Shelley Alward-MacLeod 0:00 You're listening to Within Our Reach a podcast by reachAbility Association that focuses on accessibility, inclusion and leveling the playing field at work and in your community. My name is Shelley Alward MacLeod, and my co host is Blake Hunsley, and today we're joined by reachability founder and CEO, Tova Sherman to talk about 25, 25 years of reachability as part of the agency's anniversary celebrations. Enjoy this episode. Hi

Tova Sherman 0:27 there. I'm so grateful to be here, and Blake, always good to see you, and Shelly. And yes, I am back, as they say. But the most important thing is, I'm back for such an incredibly fun and frankly, deeply moving reason we

Blake Hunsley 0:42 should Well, we're celebrating. We should invite people to celebrate with us as well. We're actually hosting, if you're a local listener, we are hosting our open house on May 30 to celebrate our 25th anniversary here

Tova Sherman 0:52 and to celebrate the launch of national accessibility week, a very important week right here at reachability. That's

Blake Hunsley 0:57 true, one that's very applicable to a lot of our clients. So we'll be celebrating our clients and all their successes. And you can come and meet a lot of them. You can come and meet the reachability staff. You can come and meet Tova

Tova Sherman 1:09 and hear everything you're about to hear on this episode. Otherwise, in other words, there it is free food and prizes. I always make sure there's prizes. If there isn't some exciting thing going on, I'm done. So if I'm bored, trust me, we got to do something more. So we have, oh, go ahead. Shelly, hello, hello.

Shelley Alward-MacLeod 1:27 I am so excited about 25 years. And I was thinking about, how long have I been working with reachability?

Tova Sherman 1:35 I know it feels like 25 years, but what is it 25 but

Shelley Alward-MacLeod 1:38 it's been 15 years. Fantastic. So

Blake Hunsley 1:40 five year increments. It's five years for me, that's funny. So it's,

Shelley Alward-MacLeod 1:44 it's very, it's very exciting to see the iterations of of reachability, while still continuing the great work, right? And there have been some iterations based on the needs of the community, 100% and I'm thrilled. I'm thrilled with you know, to see how successful the organization is, the wonderful work that they, that they do, and I think it's going to be a great day to share that. If you've not okay, heard anything about reachability Association and you're just listening to this podcast, you need to be there on May 30. Have a little tour. Reachability, then you still need to pop by and help us celebrate the success.

Tova Sherman 2:29 Absolutely, this, this, really, this celebration. Just to be clear, we talked about it as a staff because it is a big milestone, first, certainly an NGO in today's world, surviving 25 years. So we want to stand and acknowledge that and all the people that brought us to this place, as you said, in all those iterations, whether it was at one point, we had two camps. I mean, we have really tried to be there. I always called it the lava flow. If it was a gap and it was filled, we tended to go around it. But where we saw a gap, we really tried to fill it. And that really is how we kind of created who we are and what we are today. And I think it is, again, we talked a little bit about, as a staff, how we want to celebrate, and everyone really came up with the same idea. We don't have time. We're busy helping our clients, working with our community, building relationships and partnerships, and that's not bull. That's just what we do every day, all day. And as a result of that, we didn't feel we had time to kind of stop the train and do some, you know, wild event or sell tickets or fundraise, or any of that. All we wanted to do was to celebrate the very people we're committed to. So this is very client focused. Come on in meet some clients who succeeded, some who were still, you know, getting at the beginning of that journey, or inviting all clients past, present and future that were excited about seeing and letting know that this is a place that they can feel comfortable with. In fact, it was only a few days ago that one of our team members was showing someone around, and they saw the kitchen, and they began to cry, and they simply looked at her and said, people do still care. Because, of course, we're really into the food security now, in a way, as anybody who's running an agency almost has to be, because otherwise, how do you bring people in? Ask them to learn, ask them to grow, ask them to put aside some of those immediate issues and look at the bigger picture. You can't do that if they're starving. So a really great example of the newest iterations is the fact that we serve breakfast and lunch now, and the ability for clients to stick around, to feel engaged, the smell of food when you first come into the building, it's all good.

