Contents

Director’s message

Our Executive Director Sandie Hoskin reflects on 2020-21 and what it meant for Lake Ridge Community Support Services and the families we serve.

program highlights

Funded & Fee Based Program Highlights

OAP-Intensive Program Highlights

Financial Statements

Income

Expenses

Training & Research

Agency Training & Employee Stats

Community Training

Research & Grants

agency highlights

Recognizing Our Employees

Committees

Brokerage

Operations

Message from the Executive Director

This has been a year like no other. Our Lake Ridge Community Support Services staff and Board of Directors remained forward-focused and creative through a year of unknowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  The 2020-2021 year began with a provincial lockdown.  Thankfully, due to a robust and well-established information technology infrastructure, we were able to pivot quickly to virtual service for many clients.  Although not the ideal option for every service type, it allowed our staff to stay connected with our clients and families and continue to provide our service.  By early July, Lake Ridge was able to start the gradual reopening process and start returning clients to in-person services.  Guidelines and procedures were developed to create a safe environment for staff, clients and families.  The ministry provided essential personal protective equipment on an ongoing basis to assist us with following our protocols.  In-person services were only provided at a Lake Ridge location through the summer and fall.  In the fall and winter, the number of COVID-19 cases in Ontario was up and down and we continued to be in and out of lockdown.  The staff, clients and families were all patient, understanding and supportive as we attempted to navigate the situation from day to day.  The sector as a whole was very supportive of each other and the community, continuously communicating, advocating and supporting each other.   We all had to pivot and reprioritize many times throughout the year.  

Over the 2020-2021 year, we were able to shift and pivot our ministry-funded programs to continue providing service either virtually or in person.  We also continued to build and develop our fee based services for children and youth.  Although COVID-19 prevented us from fully developing our fee based program, we were able to shift our services to allow for both in-person and virtual service.  We are continually reviewing our service options and looking for new and creative ways to offer service.  We are developing new program ideas and training options in response to the feedback and input provided by our clients, families, community and staff.

The Ontario Autism Program (OAP) continued to evolve throughout the year.  More families were able to access their interim one-time funding or childhood budget through the ministry to purchase the service they needed.  In August, Foundational Family Services were introduced provincially, to allow families to access free training and short-term consultation.  Since the launch, Foundational Family Services has continued to grow and evolve based on client and caregiver feedback.  In early 2021, further OAP developments were occurring and will continue to be released throughout the upcoming year.  

As we move forward, we look ahead to continued growth and development as an Agency.  Some strategic goals for the upcoming year include capitalizing on our strengths and capabilities to increase our capacity and ensure that we continue to be a high-performing, individualized and ethical organization.  Lake Ridge will continue to focus on program development and increased capacity while maintaining the highest standards of service delivery and operational quality.  Client and community engagement and feedback will help inform and direct our Agency's growth.

While the challenges of the pandemic are not entirely behind us and other challenges will undoubtedly arise, the achievements of 2020-21 point to Lake Ridge’s ability to remain steadfast, committed to supporting clients of all ages and their caregivers.  This takes the collective effort of many.  Thank you to our Board of Directors, funders, supporters, staff, clients and their families. We look forward to the future of continued growth and development - together!

Program Highlights

Programs

Funded & Fee Based Programs 

Funded Program Statistics

Adult & CHILDREN/YOUTH Funded Program Statistics

Fee Based Service

Our fee based service teams continue to experience success and renewals. With such success, we were able to create another team that will be at capacity by mid-summer 2021. The fee based service team has been able to streamline our service navigation process, creating ease and efficiency for families and clients, while our clinical team has created policies and parameters to ensure a high quality of service to all families.

Our fee based service, like our funded service, was offered in-person and virtually based on individual needs. We continued to offer a variety of service delivery options from intensive, to focused, to consultative depending on individualized need and recommendations.  We continued to update our social skills groups and developed new groups, such as Puberty for Girls.  Lastly, we were able to successfully offer our specialized programs for toileting and eating selectivity to those families who requested this service.  Going into 2021-22 we will continue to develop and evolve our specialized services.  

Programs

OAP - Intensive

Ontario Autism program - intensive program

The intensive portion of the OAP continues to be funded by the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services (MCCSS). We offer this service in partnership with Kinark Child and Family Services throughout Durham Region for children up to the age of 18. The intensive portion of OAP, commonly referred to as OAP-I, is a highly structured program based on the principles of Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA). This program operates Monday through Friday and is a comprehensive approach used to decrease behaviour challenges and teach skills such as emotional regulation, communication, socialization, self-help, pre-academics and play.

