HNOIVE PYUOLA YS VULLOUL/PEOMUAVITE ey, 199

 

 

 

Ambassador for people with handicaps

Vicki Cammack, the new coor-
dinator of Douglas College’s Com-
munity Support Worker Program,
wants to create greater public aware-
ness of the need to welcome people
with mental and physical handicaps
back into the community.

“I really believe that our com-
munities are strengthened by having
a variety of people involved in their
activities,” says Cammack. “My goal
is to inspire the graduates of the
CSW program to be effective ambas-
sadors between those with mental
or physical handicaps and the larger
community.”

Spending time with people who
are different helps us lose our
anxiety about them.

“As we spend more time with
people we perceive as different from
us, as we participate and share our
lives with them, all the anxiety
about them that we carry around
with us disappears. But when
people with disabilities are shunted
off to special classrooms or isolated
service situations, places that are
designed to serve only them, then
the rest of us lose the chance to
share with them and receive the con-
tributions they can make.”

Cammack grew up in
Vancouver’s Kitsilano area. She
earned a B.A. in Communications
from Simon Fraser University,
specializing in inter-personal skills
and systems theory. Then she went
to Europe.

“I came home from 13 months
of travelling without a penny to my
name,” says Cammack. “I needed to
eat and a place to live so I gota job
at Camp Alexandra in Crescent
Beach.

“It was in the camp that I first
worked with people with mental
handicaps. I think we all tend to fear
those we see as being somehow dif-
ferent from us. It was at Camp
Alexandra that I lost my fear of
people with disabilities.”

 

 

 

 

 

Vicki Cammack

 

Cammack spent a year in
Quebec and returned home to begin
work at Douglas College with the
Consumer and Job Preparation Pro-
gram for Adults with Special Needs.

“I worked one-on-one with a 21-
year-old man from Quebec,” says
Cammack. “He was almost com-
pletely non-verbal. It turned out that
he had a bi-lingual understanding.
He had total comprehension in both
English and French without ever
having had any second language
training.”

Fascinated by challenge of
working with people with
handicaps.

“It was this experience that did
it for me. I became fascinated by the
challenge of working with people
who are regarded as handicapped
with the larger community.”

Cammack went on to get a
series of jobs in the field, in both su-
pervisory and management
capacities. She has developed cur-
ricula for teaching people with hand-
icaps, and she was the first director
of the Family Support Institute,
which provides information and net-

working opportunities to families
with disabled children.

Families of people with
disabilities superb.

“One of the greatest gratifica-
tions of working with people with
disabilities is the chance to meet
their families,” says Cammack.
“These people are superb. They
have fought to change the human
services structure within the
province and are still struggling and
helping other parents. They have
helped to bring about a new revolu-
tion in human services.”

Cammack’s new duties as coor-
dinator of the Community Support
Worker Program at Douglas College
commenced in January, when she
took over from outgoing coor-
dinator Richard Norman.

The Community Support
Worker Program provides students
with the teaching, training and inter-
personal skills to allow the people
they support to become more inde-
pendent.

Graduates of the Community
Support Worker Program have
very special skills.

Cammack says graduates of the
program deserve much greater
recognition for the contribution they
make to society as a whole. “They
need to be financially rewarded for
the very special skills they have,”
she says. “The demands society
makes upon our graduates are much
greater now. We should be provid-
ing a bridge between people with
handicaps and our larger com-
munity.”

The Community Support
Worker Program at Douglas College
is now accepting applications for the
fall semester. The deadline for ap-
plications is April 30. Enrollment is
limited, so apply early. =