CMCS Consulting Services

In This Edition

Can AI Help Ontario Human Service Providers?

ChatGPT says AI can make human service workers more effective in providing accommodation and community participation supports. Read on and make your own decision.

Follow Up To Marnie’s Story

Tom adds to the story of Marnie Gilbert, who as a child was removed from a nursing home, beginning a fulfilling life supported by Community Living York South.

The Last ACT

When do non-profits know it is time to close? The Action Committee of Toronto can tell you!

Last Edition’s Survey Results

In our last edition we asked: “Has your organization’s use of a strategic plan resulted in an improved organization?” ” Find out what BIG IDEAS readers told us.

CAN AI HELP ONTARIO HUMAN SERVICE PROVIDERS?

The Story

If AI is the way of the future, it needs to be able to assist staff of non-profit organizations that provide accommodation and day activities for their clientele. Can it?

The Skinny

The answer is yes, at least according to an analysis from Chat GPT. It suggests that staff roles will “lean more toward relationship building, advocacy, creativity, and community navigation”. This is because their organizations will use AI to handle the “invisible” work (scheduling, tracking, logistics) while human service workers provide empathy, encouragement, and hands-on support.

Digging into the details, Chat GPT observes that AI can help in a number of ways:

· AI can analyze individual preferences, goals (e.g., social skills, fitness, independence) and source activities through community calendars to suggest tailored outings and programs.

· AI can filter and suggest inclusive events in local communities, including cultural or recreational opportunities.

· AI-powered educational apps and games can help to address literacy, numeracy and job-readiness skills.

· Smart devices can help with cooking, budgeting and time management.

· AI speech devices, translation, and conversation aids can help individuals connect with peers, staff, and community members.

· For clients who struggle with in-person outings, AI-powered virtual reality or online social spaces can supplement real-world activities.

· AI can track progress (e.g., participation frequency, skill acquisition) and help workers adjust activities.

AI also has benefits for those clients facing behavioural challenges, by helping workers anticipate and prevent crises during activities:

· Wearables and smart tools can detect stress, anxiety, or fatigue, alerting workers so they can redirect activities or offer breaks.

· AI can analyze patterns (e.g., which activities lead to distress vs. positive engagement) to help staff plan supportive routines.

· AI-enabled apps can provide real-time alerts if someone wanders during outings or needs urgent help.

If there is a downside to AI, it is this: staff may be expected to learn and manage tech tools on top of their existing duties, which could feel overwhelming without proper training. Based on our experience at CMCS in planning for many human service providers, this could represent a major stumbling block.

The BIG IDEA

AI is coming. Your organization will have to get on board. The good news for many non-profits, including those providing accommodation and day activity, is that rather than reducing the number of jobs, it will make existing jobs more expansive, more effective and more rewarding. The caveat is that staff have to buy in and use the tech they are provided. There are no guarantees of that front.

Follow Up to Marnie’s Story & Leadership

The Story

Before the summer break, I shared the story of Marnie Gilbert, who was one of a number of children rescued from Ontario nursing homes in the 1980s for a life in the community. All had very challenging physical conditions and had been living in squalid conditions.

A number of weeks after that article, Sylvia Deabreu of Community Living York South, the organization that stepped up to assist Marnie, sent this email and picture: “We celebrated our beautiful Marnie, a life well lived, this afternoon in her backyard, one of her favourite places. Marnie’s friends, present and past staff, present and past families members along with Marnie’s family were there.”

At the celebration, those attending were given painted stones with Marie’s initials on them. Steve Klein, retired finance director at York South, explains the tradition: “Jews place stones on graves as a traditional way to honour the deceased and show that they have visited. Unlike flowers, stones are a lasting symbol of remembrance and signify that the visitor has not forgotten the person. This practice is an act of respect and a way to participate in an ancient tradition and the commandment of burial. “

The Skinny

The political backdrop to the removal of Marnie and the four other children from Ark Eden nursing home in 1983 played out in the Ontario legislature and was reported as follows:

“Health Minister Larry Grossman revoked the license of one nursing home for jeopardizing the health of patients Friday and ordered an investigation of conditions at another 18 of Ontario's 340 nursing homes. Grossman said he would not renew the license of the Ark Eden nursing home near Barrie, Ont., because it had failed to provide the minimal nutritional needs of its patients.

'I am totally appalled and distressed by those conditions', Grossman told reporters after announcing the unprecedented action against the Ark Eden home in the town of Stroud, about 100 kilometers north of Toronto. 'It is our intention to begin immediately to relocate all the residents of the home', he said. If the 42 patients cannot be moved by March 31, he said, the government will administer the home until they were moved.

