived experience with intersecting communities and identities and how these identities affect them and the people they advocate for.

Dialogue will be facilitated surrounding forms of discrimination and oppressive systems in the workplace. At the same time, the conversation will also navigate self-determination, social justice and what it means to be in a truly inclusive and healthy workspace.

This discussion will bring together organizations, employers/business and communities to share space. Individuals with intersecting identities/experiences will be at the forefront in these conversations, with the attending audience listening and then engaging in a CCRW supported Q&A session.

Get to know our Panelists!

Neil Belanger has over 30 years of experience working within in Canada’s Indigenous and non-Indigenous disability and health sectors. For the past ten years, Neil has been the Executive Director of the British Columbia Aboriginal Network on Disability Society or BCANDS, an Indigenous disability organization holding Special Consultative Status with the United Nations. BCANDS provides a variety of programs and services relating to Indigenous disability across Canada. BCANDS work has been highlighted through numerous provincial, national and international awards and recognition, the most recent being the Zero Project International Award presented to the Society in Vienna, Austria, in 2019. In addition to his work at BCANDS, Neil serves in a variety of disability related advisory roles,

Jacq Hixson-Vulpe (they/them) works at The 519 as the Senior Consultant, Special Projects. They have authored a number of resources, including “Creating Authentic Spaces.” Jacq has worked extensively in the field of LGBTQ2S inclusion with organizations like Pride at Work Canada coordinating the LGBTQ2S Workplace Inclusion Index. In their free time, Jacq works on their Ph.D., which explores the representation of queer and trans children in education.

Maya Roy is the CEO of YWCA Canada. Maya is a diversity specialist with 22 years of experience in a variety of sectors in public policy development, public health, adult education and social work. Her work has taken her to Thailand, Brazil, India and the UK where she worked with NGOs to support human rights and violence prevention. Her essays have been published in Going Beyond the Journey (2013) by Insomniac Press, and she is the winner of the 2013 CASSA Gender Advocate Award and the Toronto Community Foundation's Vital People award in 2014. She has a Bachelor of Social Work from the Ryerson School of Social Work, and has a Masters in Social Policy and Planning from the London School of Economics. Maya was a member of the Gender Equality Advisory Council for Canada’s G7 Presidency. She is currently part of Young Global Leaders with the World Economic Forum and sits on the board of Women’s College Hospital.

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Disability and Work in Canada 2018 will be held in Ottawa on December 4 and 5, 2018. The conference will review a proposed national strategy to improve the level of employment of persons with disabilities in Canada.

This conference will be the next step in a process that began in November 2017, when a broad range of work disability partners held a highly successful conference in Ottawa entitled “Disability and Work in Canada: Success and Challenges of Canada’s First 150 Years, Developing a Vision and Strategy for the Future.” https://crwdp.ca/en/national-conference-disability-and-work-canada.

Since the November 2017 conference, efforts have been underway to develop a vision and strategy for the future, focused on key initiatives to increase the employment of persons with a disability. A draft strategy will be distributed in the Fall of 2018, prior to the national conference. The objective is to foster broad consensus on the key elements of that strategy.

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The objectives of this conference are:

• Review and celebrate progress to date on opening the world of work to persons with disabilities and injured workers
• Identify key current challenges and opportunities
• Develop a vision and strategy for the future
• Strengthen collaboration and networks in support of the strategy
• Launch a book of Canadian working stories about persons with disabilities

If you are a person with a lived experience and wish to request a subsidy to attend the conference, please send an email to [email protected] with your name, province and a breakdown of your subsidy request (I.E. amount for travel, registration costs, hotel accommodation/billeting, etc.)

Preliminary Agenda

Monday, Nov. 27 7:00 - 10:00pm - Reception and Information Sharing and Book Launch

This will be a unique event with an opportunity to informally meet with organizations and businesses who will share their solutions to many of the barriers present for the hiring and return to work for employees with disabilities.

We will also be launching Dustin Galer's new Book "Work Disability in Canada - Portrait of a System".

Tuesday, Nov. 28 7:30am - 5:00pm

• Employer Panel Breakfast - employer champions from various sectors (Finance, IT, Retail, Transportation and Service) will shared their experience with hiring persons with disabilities.
• Keynote celebrating Canada's accomplishments
• Panel discussing our accomplishments and where we still need to go from here
• Panel of lived experience - persons with disabilities share their stories
• Panel on the approach of the federal and provincial governments on improving employment of persons with disabilities
• Innovation in service and supports for accommodation and return to work

Wednesday, Nov. 29 8:00am - 3:00pm

• New trends in technology with Neil Squire
• National panel of visionaries
• National Strategy proposal

For an up to date agenda, http://www.ccrw.org/dwc2017-conference-agenda/

Who should attend?

persons with disabilities and injured worker representatives; labour and employer stakeholders; disability organizations; federal, provincial and municipal government representatives; health professionals; and researchers.

For more information, contact [email protected] 

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