Angela is a caseworker at Disability Services (DS) with Community and Social Services – Edmonton Region. In the past, Angela worked with Coordinated Access at Homeward Trust Edmonton, and so was familiar with some of the issues people face prior to starting with DS.

What Angela does:

As a caseworker, Angela works with people who experience the onset of a cognitive disability prior to the age of 18. Caseworkers assess the need for support by meeting with the person and their family or guardian. They get to know the person better, figure out what their needs are, and match them with appropriate, relevant services.

DS has three areas of support: overnight staffed residences (group homes, in-home support, out-of-home support, and support homes), community access (day programs and supported independent living [SIL] programs) and employment supports (either supportive or independent). DS provides supports either through agencies or through Family Managed Service Agreement (FMSA).

DS caseworkers help support the connection between the person and their chosen services to ensure those services are in place. Once the services are in place, caseworkers monitor services for effectiveness regularly using Independent Service Plans.

DS also has a collaboration with Alberta Health Services – the Community Outreach Assessment Stabilization Team (COAST) – where they work with people who meet the criteria of complex needs and multi-system engagement. COAST is a multidisciplinary team that work to support the front-line staff.

What Angela loves about their work:

Angela loves working with the people they serve. Angela also enjoys being creative and trying to problem solve complex cases. Angela really loves meeting people and COVID-19 has had an impact because caseworkers haven’t been able to meet with people in person.

What Angela finds most challenging in their work:

DS began as a grassroots organization (PDD) to support folks with cognitive disabilities. More recently, DS has started to see more and more folks with very complex realities and multi-system involvement. It has become more of a challenge to find supports for people when their situations are so complex. Part of DS’s work more recently has been to try and address those gaps at a systems level.

How the Access Network has helped Angela in their work:

Being part of the AN definitely helps Angela with their more complex files. Whether folks have a service provider or not, they can be difficult to engage, interact with and even locate at times. The AN helps Angela to widen the support network for people. Some connections would never have been made if Angela wasn’t part of the AN. Angela has also learned how to connect people to other (less traditional) services. Being in the meetings has helped Angela to find creative ways to meet peoples’ needs – and they enjoy the very solution-focused approach.