This training is open to St.Amant staff and Volunteers (exceptions apply). If you are a staff member, please speak to your supervisor to register. If you are not a St.Amant staff member, and would like more information about this training opportunity, please email training@stamant.ca’

Training Overview

Being connected to the people we love is critical to our emotional and physical well-being. Many people experiencing our services are sick from loneliness. This workshop is about ideas for moving beyond interventions and coverage to a system that supports enduring, freely chosen relationships.

Learning Objectives

• The impact of loneliness in the lives of people who experience disabilities, particularly as it relates to difficult behaviors;
• The importance of going home to the people we love as an important organizing strategy for helping people to develop relationships;
• Strategies for helping people who are lonely to develop enduring, freely chosen, positive relationships.
• Problem-solving strategies for times when relationships are unbalanced or slow in developing.

Participant Experience
Participants are expected to join using a device with a webcam and microphone to fully participate. ​

About the Trainer
David Pitonyak is interested in positive approaches to difficult behaviors. He believes that difficult behaviors are “messages” which can tell us important things about a person and his or her surroundings. Understanding the “meaning” of an individual’s difficult behaviors is the first step in supporting the person (and the person’s supporters) to change.

David also believes (to paraphrase Jean Clark), that a “person’s needs are best met by people whose needs are met.” Supporting a person with difficult behaviors begins with an honest assessment of the needs of the person’s supporters. Creating more responsive human services is possible only when we take responsibility for problems of the workplace culture. A healthy organization is an organization that invites all of its members to take an active role in decision making, provides support to each member as defined by the member, and evaluates its success by the degree to which it lives up to its promises.

David has consulted with families and professionals throughout the United States, Canada, England, the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, and the Netherlands. He lives in Blacksburg, Virginia with his wife Cyndi . They have two sons, Joe and Sam.

If you require a specific accommodation because of a disability or a medical need, please email training@stamant.ca with the details and we will do our best to accommodate you. Please contact us 7-10 days prior to your training event.

Si vous exigez des mesures d’adaptation dues à une incapacité ou une condition médicale, veuillez nous en informez en nous envoyant un courriel à l’adresse suivante: training@stamant.ca. Nous ferons de notre mieux afin de vous accommoder. Merci denous contacter au moins 7 à 10 jours avant votre session de formation.