Aiken House
Aiken House, since its creation in June of 1980, has been offering community based living arrangements to eight mentally handicapped adults under the auspice of Le Centre Butters Inc. of Austin.
The main goals of this house are threefold: 1) To offer the people living in this house community integration;2) To help the people of Aiken House to live as independantly as they are capable; and 3) To offer a service to the community.
Since moving to this community we have participated in: church organized activities, community organized activities, as well as making use of ail the enterprises in Mansonville. To make ail of this possible, we have been very fortunate to have had some very supportive citizens who have volunteered some of their free time to helping many of our people experience a more fulfilling life.
People such as Mr. and Mrs. Rupert Clark and family, Miss Noella Coutu, Eric Patch and family, are forever in our debt for all their time and effort.
We were also fortunate to have very understanding and supportive neighbors, in particular Mr. and Mrs.Gilles Bernier and family; who supported us through those initial first weeks while we adjusted and settled into our new home.
Throughout the last two years, we have also had much support from the municipal council, in particular Mr.Lessard; as well as support and donations of food from the United Church (through Mrs. Mary Jewett).
At one point in time we had an Advisory Committee associated with "Aiken", made up of community members.This body was to help the community express any concerns and answer all questions that might have arisen as well as to monitor the quality of lite that the people ofAiken lived. Unfortunately, this body is no longer in existance but our future aim is to reinstate another.
Since 1980, only two of the original eight people still remain at Aiken while seven more have lived here and then left to live a more independant life. Within the next few months, we anticipate the departure of two more people from Aiken, thus totaling nine people who have lived at Aiken and then moved on to living arrangements more suited to their own personal needs.
One of our goals at Aiken was to offer a community service. We felt that as we partook of the services of Mansonville, perhaps certain people in the community would have the opportunity to make use of what we had to offer.
As people may or may not know, we offer professional support and assistance to any mentally handicapped person in the community upon acknowledgement of a need. This may be in the form of a home visit and offering specific directives, or it might mean (in specific cases) offering the family the option of their family member visiting Aiken for a few hours, days or weeks to help relieve the tension and pressure that may have built up within the family unit.
As 70% of our personnel are citizens of the community(from 44% in 1980), interested families should not feel inhibited to request this service.
In the future, as has been the case in the past, wehope to continue using the community services and offering our services to the community.
Shane G. Whipple
Manager of Aiken House