ALDA
an Organizational History
by Dave McNea and Paul Gallagher, Copyright 1998-2006 ALDA
Reprinted from “Learning Diff’rently” ALDA’s first book published in 1998,
ISBN 0-9683995-1-7

The Beginnings

Like many community organizations, what is now ALDA - Adult Learning Development Association was initiated by a small group of concerned citizens - as something quite different from what it is today.

In 1983, a community association known as the Vancouver Association for Children and Adults with Learning Disabilities (VACLD) was struggling to serve as the advocate for children with learning disabilities, to assist the parents of these children, to educate the public about learning disabilities, and to provide support to a growing number of adults with learning disabilities who were seeking help.

As was frequently the case in those times, the VACLD tried to provide this broad range of service with few staff members, such as Roman Piontkovsky and Lorraine Conn, the commitment of a number of volunteers, and very limited financial resources.

In June of that year, one of the initiatives launched by the VACLD was the organization of a support group for adults with learning disabilities. Helped by Grace Piontkovsky, the group met on a weekly basis and its members enjoyed the opportunity to share their experiences with adults who faced problems and issues similar to their own.
In fact, the group was so successful, and the VACLD so busy with other priorities more related to the needs of children and their parents, that by 1985 the members of the adult support group decided that they wanted to take care of their own needs and interests, and were literally renting a desk from the VACLD.
Don Burridge, Sylvia Minch, Harald Mathes, George Lawson, and Aiden Sutton were core members of the new group, and Grace Piontkovsky again volunteered to assist them.

It was not until January 1987, however, that the adult support group was able to obtain funds from the Department of the Secretary of State for Canada to develop the organization that came to be officially named ALDA - Association of Learning Disabled Adults.

Creating an Association

The year 1987 was a particularly busy one for ALDA from an organizational perspective, and it took until January of the following year to be incorporated as an independent not-for-profit society under the laws of British Columbia, and to obtain the status necessary to allow the organization to receive donations that would be tax deductible for the donors. By January 1988, ALDA was formally in full operation in new offices in the Standard Building on West Hastings Street, with a tiny staff including Grace Piontkovsky and Lorraine Conn.

It is significant that ALDA was originally an association of learning disabled adults, rather than an association for LD adults. The members of the association were those adults with learning disabilities who chose to join - for a very modest fee of $5 per year. ALDA’s originators clearly intended it to be a self supporting, self-help group of independent people who could manage themselves and assist one another.

A lot of ALDA’s time and energy went into raising funds, and the scope of its programs each year very much depended upon its ability to obtain program grants and generate revenues from other sources. In the early years, the federal goverment departments of Secretary of State and Employment and Immigration Canada, the Vancouver Foundation, small donations, proceeds from auctions, and revenue from gaming provided the base for a remarkably broad range of services and activities.

One of the first “products” developed by ALDA was a 10 minute video, “LD - The Invisible Disability”, prepared to assist with public awareness initiatives taken by the Association. It was an instant hit, constantly in demand by community groups over the years.

The weekly support group meetings remained the heart of the association. A publicly accessible Resource Centre on learning disabilities was established and carefully updated. An information and referral service became very popular, with steady calls from adults seeking the association’s services and support, from professionals and government officials wishing to learn more about learning disabilities, and from the general public. Individuals could obtain on-site
counselling or advice by telephone, and - at times - subsidies were made available for professional assessments of learning disabilities. In addition, ALDA representatives lobbied governments and organizations on a frequent basis to expand awareness of the difficulties faced by adults with learning disabilities, and even tried to influence people in the judicial, legal, and correctional systems who encountered adults with learning disabilities on a regular basis.

While ALDA insisted on its own independence so that it could give exclusive attention to the needs of adults, it certainly did not operate in isolation. In the early years, ALDA was a member of organizations as diverse as the Adult Literacy Contact Centre, the Agency Placement Officers Network, the Labour Participation Advisory Committee on the Disabled, the Employment of the Disabled Committee, the B.C. Coalition of People with Disabilities, the Human Rights Commission, a Provincial Advisory Committee on Literacy, and a National Access Awareness. ALDA also retained an informal working relationship with the VACLD and its successor, the Learning Disabilities Association of British Columbia (LDABC, including LDA-Vancouver, LDA-Surrey and other chapters). As well, the association built connections with all the universities and colleges in the Greater Vancouver area and beyond. In turn, several community organizations took out memberships in ALDA.

In fact, early ALDA was in some ways a victim of its own success. As it generated more revenue, it devoted more time and resources to public awareness activities, and made available free literature to professionals, government representatives, academics, students, other community agencies, and the general public. As awareness increased, demand for more information - and more service for adults with learning disabilities - increased dramatically. Regrettably, ALDA was usually without enough resources to cope with the expanding demands. But the association pressed on, and more than returned to its members and the community the support it received.

