Turning Leaf

Speaker: Jennifer Biggs, Turning Leaf, Director of Supported Independent Living

Nancy Morris was very pleased to introduce the speaker as Jennifer grew up in Charleswood as friends with the Morris’s. Jennifer attended Beaumont School then  Westdale School and later a BA in Psychology. She has worked in mental health in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and North Dakota before becoming a Director at Turning Leaf.

Jennifer was booked to speak at the Charleswood Rotary Club in 2014; however, she did not appear as her daughter was born 2 days early. Now five years later Jennifer is finally presenting to us. She has been at Turning Leaf since 2005 providing support to intellectually challenged adults, or those living with mental illness, so they can live independently in the community. Turning Leaf works to empower individuals and provides customized services to suit the individual. They see people differently and work with other agencies to help the individual client. They help people who fall through the cracks. Some clients have gone on to have families and their own businesses with employees.

Turning Leaf provides 8-4 day services, lawn care and assist to support independent living in a home.  They have three different residential models:

• group home
• foster care
• cluster model

What would Rotary want to know about what we do?

• local
• 230 individuals across the Province with 85% in Winnipeg
• 280 individuals including Saskatchewan and Manitoba
• only agency in multiple provinces
• small stock of supplies in office for emergency
• growing volunteer program (pitch to Rotary!)
• volunteers needed for Turning Leaf Day with games, etc.

Proud of what Turning Leaf has done including the progress being made in Saskatchewan.

Questions:

Lloyd - Do you partner with other agencies such as Madison house? Yes, we worked with Madison House before it was taken over by Siloam Mission.

Jim - How does the 5% of clients in rural Manitoba communicate? Those clients are paired with staff teams who use technology to communicate. Turning Leaf did collect 200 cellular phones for this purpose.

Nancy - Do you have a newsletter? Not yet. We hope to soon have a bi-annual newsletter. We do use social media.

-   Do you use private companies? Yes, we use other companies to train and support clients.

Mandy - How does a person in need of support get your help? Just call us or myself. We will take the information and try to get funding. We will work the system with and for you.

Nancy - How many staff do you have? In total about 350 with 65 in Saskatchewan. We are truly a client centric organization.

Mandy - Where does the funding come from? Funding is provided to clients by WHRA, etc.