Executive Director 2026 Report
I'm also deeply humbled and excited to have stepped into the Acting Executive Director role for the next year. This organization, its vision, and the people in it are something I care deeply about. I'm driven by the question of how we create the conditions for people with developmental disabilities to truly be seen, valued, and to belong, and I know that question is at the centre of what self-advocates, families and allies, our staff, and community partners work toward every day. I've had the privilege of learning from our leadership team and staff, from the people we serve, and from so many of you over the past 6 years, and I'm looking forward to that continuing.
In this report you'll find stories from the people we support - their leadership, creativity, and citizenship. You'll find reflections from leaders within Skills on what we are committed to holding as we navigate change. And below you'll find my reflections on what we're noticing in this moment, what is helping us navigate, and why I believe Skills Society is built for exactly these kinds of moments of uncertainty and transition. I hope it offers you something hopeful and honest.
I owe a great deal of my thinking here to my mentor and predecessor, Ben Weinlick, who introduced me to many of the frameworks shared below and modelled what it looks like to lead with both curiosity and heart.
Holding Steady Through Transition
The title of this year's theme was inspired by the words of poet Antonio Machado - caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar (traveller, there is no path, the path is made by walking). For me, the idea that the path is made by travelling really resonates with the disability rights movements, where advocates have long understood that there is no pre-determined map for citizenship and belonging. The path toward more just and inclusive communities has been built by those willing to travel it, often without knowing where it leads, but with a conviction for what could be. This sentiment runs through our 45 years of Skills history - we don't follow a pre-determined path; we build it together, learning as we go, and guided by a vision and the people we serve.
That spirit feels more relevant than ever now. We are experiencing a time of transition - organizationally, politically, and more broadly in our communities and the world. For people with disabilities and the organizations that support them, things are shifting in ways both visible and subtle. We are seeing quiet erosions in rights and opportunities. The rising cost of living and ongoing changes to systems like housing, PDD and AISH, impact the people we serve and their ability to thrive.
And… Skills Society has been here before. Our very beginnings are rooted in transition (deinstitutionalization and the disability rights movements). Our organization was founded by people with disabilities and their loved ones who were building the path before community living even had a name. Since then we have navigated political and funding shifts, a global pandemic, and sector changes. I say this not to minimize the shifts we're navigating at present, but rather to remind us that we have history, experience, and stories to build from. We have strong values, a clear vision, and an organizational culture that can ground us when things are uncertain.
“Before the 70s, never in human history did something like community living systems exist anywhere in the world”
- Micheal Kendrick, longtime disability advocate and systems change leader, in conversation with Ben Weinlick
What Helps Us in Times of Transition
During times of uncertainty, one thing we turn to are frameworks and principles that help make sense of complexity and guide our decision making. There are a few I find particularly useful and want to share, both because they have shaped our thinking at Skills and because I hope they might be useful to you as well.
I believe the work we do, supporting people to thrive, requires us to hold two perspectives. The first, is our person-centred approach and value - really knowing people, listening deeply, and coming alongside them in ways that support genuine belonging. The second is a systems perspective - understanding the bigger forces at play, like the beliefs and attitudes that are harder to name but very real in how they shape people's lives and opportunities. Neither perspective is enough on its own, and I see part of my role as
helping us hold both.
The Stockdale Paradox & Hope
The Stockdale Paradox is something Ben Weinlick has long drawn on in his leadership at Skills. It guided the organization through the pandemic and I find myself returning to it now.
In Ben's words:
The core to the paradox is confronting the brutal facts without sugar coating and remembering to shine the light on core human qualities of empathy, compassion and the little and big ways people show up and are showing up to help out selflessly. The paradox is a very helpful framing when we're facing uncertainty, threats, and real constraints in our systems we can't control. Facing facts, kindness, and gratitude to those around us is the principle in action.
For us, this shows up as not pretending the constraints we and the people we serve are facing aren't real. We see the situation for what it is and keep pushing forward.
Mark Cabaj, a systems change thinker and longtime thought partner to Skills, shared a framing of hope, attributed to Václav Havel, that has stuck with me in the past year: Hope is not doing nothing and wishing things will work out. Hope is doing the right thing even when you don’t know if it will. That is the kind of hope I try to practice and see practiced all around me within our Skills team - not passive wishing, but rather active, values-grounded doing.
The Adaptive Cycle
The adaptive cycle - originally drawn from ecological systems - describes four phases that systems move through: growth, maturity, release, and exploration. It's a particularly useful lens right now, helping us understand not just that previously established systems are in a period of change(release), but how we can actively support the transition toward something new. The release phase is messy and characterized by loss and confusion. It is a necessary part of transition - the composting that makes new growth possible. It requires leaning on relationships and values when structures and processes are in flux.
I believe many of our systems, including community living, are in or headed towards a release and exploration phase. One question in particular has held much of our team's thinking this past year - a question I'm also noticing more broadly across the sector: What are the practices, values, and commitments we must not lose even as old structures break down? What are we carrying through this transition so it doesn't get lost or forgotten? I'm proud that this year's report includes a dedicated reflection from our leadership team on exactly that question, and I'm deeply grateful to everyone who contributed. The team's reflections are a testament to the culture we've built together.