Blake Hunsley 4:35 Talk a lot, too, about what's changed at reachability over the last 25 years, but before we get there, we really should talk about why and how reachability started. So you were the founder of reachability 25 years ago. So what need, I suppose, is the real question, what need Did you see? What gap Did you see that led you to start your own

Tova Sherman 4:53 agency? Well, as you two know, there was a president by the name of Dr Bruce Mills, and he has passed since, but he was the inspiration. For everything. He had been the president of an agency in Ottawa called Reach Canada that specifically dealt with legal issues for people who could not otherwise afford a lawyer. And I'm sure, and believe me, we learned quickly there were plenty of that. So we started with that model, because we wanted to see what were the issues. And we determined very quickly that the majority of them were not of a legal nature. They were really just people giving a chance to equalize the playing field. And when I say equalize, I mean fair and equitable. It just doesn't roll off the tongue the same way. So we really started as this legal service trying to understand what the community is doing. Identified that people needed confidence. First and foremost, I would have clients come in all the time, and I would say to them the same question, what are you good at? Because, you know, I'm thinking the video games and all the things today, and they would always say the same thing, nothing. And I was so floored by nothing. The first thing we did was we created, after this legal program, we created one step closer, which today it's known as, but was essentially, you're good at something, and we're going to prove it to you, and then you're going to take that knowledge to the next place where you, a person who is good at stuff, can start applying those transferable skills to actually feeling like you're contributing to this planet, whatever that looks like for you.

Shelley Alward-MacLeod 6:14 Exactly. I love that. And I just, you know, I think this is a good time to say that you're good at something. Tova has coined a phrase a while back that I just love, right? Nobody goes nowhere, right? As

Tova Sherman 6:35 a person, frankly, who lives on the severe end of the ADHD spectrum. And I don't care if it's ADD or ADHD, it's one spectrum. And I'm quite severe. I knew what it felt like I was my muse. To be very frank with you, when I started reachability, I said, Wouldn't it be nice if, when they asked me to leave high school, there was a place like this to go and say, Listen, it's not working. And, you know, they're busy telling me I'm, you know, as dumb as a stump, because that's the way it was done. I'm in my 60s, so of course, it's not, it wasn't necessarily the prettiest place to be a different kid. But most importantly was I felt all these things, and I thought, my God, if I'd had an advocate, what would that have looked like? And that was really the framework for everything we developed, and the empathy I was able to develop in order to listen. And I'm not a great listener, let me tell you, but I had to learn to listen to those client needs and understand where reachability needs to go. Because what we found was everyone was going nowhere, and people were going in circles, and they were being stuck on I mean, I had people call me and say, I've been on someone's roster for two years, I said, and you're waiting for a call like it would appall me, because that's not how things should be, and that's how things were. So it was really important to me to figure out what I could do, but it really came down to many services to the few, which had to be a mantra for us, because otherwise you can't do no one goes nowhere. We had to look at an individual and say, Oh, they need advice. They don't want to go to work, but they need advice on maybe volunteering and being part of the community. Okay, we're going to need to develop a volunteer program. Okay? We're going to need to now. We have a new program we're developing right now, and it's a peer program where our successful clients, who have gone really from self loathing to working and contributing and being really voices of their community. We want to pull them back and have them peer as peer members of our community, our new clients, who are really struggling with potentially anger and all of those things that block them from being able to receive the information that we have for them. So we're always trying to find ways to sort of plug the leaks in a way, and create this very comprehensive place where people who have been marginalized, and I don't care if it's disability or, most likely, intersectional, a lot of different things, but whoever you are, if you don't feel the playing field has been equalized for you, you start here and no one goes nowhere if we can't do it for you. We have the motto, of course, someone else should, but we always look at who is doing it, and if we can't find anyone, we're back to that lava flow again, Shelly. So it's kind of been a that's been our methodology. If I can say that, one

