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LiveWorkPlay
For People With Intellectual Disabilities
Making A Buzz In The Ottawa Area Since 1995
"SUCCESS THROUGH COMMUNITY"
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LiveWorkPlay: Our Founders
Understanding the past of LiveWorkPlay is an important consideration in understanding its future. Some of the story can be found on the History page, and through it all you will always find our cofounders, Julie Kingstone and Keenan Wellar. Although they now share responsibility for LiveWorkPlay with other members of a dedicated team of volunteers and staff, their leadership remains a key element to the organization's consistency in approaching and responding to client needs.
To learn about their current daily work at LiveWorkPlay, their educational background, and related information, please visit the Staff page, where you can also meet the rest of the LWP team. What follows below is a brief summary of Julie and Keenan's journey as founders of the organization, from its early beginnings through to the present.
Back in the early 1990s, Julie and Keenan arrived at a similar place by travelling different but somewhat connected paths. The most important experience in Julie's background was her seven years with Christie Lake Camp for underpriveleged boys and girls, where she had the opportunity to learn from Dr. Dan Offord, who had volunteered with the camp for close to 50 years. "Dr. Dan" was an internationally renowned psychiatrist who wrote and spoke extensively on developmental issues related to children and youth. He is a Member of the Order of Canada.
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Keenan & Julie at the first
LWP New Year's Eve Gala
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A variety of other influential experiences, including work with the Carling Emergency Housing Shelter and Michelle Heights Community Centre, provided opportunities to learn about the challenges facing youth at risk, and systemic societal barriers to success. Julie found both challenge and enjoyment in taking leadership roles and in empowering people to overcome barriers. She also learned that she was highly motivated by work environments that were flexible and dynamic, allowing hard work to turn good ideas into reality.
Keenan's first experience working with youth came in 1989, with a summer job at the Gloucester Centre for Community Resources. From there, happenstance led him to become the coordinator of a recreational program for youth with intellectual disabilities, and then to the Ottawa Board of Education as an educational assistant in a unique community living program at Queen Mary Street Public School. He also spent time working one on one with children with intellectual disabilities outside of the classroom setting, which helped to provide some critical insight into the lives of their families.
Keenan also got a taste of life as a "sociopreneur" when he helped to establish one of Ottawa's first independently funded after school programs at St. Anthony School. He also started working with children at risk as an independent consultant, and established a tutoring service for youth with special needs, known as the Keen Learning Centre for Youth. In addition to developing a unique understanding of the needs of people with developmental disabilities and their families, Keenan learned that he was highly motivated by positions of responsibility and trust, and similar to Julie, enjoyed taking good ideas and putting them into practice.
Through mutual friend Kevin Brown, the two first met in 1993, and together with Kevin began organizing and expanding the activities of the Keen Learning Centre to include a resource centre, referral hotline, and the hosting of skill development opportunities and social events for youth with developmental disabilities. The public demand for these initiatives quickly exceeded the capacity of three part-time volunteers, and a reality check indicated that it was time to think about how to take the operation to the next level.
It took almost three years to achieve that goal, with the organization next opening its doors in the fall of 1997.
In the meantime, Keenan managed a national educational project known as the Special Needs Education network. This involved building an interactive website as part of the federal SchoolNet program, and helping to connect Special Education teachers from coast to coast to share ideas and resources.
Keenan also organized several innovative educational projects, and in 1997, in conjunction with his graduate work at Carleton University, he authored a paper, Community Connections and the Global Village, which he presented to the Annual Conference of the Internet Society in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The paper, which addressed in part the need for community-based learning opportunities for people with developmental disabilities, was a fitting end to his career with SchoolNet. Shortly after the conclusion of the conference, Keenan resigned to dedicate himself full-time to what would become the LiveWorkPlay organization.
During the same period Julie worked as a facilitator with the Youth Net organization based out of the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, where she visited schools and community centres providing opportunities for young people to discuss mental health issues and locate appropriate supports. Julie also worked as a Recreation Therapist at Elizabeth Bruyere Hospital, where she designed and implemented therapeutic programs for patients with terminal illness.
In the background throughout these intervening years, Keenan and Julie never stopped pursuing the dream of what would become LiveWorkPlay. Much of the important groundwork was completed, such as incorporating the organization and becoming a registered charity. They also began piecing together a comprehensive funding proposal to the Ontario Trillium Foundation. The concept was broad, which made the proposal challenging, but after a lot of tireless work and many drafts, it finally got done.
"I look back at that process, and I can only say 'thank you' to the Trillium Foundation for having faith in our ability to make the LiveWorkPlay dream a reality," says Julie.
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Cooper, Rachel, Julie, Jason, and Keenan
pictured in a media article from 2002
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"I remember coming home from work every night and working on the proposal week after week, month after month, trying to tie all of the ideas together in a coherent fashion. I remember in particular how Keenan and I had all of the papers spread out in the empty Carleton University cafeteria on a Sunday afternoon, copying and packaging sets of proposals which we sent to Toronto just in time for consideration by the Trillium committee. After a few more hurdles, a letter finally arrived announcing approval of the grant, and I said to myself 'Wow, we are really going to do this!' and it was one of the happiest days of my life."
