It’s been a long time coming, say organizers at the St. Albert Public Library.
A new program for adults with developmental disabilities is meant to offer them more than just the chance to participate in some fantastic activities and hang out with friends.
“Over the months, I've been noticing that we do a great job of providing programming and services for a lot of different demographics and age groups, but we're really starting to notice that adults with disabilities was a large gap in terms of what we were offering for those people. There wasn’t a lot,” said Stephanie Foremsky, the library’s public services manager, talking about the origins of All Abilities Afternoons.
“I was wanting to know if there was something more that we could be offering them, something kind of unique or special, knowing that we are a destination during the daytime. What else could we be doing?”
All Abilities Afternoons is meant to simultaneously promote creativity and relationship building. The program started more than a week ago and plans to run for an hour every Thursday afternoon. During that time, the participants can get involved in exploring Makerspace projects, while their caregivers are also picking up information on technologies and resources on other community activities they can share with their clients.
“Our goal is to create a regular space where adults with developmental disabilities and their caregivers can explore learning and leisure opportunities in a fun, safe environment. Library staff will be on hand to answer questions and help everyone explore the different activities and technologies at their own pace.”
Those activities include button making, green screens, and Ozobots, small robots that can be easily programmed to move using coloured lines. Makerspace is an all-ages program that the library introduced last year. It’s a pop-up workshop space where people can share ideas, make stuff, and experiment with robots, paper crafts, coding, music and other fun things.
To help draw attention to the new program, library staffers have been spreading the word over the last few weeks any time they observed adults with developmental disabilities and their caregivers in the library. They’ve also called up community organizations such as LoSeCa and Transitions that specialize on working with these individuals. The response, Foremsky said, has been great. Its first outing had nearly 10 participants.
Part of the draw of All Abilities Afternoons is that it also doesn’t require any pre-registration. It’s a drop-in program, which organizers hope will also help to spur attendance.
“We know that a lot of the time a drop-in environment is an elimination of a barrier. So, not having to plan ahead and call and kind of jump through any hoops to get a call or sign up online for a program … that can be really much more inviting.”
On top of all that, the program runs at a time of the day when adults with disabilities and their caregivers are frequently in the library anyway. Foremsky added that if people are there but don’t even know it’s happening, the staff will approach them to offer the invitation.
It is meant to run regularly in the library’s Forsyth Hall on Thursdays from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. The only exception to this will be when it is bumped on Jan. 24 because another program has already booked the space.