Blake Hunsley 9:11 thing I want to point out to people who might think that we're trying to do everything too, is, whenever we're looking at a new project here at reachability, one of the first questions we ask is, Is it a good fit for us. Just why reachAbility? Just because it's a service that's needed and we've identified the need in the community, doesn't necessarily mean that we're the best placed and best developed to offer that often. You know, fortunately for our clients, we do have the right people on hand to start a new program. But yeah, we're not going to take on something that's completely out of our wheelhouse, but we will find somebody who can do it. We're not going to leave a client with no resources. Housing has been the toughest issue we've had asked about, I think, in the last two years here, up there, with food and I mean, we do not have housing resources. We are not those people. But if you call us and say, Help, I'm desperate for housing, we're not going to say, well, I can't help you. And hang. Yeah, like we will spend many times

Tova Sherman 10:02 we will we whether it's the church, whether it's the MLA, whether it's some new housing group that's putting together some of those wonderful little, small houses, whatever's going on, we're trying to keep our thumb on the pulse. And really, Marcus our PES does that because he's the one who says, Okay, now what can we support you on this continuing journey? Or do you require other interventions in which case, what they are really falls on Marcus. So we have people positioned really pivoting our clients to the next thing, but not for them. We listen to them. I always say people ask me a lot about these terms, like case manage. We do not case manage people. We get to know people, they get to know us, and we start to realize that it's not that they don't like people or won't work with people, it's that they've had bad experiences. So how do we turn that around? We show them a place like this where everyone is kind. Kindness is a big piece of reachability. We got made fun of just this past week, because we are notorious. We are notorious for stopping people and saying, are you okay in the office? Someone's waiting for an appointment with Emma. They've probably been here four and a half minutes. But if it happens to be the four and a half minutes where we're all moving, getting coffee and doing they're going to be asked 15 times, can I get you anything? And I've actually had we've tied it up. We're going to give them little signs going, I'm fine, thank you, because we are so good at and I'm not at all disappointed at all of us, no matter who we are, stopping and saying, Are you helped? And if they are, but they aren't sure you could see that you go, let's go into the kitchen. I'll get you a coffee. Because, of course, again, that food security, that ability to take people into the kitchen, is part of that no one goes nowhere energy, we just didn't know how powerful it is from many points, not just the obvious hunger

Shelley Alward-MacLeod 11:46 well, and I that was the food security was one of the things that I wanted to talk on about, how listening okay to your clients or prospective clients, really helped you understand okay, that people aren't showing up, right? Likely because

Tova Sherman 12:03 they're hungry. They would leave at lunch often and never come back. That was a huge they're hungry. And,

Shelley Alward-MacLeod 12:09 you know, in the school system, you know, we figured it out, okay, that we had to start providing breakfast programs, and now lunch programs, because those might be the only meals the kids get that day, thus it actually gets them into the school, right? And once they're fed, likely learning could take place, or a safe space is created, and that's exactly what I see. Reachability has created. You've listened to your clients, right? So now people are coming, and maybe we're making them the starting of the journey for them might be getting out of bed each day, and I'm now going to get a meal. I know that the days that I go to reachability, I'm going to get a meal. So I'm going to get up and I'm going to show up here each day, even if it's for

Tova Sherman 12:53 that. My favorite example of that is clients who finish programming are coming back strictly for our counseling arm, and they ask for lunchtime appointments on certain days. Oh, Tuesday's chili day. I'm gonna book my appointment with Chelsea Tuesday at 1230 and they come in a little early and they have lunch because we ask them to. We don't just sit there passively. If someone comes in here and doesn't have food in their hands, I'm all over them, of course. You know the grandmother thing, but I really am. And I mean it sincerely. I know the difference when your food in your belly. We

Blake Hunsley 13:23 also can't stand waste. So yeah, here, and you just casually mentioned you have a roommate, family member, child, please take food and there's an extra scoop of chili. You're gonna get that extra as

Shelley Alward-MacLeod 13:35 a little funny side note, the three of us are all food motivated, yes, so we we have no trouble, like, understanding that people want food. We feel they should have food because we like food. So, you know, it's important. But I think, I think that's, that's a really for me, over the years, of being able to see, like, the the ability for reachability to have started at this, you know, with, you know, Dr Mills, having started with this original sort of idea, right? And then recognizing, okay, no, no, this is where we need to take it. And then not just staying there, like some organizations have stayed there, but that works for them, right? Your organization is about, you know, finding what's right for our community today. Also,