Restructuring

As with many other organizations, the governing structure for ALDA changed over the years. In the early 1990s, the association saw the need to broaden the base of its public support and decided to achieve that objective by inviting community members to serve on the Board of Directors.
Kenneth Georgetti, then President of the British Columbia Federation of Labour, Keith Gray, Vice-President of the Business Council of British Columbia, and businessmen Jim McMaster, Larry Graves, Morrie Sacks, Bill Strachan and Paul Gallagher were just some of the original members of the labour and business communities who volunteered their services as Board members. Dr. Peggy Koopman was also a very active volunteer Board member representing the academic and professional communities.

But ALDA sustained its commitment to the principle of self-government by the members, and did so by establishing an Advisory Committee of members with learning disabilities to advise the Board of Directors. For that purpose, the Chair of the members’ Advisory Committee became a member of the Board of Directors as well.

By this time, ALDA had become the Adult Learning Disabilities Association, signifying that the association was no longer simply a group of self-governing members, but now a full-fledged community-based association for LD adults.

One of the most persistent challenges faced by the association was to obtain the financial resources necessary to enable all members of the association to obtain professional assessments of their learning disabilities. For members with their own resources, obtaining assessments by registered psychologists was not difficult. But, it was expensive, and most of the members simply did not have enough money to be able to pay for such a professional service.
By 1991-92, ALDA was finally able to secure a grant to provide such assessments. In the period of 10 months, 115 assessments were completed, each consuming 10-13 hours. By the end of that period, another 150 adults who needed assessments had come forward, and more requests for assessments were received daily.

For many who received assessments, this new service was an enormous advantage. Those who were registered as students in colleges, institutes, or universities could then obtain the additional support or get the special accommodations that were recommended in their assessments. It was equally true, however, that several members who had received assessments and were anxious to pursue a plan of action recommended for them could not do so, because they did not have the money to do so - and ALDA did not have the additional money to subsidize follow up programs as well as assessments.
Nevertheless, ALDA pressed on, with increasing difficulty and more demand for service. The City of Vancouver became a new supporter, more revenue from gaming allowed the association to meet at least some of the new demand, but it was not uncommon in the mid-1990s for the few staff members to go months without receiving any remuneration for their services.

Harald Mathes, Sylvia Minch, Roman Piontkovsky, Aiden Sutton, and Doug Thomson were just some of the virtually full-time volunteers who occupied staff positions in the early years, assisting Grace Piontkovsky as the sole paid employee - who often went unpaid! Patricia Haggensen and Frances Barnes were early staff members, Lorraine Conn re-joined the ALDA staff in 1989, and they all did a remarkable job of creating order out of what could have easily been chaos, what with the range of activities and the limited resources of the association.

Still, a regular newsletter was published and distributed widely, and a tutorial service was developed for members who needed additional support before they could apply for training programs or employment opportunities. ALDA even entered the world of computers early in its history with the creation of a Bulletin Board System as early as 1990, and later on a full fledged Computer Project which re-cycled and repaired donated equipment.

Reshaping the Association

ALDA reached another critical point in late 1994. Funding was tight. Demand for service was expanding. The future continued to be insecure. However, several positive factors converged. Funding from gaming increased. New project ideas bubbled to the surface. New Board members, new volunteers, and new staff members like Eva Jordan, Dave McNea and Nancy Oldham came with fresh ideas.

The most significant turn of events was a growing consensus that the people being supported by ALDA primarily wanted the skills that would enable them to become economically independent. Yes, they found a support group to be helpful; yes, many benefited from tutorial opportunities. But, more than things such as these, they really wanted to develop the abilities they had, and get jobs!

And so ALDA took two initiatives that have reshaped the association and its activities again: first, it concentrated on helping people with different learning styles to obtain employment, as well as individualized tutoring or preparation for employment; second, it began the process of developing the skills and abilities that adults with learning disabilities have, rather than emphasizing the disabilities they had been more than aware of for years. This second initiative led in 1997 to the official renaming of the organization again, this time to ALDA - Adult Learning Development Association.

With additional gaming funding, continued support from the City of Vancouver, a broader donor base, a rich network of other community agencies working with adults, and contracts with both federal and provincial departments of government, ALDA has recently experienced a level of security unknown in the past. It is well realized that this security may be only temporary. Like volunteers and staff in so many other organizations, ALDA people recognize that they must remain sensitive to the needs of those who seek their support, and continue to be creative in the ways in which they respond to community demand.

In a decade, ALDA has gone through four quite different organizational phases. That is a sign of a healthy, thriving, vibrant organization, always ready to adapt to new circumstances - and to reinvent itself as required.

(Editors note: It is rapidly approaching ten years since this article was written for ALDA's first effort at publishing. Almost as much has happened in the decade since, as was talked about in the above chronicle. To update it would take even as much space again. I wanted to preserve this page on our website as a legacy to all the fine and generous people who have contributed to the ALDA story since 1985. My co-author and our friend Dr.Paul Gallagher passed away in 2003, and others have come and gone as well. But their input, energy and example are still with us everyday, in the progress of the organization, the satisfaction of people we are able to help, and the many new members and volunteers that join us to keep ALDA moving forward. My personal thanks to you all!  Dave McNea, 2006)