Through  2020-2021, our OAP-I program has not seen many changes.  Our families are currently waiting for the Ministry’s rollout of the new needs-based OAP.  We are confident that we will be able to assist our current clients’ transition into the new service model once it is available. We have maintained our partnership with Kinark and serviced 44 children in our OAP-Intensive and Focused Program. However, our clients and families have experienced far more over the past year.  The pandemic has served as a life teacher and has resulted in face-to-face service being suspended 3 times throughout the year.  But in true Lake Ridge fashion, we were able to pivot and continue to strive to meet our vision of helping as many clients as possible.  We were committed to this through the use of telehealth services and creative mediator training if the client and family chose to participate.  It remained possible to reach full potential, regardless of the ever-changing landscape of health and safety measures and new modalities of service.  In some circumstances, it was not possible for all of our clients and families to thrive in this new service model, but we are thrilled to report that many were quite successful.  We are so proud of our staff and families who created and capitalized on all teachable moments they could find while navigating the COVID-19 pandemic. It is important to note that when service was available in person, goals were accomplished and milestones were met.  This includes examples such as the introduction of new foods to a diet or toileting success for more independence at home and at school. 

In addition to client success, we have also had staff success with the development of our own in-house Lake Ridge Behaviour Technician Training for all new staff who join our Agency.  This included guidelines and parameters for telehealth client services and parent training.

2020-21 Financials

The below financial statements reflect the fiscal period between April 1, 2020 and March 31, 2021.

Training & Research

STAFF TRAINING & CERTIFICATIONS

Training Statistics

Employee Certifications

Approved Continuing Education (ACE)

Stone Soup ABA Conference

Parent, caregiver & community training

Workshops & Foundational Family Services

Research & Grants

Training & Research

Staff Training

Training and development are important values at Lake Ridge. We value and focus on training and development of our staff to help them grow and continually improve our service. We continuously engage with research to foster growth and learning as an integral part of our service. We also value and focus on sharing our knowledge with the community. We are all stronger together.

Congratulations to all of the clinicians who received certifications this past year.

Training & Research

Parent, Caregiver & Community Training

The shift to virtual and the move to Foundational Family Services meant taking our traditional in-person workshops and shifting them online. In fiscal 2020 we ran 11 free live streaming workshops for parents and caregivers on Facebook Live. We transitioned that content to a complete Parent and Caregiver education portal at lrcss.thinkific.com in the third quarter.

Training & Research

Research & Grants

We value the importance of participating in clinical research that contributes to the evidence of evidence-based treatments. Some research highlights from this past year include: 

The publication of an article: Impact of Legislated Quality Assurance Measures for Interventions for Adults with Intellectual Disabilities and Challenging Behavior in Journal on Developmental Disabilities.

Research began for the Ontario Trillium Fund Grant called Facing Your Fears. This is a free cognitive behaviour therapy group for children with ASD. 

Lake Ridge is partnering with York University on a Proof of Concept Community Evaluation Grant to facilitate an evaluation for The Secret Agent Society© (SAS) group. This is a cognitive behavioural intervention designed to improve social skills and emotional regulation in children with autism. This grant is a multiphase project over three years.

We are grateful for the grant awarded to us by the Town of Whitby Mayor’s Community Development Fund Grant. With this grant, we were able to offer The Secret Agent Society© (SAS) at a reduced cost for families with children between the ages of 8 to 12 yrs old with autism spectrum disorder. Secret Agent Society© is an evidence-based, multimedia program that helps children to improve their social and emotional resilience.

Paradigm Transportation Solutions Limited has been supporting Lake Ridge Community Support Services for 3 consecutive years, donating a total of $9,000 towards the Secret Agent Society (SAS) including a $5,000 donation in 2020-21. SAS is a breakthrough social skills approach for 8 to 12-year-old children, with a range of different social and emotional challenges. With this donation, we have helped put 11 children through this group. We are thankful for their generosity.

GRANT PROVIDERS

Agency Highlights

Recognizing our employees - agency awards

Jim Reaume Award

Culture & Spirit Award

“Shout Out” Award

Length of Service Award

Brokerage & partnerships

Sunrise Brokerage

Partnerships in 2020-21

Agency Highlights

Recognizing our Employees

Agency Highlights

Committees

Agency Highlights

Operations

PRIVACY

This year one of the Agency's main priorities was to continue to earn and build trust with our clients and families, while navigating the challenges of adapting to virtual platforms for service delivery. We did this by reviewing, updating and enhancing our current privacy practices.