Tova Sherman 14:25 the community wants it from us. We had an experience. We had an art festival. It was very, very interesting, but we weren't the right people to run the art festival. First of all, we're not festival people. Second of all, frankly, we're not artists. So we stepped away and allowed the artists to take it. In fact, we turned away some great funding, which is considered to be like, they couldn't even believe it. I remember saying, we aren't going to be taking this funding. Thank you. And they were like, No, really, it's approved. And I'm thinking, I'm sure this doesn't happen often, but we've made a decision that this isn't right for our community. It's not what our community wants. It's not what we wanted. We felt so. Stretched, so we made a decision to step back. We're willing to do some very uncomfortable things in NGO terms that are important enough to say, let's keep this agency focused on what we do best, looking at the people that have accumulated here. What are their strengths? Let's build on that. And we try very hard not to just sort of swing based on funding, because that can get you a little crazy. You know, you're following Pink Flamingos this year, but next year it's purple hippos. So you know what I mean, we've really tried to find a way to keep consistency and allow those that most need it to access it without sort of kowtowing to what I would consider to be kind of sort of yellow ribbon, you know, items that are popular today and gone tomorrow. Yeah.

Blake Hunsley 15:47 We also have a staff that are incredibly empathetic. So if they're sitting here in with a client hearing about acute needs, they're not going to be focusing on something like an arts festival. That's not, yeah, that's not where they're hurting. Yeah, we've always kind of pivoted to where is the most acute need right now, and our

Tova Sherman 16:04 strength again, when I say, why reach? I really, really drill on that one, even more so than who else is doing it, which we have to look at, because I do believe that matters greatly. Don't just repeat a service. But the question is, why us is so powerful, and there shouldn't be an agency writing a grant that can't answer why us. For instance, our most recent program, boss 24 which is a really interesting extension of what started as really an anger, emotional management, emotional intelligence program, giving tools to people who've just not had them. Very powerful program. Doesn't matter if you're working or not. It's free programming, and it's been packed easily, nice, but now what we've done is we've added an element for people who are neurodiverse, who are in conflict with the law. So we partnered with legal aid, because they communicated to us that they would not be surprised if 75% of the people they're dealing with right here, right now at Halifax, Legal Aid, for instance, are on the ADHD spectrum, so we felt there was a place where we could make some real differences. The facilitator lives on the spectrum, a number of us do here. So we really developed a curriculum out of that, and we are now working with giving tools. This is not about the legal issues. In fact, we keep them outside the classroom. But here we have, well, Franco doing some incredible work around, specifically, people who are in conflict with the law and just don't know their regular lives have stopped. We want their lives to begin. And in fact, 25 I think it was over 30% of the people who went to that program have gone on to other interventions and reach ability, or in other places, because no one goes nowhere and full

Blake Hunsley 17:44 credit too. We have had reports back from Legal Aid and from a few other legal professionals that we work with where their clients have avoided jail time and cleansing with some notably tough judges too, because they've been able to show progress that they've made in boss 24 towards handling their own anger,

Tova Sherman 18:00 and it's easy for us to say something like, well, three four weeks, what are we really going to be able to do in someone's life? And I can see why people would say that. I think maybe I thought that for a long time,

Blake Hunsley 18:09 number of clients who have never had anyone spend three four minutes of attention on trying to better their lives. Literally

Tova Sherman 18:16 successful people feel ignored, and the fact that we engage them from the moment they hit that door. Maybe over engage them, but that's another story, but the fact that we were able to do that and then engage, find out what their needs are and customize it, that customization because we tend to get clients that don't succeed in other agencies. How many times have we heard Blake people say, I've never been to a place like this, or where were you five years ago? Where were you 10 years after they've

Blake Hunsley 18:43 given us a litany of five or six different agencies that they've been through over the last five or six agencies? No, it's just people are busy and it's not the right fit, and they're not offering necessarily the very specific services these people need. And it's