One commitment we are holding onto with particular care - named in our strategic priorities - is supporting the radical inclusion and belonging of people with disabilities, and how we centre belonging in the midst of the backsliding that is happening. Rights provide the foundation for belonging, and when rights feel unstable, belonging becomes harder to protect and harder to build. And at the same time the vision, a world where people with disabilities are truly seen, valued, and belong, matters more now than ever. We cannot afford to lose sight of it or we risk drifting toward “good enough” precisely when people need us most to hold the line alongside them.
The adaptive cycle reminds us that the exploration phase - the rebuilding, the new growth - does come. One of the actions we can take right now is to preserve the nutrients that make that renewal possible: the relationships, the values, the conviction that every person deserves the good life.
Our Values in Times of Transition
Practice in Person-Centred Ways: When systems are under pressure, it's easy to let urgency drive decisions. Supporting people to live the good life, as determined by them, remains the heart of our work, and we cannot let urgency or resource pressure erode how we show up alongside people.
Seek Creative Collaborations: We cannot build the path alone. Relationships and partnerships matter now more than ever.
Build and Share Knowledge: We are learning as we go. This value gives us permission to not have all the answers, and a commitment to sharing what we're learning with others.
Embrace Complexity: This time of transition resists simple solutions. Holding tension, sitting with uncertainty, and resisting the urge to oversimplify - that is an important part of the work.
Adapt and Evolve: We remain anchored in our mission and vision and flexible in how we pursue it. The path can change, and we change with it while not losing sight of what matters most.
What the People We Support Are Teaching Us
Throughout our history, people with developmental disabilities have built full, meaningful, dignified lives despite systems that were often not designed with or for them. There's a quote on a wall in the Skills office, right outside my door, that I find myself returning to:
Disability is not a brave struggle or 'courage in the face of adversity'. Disability is an art. It's an ingenious way to live.
- Neil Marcus.
It's a reminder that the barrier and marginalization frame is not the whole story. The creativity, resilience, and ways of being, seeing, and moving through the world that people with disabilities bring make our communities richer for everyone. The people we support show us this every day.
Levi, for example, navigating inaccessibility in the workplace advocated for changes that in the end made it more welcoming for everyone around him. “I try to make it feel like a place where people are welcomed and can be themselves”.
Abdul, recipient of this year's Engaged Citizenship Award, brings this same spirit to his leadership and community: “Not to be working alone, but working with others”. He also shared that it's important to “talk about equal rights, to talk about and listen to people's right to be included and heard.”
Scott, an artist and long-time member of our community, described the theme of his commissioned mural for our Skills office this way: “It's all partners working together on the same thing. There's no right or wrong, everybody can do their own style. It's all about friendship, getting along with your neighbours, doing things together.”
These are beautiful descriptions of how we build the path by travelling it - together.
The people we serve and their loved ones and allies have experience and knowledge about navigating uncertainty that many of us are still learning from. The history of community living in Alberta - including Skills itself - is a history of people refusing to accept that the road ahead was already determined for them. That in itself is a form of creative leadership we all have a lot to learn from.
Examples of Responding to What We Are Sensing
This past year, one area of responsive work for us has been around housing. For much of our history, Skills made an intentional choice to move away from housing, believing, rightly, that people should have more choice in where and with whom they live, and that housing attached to service can sometimes limit autonomy. But what we are sensing in our system - what people we support and staff are telling us, and what the data reflects - is that the housing landscape has shifted. The rising cost of housing, combined with the realities of how PDD funding works (often requiring people to pool funding to access adequate supports), is making it harder and harder for the people we support to secure safe, accessible, affordable housing. Our staff are spending growing amounts of time supporting people with housing needs. Reflecting our value of adapt and evolve, our Board and leadership team have been learning and exploring what a responsive, rights-based approach to housing support might look like, and where Skills might have a role to play that complements, rather than duplicates, the work of others in the ecosystem.
We have also been reflecting on how we support staff to do their work in rights-based, person-centred ways amidst resource pressures and the increasing complexity of our work. Driven by the passion and commitment of members of our leadership team and frontline staff, we are furthering how we integrate harm reduction approaches and positive behaviour support into our everyday practice - equipping staff with more tools, language, and frameworks for supporting dignified risk-taking alongside the people we serve. This work is further supported by our annual Team Leader Gatherings, new MyCompass features, the Belonging Project, the Leadership Workbook, and the ongoing mentorship our Managers and Directors of Community Supports provide to teams daily.
We are continuing to show up at sector tables - advocating for the people we serve and influencing system direction. Internally, we are tuning up systems and processes so our teams can focus their energy where it matters most, this includes improvements to human resources and accounting systems. And recognizing that sustaining this kind of work over the long term requires investment, we created a dedicated Director of Development and Community Engagement role focused on growing community support, strengthening relationships, and building resources to advance our mission.
Building the Path, Together
The path is not always clear. Community services are growing more complex and the constraints - funding pressures among them - are real. There are things we are still figuring out, and tensions we are holding carefully rather than rushing to resolve them.
Times of transition also have a way of opening possibilities. Constraints have led us to partnerships we wouldn't have found otherwise. Pressures have produced creative responses we're genuinely proud of. We are paying attention to what is becoming possible.
What I know is that Skills Society has the values, the culture, the people, and the institutional wisdom to navigate this moment. We have a leadership team deeply committed to what matters. We have frontline employees who show up every day with care and conviction, and we have the people we support, who remind us constantly - through their stories and their advocacy - why this work is important and how it contributes to a more vibrant, inclusive community for all.
We build the path by travelling it, and I am grateful to be travelling it with you.