DASC hosts a broad spectrum of services for persons with intellectual disabilities, including community employment and job skills, onsite social enterprise, life enhancement, recreation, active lifestyles, individual support, and youth programs.
For information about our programs, or application or admission criteria, please contact our Client Services Supervisor, Shauna Ferrar, at services@dasc-ns.ca or 902.468.6606 extension 226.
We help persons with intellectual disabilities find employment, and we collaborate with multiple businesses and employers in our community. Our job coaches assist with skill-building, job development, resume writing, interview skills, and on-the-job training. The team works with clients to identify and develop areas of career interest.
We assist people with access to training, job skills development, and/or participation in community-based employment. Our social enterprise and vocational programs emphasize the acquisition of work skills which are readily transferable to community-based employment. Our work fulfilling contracts with businesses include mailing services, promotional button production, and packaging, labeling, and assembly of various products and materials.
Life Enhancement is a program which is participant-directed. The staff-to-participant ratio for the program is 1:3, and it provides a wide variety of socialization, sensory, and creative and movement activities that are developed from goals set by each participant. Participants may engage in activities including baking, community outings, chair yoga, music, art, gardening, and using DASC’s Snoezelen (multi-sensory therapy) room.
The philosophy of our offsite clubs is to provide positive and meaningful experiences through leisure and recreational activities while maintaining choice and individuality. The activities are designed to promote community inclusion and access for people not in our training or employment programs. We also provide Individual Support, one-to-one staff-to-participant ratio, for individuals with fragile and/or complex health needs. Our Club programs include music therapy, art, yoga, dance, swimming, skating, or other community outings and events.
DASC’s youth program supports youth with intellectual disabilities between the ages of 16 and 24. Our activities and training help our clients with life and social skills, and with the development of healthy relationships and personal goals. We also help youth navigate experiences, themes, or challenges such as consent, grief and loss, anxiety, and self-esteem.
Client Support and Education is a resource for DASC program participants. It provides education and support in many areas where participants may be struggling, such as relationships, family matters, grief and loss, or social skills. We are able to provide different types of counselling and therapy including talk therapy, art therapy, grief counselling, and peer mediation.