Tova Sherman 18:57 about many hearings with you, they've segmented it to the point where it's very difficult for anybody to do that. We're a small, independent NGO that doesn't have to necessarily follow the strictness of if you're, for instance, associated directly with, like your government agency or an offshoot government agency. And although we are funded primarily by the Nova Scotia government, based on which program we have other funding, foundational and so on. We actually do not fundraise, and that's another really unique thing about us. We don't not fundraise because we don't need money. We you. We decided to create a social enterprise, which is really around Blake and I putting out there sessions information. I wrote a book called Win, win, win, all about how to be inclusive of everyone. You don't have to just include people with disabilities. You can include everyone with my messaging. And so what we've tried to do is send that message out. Work with corporate Canada. I've traveled all over Canada and some of the states, just facilitating sessions around disability, confidence belonging some of the. Newer concepts as well, and what we're trying to do and backlash to DEI, which I have a lot to say about, but not today. And the idea is that we have created a little social enterprise that tops us and doesn't force my team or I to spend time calling up somebody rich and saying, You should give it to us, not them, which, of course, I don't like the competition of fundraising either. So if there's any way we can create that enterprise that supports us sufficiently, even in a most modest way, we do it.

Shelley Alward-MacLeod 20:30 I wanted to go back to that, that concept about, you know, meeting the client where they're at, like being able to be adaptable to the client needs, which does set us apart from other organizations that may have a very, you know, and it could be because of the funding they have, they have a very strict requirement for outcomes or process. The beauty here is it is just this. It kind of triggered me when you said, like, you know, somebody may not have spent even three minutes with an individual. And I think what the clients are finding here, and what I think is very, very unique, is that the individual meets with somebody one

Tova Sherman 21:16 on one, always.

Shelley Alward-MacLeod 21:18 They're never put to a class. And even the classes are, you know, three or four people, right? But they're never even put to that class until it's determined that that's going to be the right path for them at the moment. So it could be lots of discussions working with, you know, one of the staff Okay, on them, on that person's individual. And you know, when you think about somebody who's never had anybody talk to you, okay, about what are your desires, and who are you, and what would you like to do?

Tova Sherman 21:51 Listen to the

Shelley Alward-MacLeod 21:52 answers, right? And when they're telling you, well, I don't know how to do anything. I have no skills. But then actually, when they share stuff saying, Oh, well, you have this skill. You You could, this is transferable. All of a sudden, little light bulbs start to go off. And I love when the staff shares with me that you know a person came in, you know, you know, with a confidence level and self esteem level of like, you know, very close to zero, right? And in a in quite short order, because a little bit of dedicated time is spent with that individual, through various programs, their confidence and self esteem, okay, has risen to like 60% or 70% that's huge.

Tova Sherman 22:40 And we measure happiness, we actually measure, we don't just measure, you know, do you feel more confident this or that? We actually measure happiness because we think that's a success, because what we're trying to do is bring more fulfillment to people's lives who basically become shut ins and potentially, you know, they're watching TV or they're playing video games. Well, I always remind people, playing a video game is a big skill, because I can't do it. You know, you've got to be able to understand rules, you've got to have good hand eye coordination, you've got to play with teams, you've got to play on your own. Probably be a good shot, I don't know, but it seems to me that video games actually have tremendous transferable skills. We've just got to pull people out of the basement and show them. We

Blake Hunsley 23:16 should point out too, because I'm sure there's somebody out there listening who's thinking fiscal responsibility around their head right now. Who's thinking? She just said, We're primarily funded by Nova Scotia taxpayer dollars. Let's phrase it that way for this person, and now we're talking about making people feel happier. If that sounds pie in the sky to you, our funders have requirements in these contracts, and a lot of what we do, and a lot of our measurables revolve around getting people back involved in their community in very tangible ways, particularly employment. So if you're wondering how does this, if you need to see how it comes back to the community, that's exactly how you have someone who, often, we have had clients who haven't been able to work for decades in here, and who are gainfully employed and delightfully happy in their gainful employment once they've come through here. And why

Shelley Alward-MacLeod 23:59 is that like, I want to correlate that that happiness factor back, because I think that's a real thing. We talk a lot about self care, but we don't really get down. If you're have somebody come in who's you know, my happiness level is one out of 10, right? And that's a real thing. It's likely because nobody's ever focused on that person. So if you only have a level one happiness, you can't get out of your way. You are not going to get a job. You're not going to sustain a job. You're not even going to be able to sustain a job search.

