How The Rowan Tree Collective is filling the gap for young adults with neurodiversities | 24CA News
Excitement fills the room on the Rowan Tree Collective as a small group of younger adults scan the Bingo playing cards in entrance of them, trying to find the most recent quantity referred to as.
Someone leaps from their seat and frantically shouts “Bingo.” Friends and household cheer them on as they rush over to say their prize.
This area is one thing that was lacking from Thunder Bay just some months in the past.
The Rowan Tree Collective is a new programming hub for adults with autism and different neurodiversities. It was began this 12 months by native dad and mom who noticed a scarcity of exercise choices for their very own grownup kids.
“Families are sort of left to cobble together their own opportunities for their adult children,” stated Michelle Murdoch-Gibson, the communications director and co-founder of the group.
“A lot of these folks are turning 21 and will spend the rest of their adult lives at home … So we’re trying to find something to meet the needs of a diverse population. Individuals who don’t fit normal employment and post-secondary education standards, but still have some skills,” she stated.
“We needed to find a place that was safe, inclusive and judgment free.”
Finding a spot to thrive
A typical theme for younger adults with autism and different exceptionalities who’re leaving secondary college is the wrestle to seek out areas for progress, social interplay and studying that aren’t in the usual post-secondary or job settings.
This was the case for Murdoch-Gibson’s personal son, Rowan, who has autism, she stated, including that even earlier than he aged out of college, discovering the precise place for him to thrive had been a wrestle.
She and her husband took Rowan out of public highschool as a result of they felt their son’s wants weren’t being met, she stated.
“He’s a great kid. He has many great gifts and skills,” Murdoch-Gibson stated. “We found that the school system did not really suit him well. They try to fit a lot of square pegs into round holes in systems like that.”
She and her husband discovered methods to supply Rowan alternatives to achieve life abilities and interplay whereas studying at residence, she stated. As Rowan headed into his grownup years, they have been impressed to attempt to create a spot the place he and others may really feel like they belonged.
This summer season, Murdoch-Gibson and her husband, Paul Gibson, piloted this system, together with Renée Fortin, whose son Noah additionally takes half in this system.
Every day is slightly completely different at Rowan Tree. They deal with 5 branches of programming” Recreation and entertainment, health and wellness, active citizenship, life skills, and employment and volunteerism.
From ‘act of citizenship’ to ‘great life skill’
On this day, after a morning yoga class wraps up, collective members gather around tables to make sandwiches to bring to St. Andrew’s Dew Drop Inn, a soup kitchen in Thunder Bay’s north core.
Everyone works together on the sandwiches and then walks them over to the Dew Drop Inn, where they visit with soup kitchen volunteers who provide just over 300 meals a day to anyone who needs one.
Everyone leaves the Dew Drop Inn with smiles, a rewarding exchange for both those from the Rowan Tree Collective and the Dew Drop Inn.
“So since we began doing this for the Dew Drop Inn, everyone seems to be pro-level sandwich makers,” said Murdoch-Gibson.
“We determined to take the abilities they have been studying throughout that volunteer alternative and now, each Tuesday, we have now everybody make their very own lunch right here on web site … It began out as an act of citizenship and advanced into this nice life talent the place we have now everybody making their very own lunch as soon as per week.”
The Rowan Tree Collective is a community for not only the participants, but for the parents and family members of those with children with developmental disabilities.
Tereza Biloski and her son Ethan have been with the program from the beginning. They enjoy the engaging social aspects of the collective.
“There is nothing after highschool … This is giving him a goal, a routine, construction, and studying …. fixed studying, abilities, friendships. It’s actually rewarding,” Biloski stated.
Founders of the collective stated they count on to hit most capability for this system within the close to future, and the demand reveals how significantly it was wanted.
They stated they’re going to work exhausting to accommodate everybody who must be included of their programming, however in addition they hope it should encourage others to create much more alternatives for adults who’re neurodiverse in Thunder Bay.
