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Welcome to The Intersection, a place where people can come to read about issues impacting trauma survivors, foster and institutional care survivors and those struggling with physical, psychological or developmental disability discrimination (ableism).
The Intersection is intended to be a safe place where people harmed in state-regulated care or anyone who has experienced severe trauma or ableism can see the common humanity among their trauma survivors as they struggle to find and share their voice.
I aim to see that nobody struggles alone. Your story deserves to be heard, and every life is worth protecting! Giving trauma and oppression a voice is the first step to finding and claiming your power.
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A big part of creating social change is making your voice heard and adding to a collective narrative strong enough to challenge the power structure, human rights violators and other deniers/oppressors. With financial, physical and attitudinal barriers making justice inaccessible and existing human rights legislation left unenforced, survivors of traumatic violence and those with disabilities are on our own. Hence, it is up to us to help ourselves and support each other through peer support and collective action.
Please help create a credible social narrative that includes children, families, and adults impacted by the child welfare system, ableism or other forms of institutional oppression by sharing your personal story of damage caused by foster care, interpersonal violence, or ableism with the world.
If you aged out of foster care without the skills or resources to protect yourself from predators, are struggling with traumatic injuries or are disabled and facing ableist barriers, give your struggles a voice and fight back, write about it and share your story.
Submissions from front-line professionals about oppressive practices in institutional settings submitted by nurses, social workers, education workers, disability support workers, personal support workers, domestic violence counsellors, police officers, firefighters, rescue workers, and military members are welcome and very helpful. Please let The Intersection be part of your whistleblowing effort.
I am also looking for success stories that inspire and affirm the value of life and living from violent trauma and foster care survivors and people living with disabilities or the helping professionals who work with them.
Please click below to send your written, voice or video submission to The Intersection
Please help spread the message and awareness of these real lived experiences and life stories by sharing this site with your friends, family or anyone you know who needs a voice. Everyone deserves love and a voice, and the world needs to hear our stories. Thank you.
This site is mediated and hateful or cruel language or comments will not be tolerated.
The creator of this site does not have the authority or ability to provide legal, medical or professional social work advice or services.
About me: Born disabled, I am a foster care, medical trauma and DV trauma survivor. I live with complex PTSD and am wheelchair-bound. After aging out of foster care in 1990 at age 18 with a grade seven education, I fought hard to earn a degree in counseling psychology, graduating with top honors in 1999. After university, psychologically vulnerable and lacking the necessary family support and developmental skills to safely navigate intimate human relationships, I entered into an abusive and destructive marriage with a woman of entitlement and privilege. After a 20+ year career in public social services and mental healthcare, I now live alone in relative poverty on a small disability pension.
I am rebuilding my life by taking online courses in trauma care psychotherapy and hope to complete a master’s degree in theology and psychotherapy within the next two to three years. I hope to return to the workforce as a Chaplain Psychotherapist specializing in non-pharmaceutical spiritual guidance and trauma psychotherapy.
I no longer drink, smoke, do drugs, or gamble, and have lived clean for thirty-four years. I am a Christian, though not radically, and my faith in God has been a massive part of my survival and success against the odds.
I am also a writer, trauma/disability/indigenous rights activist, and a proud foster and adoptive father of two wonderful indigenous boys with complex needs. Besides The Intersection, I do a lot of writing on LinkedIn. Please join me there at the link below:
Thank you for reading my page. May God bless you and keep you safe always.