Blake Hunsley 24:30 Honestly, you probably won't apply for a job.

Shelley Alward-MacLeod 24:32 Correct, exactly, right. So that's the purpose of measuring the happiness, because when when you're happy, when you understand and allow yourself to be happy and likely two different things. Only then can you move forward, right? And I think you know that's how we you know those are measurable outcomes, because when we see that score go up, we actually can correlate. That to their success in the program, right? And so that you know that is also a unique approach, and I think that you know that's important to know, also allowing us to you know that is fiscal responsibility, but we don't actually say that to the person coming in. So please tell us, tell us your goals, because we got to make a fiscal win out of this, right? Like I would be running

Blake Hunsley 25:22 for the door. That's not a conversation we would ever have a client, but it is something internally that's our job to focus on. Is our job? We have a responsibility to our funders, and that's just as important too balance. The balance

Tova Sherman 25:34 is ensuring that the funders understand how we do business, which they do. They appreciate the fact that we have a great deal of what I call added value, meaning, if you, for instance, support our employment program, you're also going to have access to our health and wellness counselor, our Thrive Thursdays. You know, there's so much going on and you know, I can't get it into one little podcast, but what I can say is that the accumulation of the people who've committed themselves to reach ability over the last 25, years has been such that I believe we're almost a little bit of a unicorn. You know, we're very unique or independent. We're small. We're not fundraising like I can't tell you the last time I did the charitable seat, but I wouldn't want to stop anyone listening from sporting that. No, if you like to donate, don't give any kind of but you know what I'm saying? It's like we chose a different way. The majority, I'm finding of NGOs are almost amalgamating. It's sort of like a buyout of grocery stores, you know, the big ones by the little one? Well, it's sort of happening that way. We've had some big losses in our community around some agencies that were very active. And it seems to me that, you know, we're doing something so specialized that it's seen as value. And it's seen as value not just by the clients, which, of course, is number one, but by the funders, which is extremely important. And those program officers that come in and say, what's happening in your office, they always, always comment on how warm, how welcoming, how frankly, upbeat the clients seem to be. You know, we also have, as you know, part of the pet project, Shelly. We have a dog here, Neo. She's our therapy dog. And I've watched people come in here refuse to speak or make eye contact. Neo goes up and leans against them, and the next thing you know, we're all having a big chat exactly,

Shelley Alward-MacLeod 27:23 I think the it would, it would be remiss of us, okay, not to mention the fact that for 25 years, we've had some of the same funders,

Tova Sherman 27:33 yes, who have Yes, long term funders who

Shelley Alward-MacLeod 27:37 have continued. And I think that, you know, is

Tova Sherman 27:42 pretty remarkable. And I'm speaking to foundations, not just government, absolutely, who have wanted

Shelley Alward-MacLeod 27:47 to continue to fund us and our direction, despite the fact that sometimes our direction and our needs change, but has faith Okay, in what we've been able the outcomes we have been able to have the success here at reachability. So, you know, we, you know, kudos to those funders who have stayed the course with us and do appreciate us

Tova Sherman 28:09 because we've never quite fit in. They always used to make laugh at me a little bit. I was never in the box. I was sort of hovering around it. But give the kudos to people who see that we're not quite in there, but help us figure out a way to fit so that we can support the clients the way we do it, and the reachability way is many services to the view no one goes nowhere. I mean, these have been our and why reach those are really key, key. Those principles

Blake Hunsley 28:34 haven't changed, which I think is key to our success. But I'm curious about what has changed is because you meet almost every client that comes through here, just casual chats in the hall, if nothing else. How has the reachability client changed in the past 25 years? Our typical client? Because I've seen changes even in the last five years. I'm very curious what you've