The Privacy Officer here at Lake Ridge developed and sent out a survey to all employees in order to evaluate their current knowledge and understanding of Agency privacy practices and policies. Based on the survey feedback below are some actions Lake Ridge took over the past year:

• Agency-wide privacy training;

• Agency safeguards were updated by adding a privacy acknowledgement into our electronic database that requires agreement from all employees each time they log in;

• With the assistance of Human Resources, a privacy breach protocol was developed and implemented;

• Consent forms were updated to incorporate the use of telehealth platforms for the delivery of service, as well as making all forms into fillable documents to obtain consents electronically. 

Our Privacy Officer is a part of a community of health sector Privacy Officers, which allows Lake Ridge to stay updated on advancements of the current legislation.  This helps to guide and inform our decisions around confidentiality and privacy of personal information not only for our current and past clients but also for our employees. 

We look forward to building on the quality service we provide by ensuring that our clients and employees trust that their privacy is respected and upheld with the utmost importance.

Cyber Security

At Lake Ridge Community Support Services, data security and privacy is a top priority.  We have taken a number of measures to protect the sensitive data of our clients and the Agency.  We use a diversified platform of secured on-premises hardware and modern cloud services to help mitigate the risk of catastrophic failure due to malicious external actors.  This is reinforced by a robust and well-established disaster recovery plan that ensures that we always have an encrypted data backup available in multiple levels (including weekly offline backups) to be prepared for any issues that may arise. 

With this plan in place, a great deal of emphasis is also placed on the use of unique complex passwords, 2-Step Verification when possible, and cybersecurity training covering issues like phishing and ransomware risk factor awareness.  This is supported by sophisticated endpoint protection on Windows laptops and servers, an increasing use of modern technologies such as Chrome OS, and on-premises firewall devices that use artificial intelligence to analyze network traffic at the packet level.  This provides incredible visibility into possible risk factors and the ability to stop detected malicious actions instantly.

Although we have all of these precautions in place, we are aware that no system should ever be considered completely secure. We highly encourage vigilance, awareness, and cooperation throughout our userbase to help battle this constant threat.

Agency Highlights

Brokerage

Lake Ridge Community Support Services (LRCSS) continued to broker funds for the DSB services which are operated through Sunrise Youth Group (SYG).

SYG had to temporarily close their in-house programming in March of 2020.  The day program transitioned to online programming and started to offer two virtual programs per day.  The virtual programs were very successful and offered a variety of programs including fitness, life skills, literacy, cooking, education activities and games.  During this time the Sunrise community was able to participate in daily programs which created routine, stimulation and eased many anxieties.

The day program was able to re-open in October 2020 at half capacity due to COVID-19 safety measures.  The day program accommodated 8 people per day on a biweekly basis.  When the day program reopened, it continued to offer two daily virtual programs for those members who could not attend in person.  Throughout the balance of the year, there continued to be closures and programming was able to successfully transition accordingly.

SYG continues to have 26 members (5 full-time, 21 part-time).  Due to COVID-19 restrictions, SYG was only able to accept 1 new member for in-person programming.  The recreation program was able to accept 10 new members and the virtual day program was able to accept 3 new members.

SYG continued to see an increase in interest from new members and currently has 36 individuals on a waiting list.  This is an increase from previous years due to other day programs in the region closing.  The day program fosters friendships, promotes independence, encourages acceptance and promotes integration within the community.  The staff ensure that programming has auditory, visual and kinesthetic components available for all participants while providing creative, innovative and modified programming developed to meet the varying needs of the members.  Current and long-term members benefit from continuing life skills programming as well as social inclusion in friendships and involvement in the community.  The staff have been able to seamlessly adapt programming to meet in-house and virtual criteria. The total cost to run the program is $238,026.65. The ministry funds $63,972.67 of that amount and the balance is paid through member fees.

DURHAM STAFF TRAINING COMMITTEE

LRCSS also brokers the Durham Staff Training Committee fund. This fund enables developmental service agencies to plan and access additional training throughout the year. Due to the pandemic, the training committee was able to quickly adapt and organize many virtual training events to support learning and development for all staff across the sector. Over the past fiscal year, 330 Durham Region staff received training through the fund.

Agency Highlights

Partnerships and Collaboration

Lake Ridge Community Support Services continues to partner and collaborate with many agencies to provide services and education. These partnerships allow us to continually engage and improve service for everyone to have the opportunity to reach their unique potential. Collaborating with our partners also allows us to continue to develop and engage in research opportunities to inform the future. Thank you to our community partners.