"I have a similar memory of that day," says Keenan. "I also will never forget the old Mac computer with the 14.4 modem that we used to email back and forth with Trillium, and the prototype inkjet printer that took several minutes to print each page. We were asking for over $200,000 and it all seemed very unreal. Then it seemed like we blinked and woke up in the middle of an old classroom as cofounders of a charitable organization that was going places. And we haven't stopped to breathe since. Amazing!"
Since the launch of the modern phase of the organization, the real story has been about helping people with developmental disabilities enjoy a better quality of life. The most important strength that Julie and Keenan have demonstrated since the launch of LiveWorkPlay is the ability to continuously walk the fine line between supporting people while allowing them to grow. It's not as easy as it sounds. Most LWP clients emerge from the education system with very little ability or experience with making their own decisions. Supporting them while at the same time helping them to develop greater independence can be very challenging.
"I'll never forget when we first started the SMILE system of supports," says Julie. "Many of the clients were in tears, or they went home and burst out crying. Concerned parents were calling to find out what exactly it was that was causing so much distress. What was it? We were asking them to make their own choices in developing their own schedules. For some, even being asked to decide whether they wanted a certain activity to take place in the morning or in the afternoon was overwhelming."
"As puzzling as this might seem, there is no great mystery. If you have never been empowered to make your own decisions, you don't know what to do with that responsbility when you have it. That's one of our critical roles at LiveWorkPlay, to provide an environment with authentic decision-making opportunities. Because if people can't learn to make more of their own decisions, the rest of what we or any other organization is doing is not going to lead to significant or lasting change."
At times during the evolution of LiveWorkPlay, Keenan and Julie have had to devote their time to many different priorities, but as the organization continues to move forward, the importance of having them continue in direct service to clients is paramount.
"Although Julie and I are often seen as the 'lead administrators' of LiveWorkPlay, working with the clients is more important than ever, and that is not likely to change," says Keenan. "This is challenging work, and we are proud of our roles in helping people to overcome barriers. Truly, what could be more incredible than supporting someone else to succeed? That's something that is part of our daily life here at LiveWorkPlay."
Of course, little chores such as raising the funds needed to operate the organization's programs also kept Julie and Keenan busy throughout the years. LWP did not receive one penny of renewable funding until 2001, meaning that the writing of grant proposals and hosting of fundraising events has been a constant part of their lives.
"It's pretty hard to manage an organization that serves people when you are relying on time-limited project funding," says Julie. "You can't do much strategic planning, because you don't know what resources you are going to have to work with from year to year.
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Julie, board member Cyndi Edwards, participant Ian Murphy
and Keenan celebrate a successful auction event in 2002
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It's frustrating for the people who are relying on the organization, and it's also very stressful because you are constantly worried about money for fundamentals. Under that scenario, you are always going to have huge ups and downs, and in 1999 we had a big 'down' you might say. One project ended, and the start of another was delayed by the funder due to reasons beyond our control, and quite simply, we ran out of money."
"Things seemed pretty dark, I remember that well," says Keenan. "There were even a few thoughts that perhaps we had tried our best and it wasn't going to work. But instead of closing our doors we took a big leap of faith by taking out a personal loan to finance the organization through to better days, and fortunately, it worked out. Looking at where LiveWorkPlay is now, it's hard to believe that it all could have ended three years ago."
Obtaining renewable funding support for SMILE in 2001 was definitely one of the high points, but utilizing those funds and developing an effective staffing model proved very difficult.
"After all those years of just trying to make ends meet, we finally got enough money to hire permanent staff," says Keenan. "But having lived the challenges of our work for so many years, we didn't realize how demanding it really is, and as a result didn't anticipate that it would be so difficult to find people to fill the positions."
After investing several months into staff training, not one of the original four SMILE staff members remained with the organization just six months after obtaining the funding. Although this resulted in a major inconvenience, it also helped spawn some creative new thinking, and the understanding that new staff members need to ease into added responsibilities in a more gradual way.
"This is a really demanding job," says Julie. "Some people might think it is all about hugs and smiles, but if you don't have the right attitude about supporting other people it can be exhausting and frustrating work, especially with all the added responsibilities such as fundraising and event management."
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Thanks to increased organizational
stability, it's now possible for Julie and
Keenan to enjoy the occasional weekend off!
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So what's next?
"I've got more passion for LWP now than I ever have, and there's also more work to do. A lot has been accomplished, but I don't look at LiveWorkPlay as a job with a finish line," says Julie.
Fortunately, Keenan is in agreement.
"Our past is very important. We need to stay true to the processes that have lead us to where we are today, which for the most part simply means that we keep listening to our clients and responding to their needs. As we continue to expand our operations, we always need to keep that in mind."
"But is there any limit to how far LiveWorkPlay can go? No!"
For more about all LWP staff members, please visit the Staff page.
Continue learning more about the organization:
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Or switch to:
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153 Chapel Street, Suite 300 | Ottawa, Ontario | K1N 1H5 | 613-235-9550
info@liveworkplay.ca | www.liveworkplay.ca
Charitable Registration 89622 2775 RR 0001
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