Tova Sherman 28:53 Well, I can tell you, just off the top, COVID changed everything, and everybody, and anyone who doesn't think COVID is still affecting us isn't looking because I cannot believe the cultural shift that has occurred because of COVID. I need to start there, because I still haven't gotten over the fact that, you know, we have these couple of years at home, almost in fact, didn't I hire you? That's tomorrow. That's a future cost during COVID. Sure did. It was just we had to pivot so fast and figure out how to do everything online. And we were all about people being in our faces. COVID changed everything, not just around client, though. And you asked about clients, right? Do you want to get back to it? Because it was almost more around staff. People don't stay at the job like they used to do. They don't have the commitment they used to. We've had people come in, take a job, and three hours later go, oh, a different job came through, bye. We have had some really unusual experiences, and I put some of that to COVID, but in terms of client, I have to tell you that areas of need have gone up, like housing and food insecurity. That was never really something we had a huge concern about. We'd keep some granola bars, but that was about. It now. It's breakfast, lunch, and what can you take home again? Housing people. I've had people come to our programming living in their car. They don't have a home, but they want to come to the programming and get things rolling. So give them credit for that. I think the client is more jaded. Yeah, they're more angry. They're more frustrated instead of seeing better service directed to them, I think they have seen themselves disappear between the cracks, and I think by the time they get to us, I don't know if they're more angry or hurt, but they're beaten up. And I think the clients we are seeing today are more beaten up in those ways, you know, just life and home and food and just everything's going at them. It's no longer just I would like to work. It's that I have no choice if I want to eat, and not that that wasn't the case. But I see more of it. There's

Blake Hunsley 30:53 a greater pressure coming from all angles. Now, it seems, coming from every direction, maybe before someone would be struggling with food insecurity, but might be able to afford their rent, or vice versa. And now the number of people we see who can't afford to deal with these pressures from so many different angles, I think

Tova Sherman 31:10 issues are broader. Yeah, they're gonna go, here's my two problems. They come in and go, here's my 15 problems, starting with, I don't have a doctor. Yeah. I mean, there's so much

Shelley Alward-MacLeod 31:19 exacerbated, I think because so many things were put on hold during the COVID during the pandemic, that it allowed, if somebody had already was just about Ready to access help, right, educational upgrade, emotional support, whatever the case may be, that stopped, yeah, okay, so likely they took a bigger hit to their, you know, emotional right? Because, let's face it, it probably whenever somebody's gonna decide they're gonna do something, I'm taking this path, you finally made the decision, you know, yay. That's a big step in life, and now the world has said, no, no, you're just gonna stay in your house. As a matter of fact, we don't even have ear there'll be no access to those people enjoy your four walls, right? 100% so right away, that's right, right? That took emotional toll on every single person. There's not a person. I don't think that can say, Oh, I was like at my happiest so my friend, she wanted to be all still were boring after a while. So yes, you took all of that and you added that to to people. So then coming out of coming out of the pandemic, you had people who were exactly angry, okay, unhappy, frustrated, okay? And then, just based on the simple economy, right? Then, you know, we were behind the eight ball. We're behind the eight ball for, you know, health care, well, we called it

Tova Sherman 33:03 the tipping point because met we have a lot of clients with mental health issues, you know, very neurodiverse clients. But number one was they were mostly kind of on the managed side. What we saw was, after COVID, they tipped. They tipped in the worst possible way. Yes, if they were right on that tipping point of saying, if things got 10% worse, I wouldn't be able to cope. Everything got 10% worse. So it really took mental health took a toll, and as much as we're talking about it, more than we ever have, it's still the last taboo in the workplace. I tell people we're still spending more time and money and time in Canada avoiding it rather than addressing it, like you said, Shelly, telling them to stay in the house, you know, we'll send them something, but so we're really functioning. I think, to answer your question, to be the big circle back Blake is that the clients have more needs have been ignored more, whether on purpose of box take or whatever the systemic realities are, and they need that comprehensive approach more than ever. And if you're in a structured environment where you're funded, and you're, for instance, a government agency, and you're told to just deal with people with green glasses, then the guy with blue glasses you want to help is going to be out of luck. What we're able to do is, again, get to know people where they are, figure out their needs. And again, if we can't do it, someone else can. And I think that the legacy of reachability will be an agency that stood on its own two feet and did it our way. I mean, I almost feel like we're gonna break into a little Sinatra here, but you know what I mean? That's we really did it our way, and we had people allowing us to do that, and as a result, I think we have created health where unwellness is permeating, and we're chipping a little bit at that iceberg, and we are many services to the few, which means you're not gonna see 20,000 people go through reach abilities, programming. You're gonna see 300 to 400 a year. And. And we can scale up. But we also need to know that the community behind us wants