Grossman tabled an inspection report in the legislature that he said 'indicated conditions we cannot tolerate’. The report said the home, which accommodates mentally retarded patients aged seven to 30, could 'pose a risk to the nutritional well-being of residents'. It deplored such operational deficiencies as inadequate bed size and generally dirty conditions.

The investigation was ordered after a coroner's inquest last March into the death of retarded patient Yves Soumelidis, 21. The inquest found he died of pneumonia, stemming from hypothermia and a depressed physical state.”

Grossman’s observations about the conditions at Ark Eden were substantiated by Don Wilkinson of Community Living York South, who took the lead in creating the home for Marnie and the four other children. In a recent email, Don recalled: “I was in total shock seeing the building. One small, very old, elevator. Four cribs, laundry tubs and a steel table in a room the size of your office. The children were changed on the steel table, and fed on the floor so the sheets would not have to be laundered.”

The Skinny

In social services, we often ignore the critical role of government in making our world better. In this case, the government did the right thing in closing a substandard facility, in the process creating the opportunity for children with significant physical and intellectual challenges to lead fulfilling lives. This is an example of a decision at the provincial level that resonated locally over the next four decades.

Of course, it came after the death of a resident and a subsequent investigation, both attracting media attention. So sceptics, like my colleague Nancy Collins, would ask whether action would have been taken by government had the media not been involved. My response would be that we should applaud the importance of the role of the media, but we should also acknowledge government action, irrespective of the circumstances. Maybe it was prodded into action, but at least it did the right thing!

The BIG IDEA

In the original article about Marnie, I mentioned that as Executive Director of Community Living York South when all this originally unfolded, bringing these children to the community was the one initiative undertaken during my watch that had stayed with me over the years. As such, it represented both the opportunity and reward of leadership. So I felt honoured when Sylvia sent me a stone with initials MG painted on it.

THE LAST ACT

The Story

The curtain is coming down on a Toronto non-profit organization that was very high profile for many years. The Action Committee of Toronto (ACT) was founded in 1983 to help address the spread of HIV/AIDS. Its mission was “providing vital programs and services in prevention, care, and support for people living with and affected by HIV. From frontline services to advocacy and public education, ACT played an essential role in reducing stigma, advancing human rights, and shaping health care policy in Canada. In the 1990’s, ACT grew to become Canada’s largest HIV service organization.”

The Skinny

“ACT, alongside other HIV organizations and activists like AIDS ACTION NOW, forever changed patient access to medications and support. Activists pressured governments, insurance and pharmaceutical companies for more patient-centered care during the worst years of the AIDS epidemic. They played a lead role in pushing government agencies and drug companies to accelerate testing, lower costs of drugs and bring people with HIV/AIDS into a collaborative

process for developing solutions including models of care, community support services, and drugs.”

So, why does the largest HIV service organization in Canada in the 1990s close in 2025? It boils down to money and reduced need for its services. In 2003, ACT raised $3.6 million to support its work. In 2025, that number was less than $300,000. ACT’s clientele also shrank. “ACT had half as many service users this year (2025) as it did just before COVID. 2026 was predicted to have less than a third of the service users of 2019.”

Presumably ACT’s fate has also been dictated by its success in advocating for effective medical treatment of the virus. “When ACT was founded in 1983, AIDS was a crisis marked by stigma, long-term illness and often death, with an urgent need for care. Today, thanks to groundbreaking advances in prevention and treatment, people living with HIV are living longer, fuller lives. Daily medication, injectable treatment, and HIV PrEP have transformed care and prevention, while the principle of “undetectable = untransmittable” has changed the course of the epidemic.”

The BIG IDEA

You may think your non-profit will go on forever. And perhaps it will. But there is a good chance that at some point, circumstances will intervene to cause it to close. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. ACT is an example of an organization that could fade into the sunset, secure in the knowledge that it had accomplished what it set out to do. Its founders, while undoubtedly saddened by its passing, should celebrate the successful fulfillment of its mission.

Final word on ACT goes to Executive Director Ryan Lisk: “As ACT winds down over the next 6 months, we want to showcase our legacy by looking back and celebrating through media stories, retrospectives and a community event in March (to be announced in the new year). We will celebrate the programs, volunteers, milestones, events like Fashion Cares, AIDS Walk and SNAP, and recognize our donors, allies, and how ACT forever changed the Toronto HIV community by bringing it together and reminding the world of the magnitude of loss that the gay community (and all communities affected by HIV) have faced, but also celebrating the strength and resilience we have built”.

Editor’s note: My colleague Nancy Collins often raises an eyebrow at my tendency to create run-on sentences. I will therefore take the opportunity to point out to her that Ryan Lisk’s last sentence is 64 words long, a worthy achievement for those of us who scoff at the importance of brevity.