AAFS OF CALGARY VIDEO

founder and executive director of the

autism asperger's friendship society at

the beginning we had seven families that

started at halfs

my families are there now now we're

approaching 700

after just finishing our 10th year of

operation what's your role slash job

well is the executive director so my job

is to

design and implement programs

manage all of our staff find funding for

the organization

work with community partnerships and

collaborations with schools and

and different stakeholders of ours and

also everybody's role here is just to be

here for whatever we need and supporting

everybody how many software apps

we currently have like 35 total staff

for full-time and then the rest are

part-time or seasonal

that work in the programs and front

lines

we started the concept of asteroid about

12 years ago

and spent two years figuring out how

it would work and then officially

started an organization 10 years ago so

since 2002

we started because we saw a gap in

service where kids were

going from

had nothing in their lives except

therapy in school and doctors and no

real fun or enjoyment and so from our

angle kids weren't learning the social

world

they were not given they were learning

different skills but never had the

opportunity to practice and use those

skills so we started ask for a place for

people to belong be empowered be

accepted learn about themselves and then

ideally

move on to uh to the next step in life

but ideally just a place to belong and a

place to

to be yourselves and have fun meet

friends and learn how to be social

what's your prayer required by the

working of the class

we're with people like you and see

seeing you go from a 13 year old or 12

year old or 10 year old we met and how

much you've learned and grown over the

years and just uh the the growth we get

to see in people is wonderful and i get

to come to work and smile every day and

a lot of people in their lives go to

work and they spend the whole day not

smiling and part of our job is smiling

and enjoying ourselves so that's why i

love it

why is dean a good boss um

i think because he's just really

understanding and

very flexible

he'll he'll always stick his neck out to

to make sure that you're getting all the

support that you need and he's just all

around a great great guy my favorite

programs

oh

that's a tough one um

i really really really loved learn to

cook when we did that that was a lot of

fun

um

i don't know i like all of them go group

i really really love even though it's

kind of a little bit different than what

we do here why dean's a good boss

because he's dean

he's a lovable guy very charismatic very

sociable

knows how to uh comfort you when you

need it knows how to bring laughter to

those around him i'm very good at

establishing a playful fun and welcoming

atmosphere

which is what apps is all about that's

why dean's a good boss why do you like

working at us why

well for one um it's a job that has an

actual purpose to it unlike let's say

a job where you're maybe serving a type

of food that is not good for you like or

you're just um

or you're um

i don't know

basically my main purpose for apps is to

is to serve the purpose of facilitating

friendships

why do you like coming here

i've been coming here for more than 10

years

since i was well before i was even a

teenager dean used to look after me when

i was a kid himself

when my parents needed help so what

ended up happening was uh

it became ass which is where i and some

of the individuals

uh used to hang out at with dean and

some other guys as apps grew

it's turned into something else entirely

with many staff many new youth coming in

but it's it still comes stems from the

same place helping those on the spectrum

find a place they can belong make

friends

learn life skills

find a place to themselves in the world

find their purpose

and that's why i like coming to ask

what kind of program asks does staffs

have

all kinds of programs you got

specialized programs like urban arts

which for those who like the urban arts

like dancing beatboxing and emceeing you

got the movie project for those who are

more into the aspects of filmmaking

speaking of what you're doing right now

there's also art in action

which is more based around games and

social thinking those are the

specialized programs and then there's

programs like the one i'm working today

after school where we take pick up kids

from different schools

like new heights which is just a minute

walk away from this spot or other

schools in the further distance away and

we just bring them after school

literally to hang out at the clubhouse

for a bit until the parents pick them up

to take them back home or to take them

anywhere else

another program i like is ask fridays

where everybody gets off school earlier

and we all just hang out somewhere

whether it be the swimming pool

movies

here

maybe we cook maybe we celebrate with

the holiday

occasion like halloween or christmas i

basically came full circle

after i stopped participating somewhere

when i was a teenager maybe 2004 or 5

i'm not too sure i started volunteering

somewhere in 2010-11

i didn't do it for the purpose of

getting a job i just wanted to see what

it was like to volunteer

after that um somewhere in 2014 i

decided that i wanted to work at apps

part-time just just part-time i was

still actually working a different

part-time job at the same time but i

felt that i should transition to

something more meaningful which is why i

signed up to join apps as a staff member

officially in august and i haven't

stopped since

that's how i came to work at apps

you