Blake Hunsley 35:04 that, and it is going through Reach is the right terminology too, because it is a process through we don't keep people here forever. We have limited resources, and we need signs of progress. We need you to show us that you're working with us. So there is, there is a definite progress through reachability. Again, for our fiscal responsibility, folks wondering if we're keeping people forever? No, contrary, yeah, we are very excited to see momentum, and we don't let our clients go forever. We're happy that they're coming back to the open house, that they stay in contact. They tell us their success stories, which is great for the staff, because you talk about needs and the client needs increasing, the demands on the staff have increased commensurately with that. I also want to just

Tova Sherman 35:45 share that there are members of the staff who have been clients, yes, because their success has impressed us to that point and we had a spot, and they were the right person, right job. I say that a lot. Also, there are people on our board who were clients, yes, and that came through as employees came through and then joined the board after they moved on. And I want to tell you if, if there's any better sort of microcosmic example of an agency that walks the walk and talks the talk, it's looking at the clients and where they are today and what they've done with where they were in the matter of a week's. And let me tell you the truth, I never really believed in my heart we could change lives in a matter of weeks, but we have proven that not to be the case. We can save live in weeks because people just need to know someone out there hears them and is willing to advocate on their behalf. To some degree, we are not an advocacy agency. We're an agency that supports people and making the choices that are going to move them forward, and we give them a mechanism in which to do that.

Blake Hunsley 36:44 I think seeing and sharing those successes, though are they're what keep the people that we have committed to reachability as well. The emotional labor would be too much if you didn't have that positive reinforcement. So yeah, every time we see a client succeed, we're thrilled for them, but it's a little bit self serving as well. We share those stories very quickly. I

Shelley Alward-MacLeod 37:08 think that's kind of a key reason why people work in NGOs. Or you know, your compassion, your passion for the work that's that's done, and you can see that like, Oh

Tova Sherman 37:26 my God. I remember asking my therapist and oh boy, do I need one? And I asked my therapist about, am I a little too narcissistic? I mean that some of us on the ADHD spectrum do have some issues around narcissism, and I have known myself. I staring at you anyway. More importantly, was talking about me more narcissism. I asked my therapist, and she said, You have too much empathy. And I was so relieved. But it's true, I have a tremendous amount of empathy, and you need that. You need to really care what's happening with people if you're going to do this work. And what we have, as you know, Shelley is a group of people, both the volunteers, the team members like yourself, who've supported us and helped us grow through very difficult challenges. Those are the folks that made this possible. I mean, it's all around us. It's like a building built on all the people who've touched reachability over 25 years. And

Blake Hunsley 38:17 we'll be thanking all of those people and meeting a lot of those people, and we'd like you to meet, well, so again, it's May 30, from one to three in the afternoon. Reachability office. Reachability offices, which is somehow, after listening to all these podcasts, you still don't know where to find us. It's 3845 Joseph Howe Drive, Halifax, Suite 201, give us a call. We'll give you information. Yes, exactly. There you go. Yes, exactly.

Shelley Alward-MacLeod 38:43 Well, this was great, and I look forward to celebrating the 25th anniversary. There's

Blake Hunsley 38:47 the real draw. Shelly will be here, and

Tova Sherman 38:49 you'll meet Shelly at reachability.

Shelley Alward-MacLeod 38:51 But thanks Tova once again for chatting with us. It's always great to talk about it's very uplifting to talk about the things that are happening here. So thanks for for attending today, and don't forget that 25th anniversary on May 30. Thanks for listening to within our reach. We'll be back in two weeks with our next episode. If you have an idea for an episode topic you'd like us to cover, or if you'd like to join us as a guest on the podcast, reach out to us at withinourreach@reachability.org, thank you.

Tova Sherman 39:24 Thank you, everyone.

Blake 39:24 Thanks folks.

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