Saturday, October 18, 2025 with Zoom Online, 1:00pm Eastern, 10:00am Pacific.
Demanding JUST CARE! Fighting Governments’ Medical and Social Abuse of Disabled Children and their Families
(see more details below)
REGISTER per ZOOM in Advance now:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/YS9WC7E1Twu8zx2X_dXtQA
After registering, you will receive an email from ZOOM with a PERSONALIZED link to the meeting. ZOOM will resend this link a few days before the meeting.
Note: We are NOT A CHARITY like Unitarian Congregations. Social Justice can be done safely via the CUSJ without endangering your congregation’s charitable status!!
DEMANDING JUST CARE:
Fighting Governments’ Medical and Social Abuse of Disabled Children and their Families
While governments around the country give profits over to big corporations, disabled children, their parents, and families face the consequences of up-to 24 hour medical care with little if any in-home help.
And, when parents reach out for help, their children may be taken by child welfare or they may be targeted by police and the very organizations meant to support their families. Even the act of seeking care, accountability, and justice can result in parents being threatened to be barred from seeing their child.
Learn about their plight, and hear their calls for compassion and justice.
The interactive meeting with the panel will entertain questions audience.
Our extensive Panel
Moderator:
Brad Evoy is a member of the Qalipu Mi’kmaq Nation, originally from so-called Western Newfoundland. He serves as the executive director of Disability Justice Network of Ontario and co-chair of Accessible Housing Network. DJNO is a provincial organization centred in so-called Hamilton, Ontario that aims to build a just and accessible Ontario, hold the powerful to account, and create a world where disabled people are free to be.
Panelists:
Maria Sardelis is founder of Access to Seniors and Disabled. She advocates for the correct use of the Trespass to Property Act (TPA) in care facilities housing seniors and Disabled Persons. She provided TPA case law research to the Solicitor General which resulted in ON Police Colleges updating TPA training.
Angela Richard’s 24 year old daughter E lives in a group home. Having both physical and developmental disabilities, E requires 24/7 supports. Angela and E lived in a Habitat for Humanity home which Angela had no choice but to sell to the group home agency in order to ensure E had an accessible home. Habitat would not allow the title to pass to E nor allow Angela to rent the home to the agency. Now she would like to remove her daughter from agency care, but if successful, she has nowhere for her daughter to go. Affordable and accessible housing are crucial for E.
Barbora Klima Bratova is founder of the Canadian federal non-profit Stop Medical Kidnapping Advocacy Association. Her work stems from her own lived experience, when one of her babies’ acute medical conditions was misdiagnosed as abuse. This led to the immediate apprehension of all three of her children. She later discovered that her family’s ordeal was not an isolated case, but part of a broader pattern caused by systemic problems within Canada’s child welfare system.
She is an author of books for families going through a similar ordeal.
Carolyn Kassinger’s 35-year-old daughter has lived in a group home in the Peterborough area since age 21. She is non-verbal with the exception of a few gestures of sign language, and is very medically fragile. When Carolyn brought up concerns of gender based care respectfully, and showed statistics of sexual assaults in the vulnerable population, her concerns were dismissed. She was told to stop bringing up this concern or they would start the process of disengaging with her daughter, and threatened “No trespass” and eviction.
Megan Linton is a researcher, writer, PhD candidate, and policy lead at the Disability Justice Network of Ontario. Her research and advocacy focus on the material conditions of life and death for disabled people in residential disability facilities. Megan is the creator of the Invisible Institutions podcast project, and has been published in Briarpatch Magazine, the CBC, and the Canadian Journal of Political Science.
Sherry Caldwell is on standby – in case a panelist is unable to attend.
Sherry Caldwell serves as volunteer Director of the Ontario Disability Coalition and co-founded the Childhood Disability Network Canada. A lifelong caregiver and advocate, she is dedicated to ending systemic discrimination in Ontario’s disability services and keeping families together. She is also the founder of GoodOnU.ca, a disability-positive social enterprise inspired by her daughter that builds income opportunities and raises awareness.
Note: To attend webinars and meetings you do not have to be a member. However, donations and memberships are always welcome to cover operating expenses even though we are a volunteer-run society. Now MORE THAN EVER we need a strong National Unitarian Social Justice group to continue in these desperate times, while not affecting our congregations’ charitable status.
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(“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
Margaret Mead)