Congratulations Natasha on being November’s Volunteer of the Month!
Natasha jumped back into volunteering with the Dance Ability Movement this year with a bang! She has brought such a FUN energy into all of her classes, role modeling how to not only be active, but have a great time doing it too. Being such a kind person, Natasha makes the time to build FRIENDships with her dance buddies and other volunteers. She learns from her experiences in every class and integrates new techniques to make all dancer’s FUNCTIONs shine. She works with our dancer’s FUTURE goals in mind and supports individuals and the whole class to reach their potential. [...]
Covid-19 Outbreak and Virtual Programing: Summary of Program Evaluation Results
With the COVID-19 outbreak, the Dance Ability Movement team had to challenge themselves to think outside-the-box to design and offer virtual programming to their dancers in an engaging, inclusive and fun way. “We worked hard to consider how our dancers and families might feel about virtual dance classes, and created resources to support a smooth transition – clarifying that the expectation was simply to try to connect, offering support for families who may have difficulty getting online”, says Mallory Ryan, The Dance Ability Movement Director of Quality & Development. Since this was the first time DAM has offered online dance [...]
Meet Our First Team of DAM Dance Ambassadors!
We are excited to introduce our first team of DAM Dance Ambassadors to our community! A Dance Ambassador is a senior dancer who has been with the Dance Ability Movement for multiple years and has shown a strong interest in gaining leadership experience within the dance community. They participate in a year-long leadership training program led by Miss Emma, while also taking on various roles within dance classes and the greater DAM community. As an Occupational Therapist, Miss Emma works with the team to set both group and individual goals that reflect how our Ambassadors hope to have an impact [...]
Congratulations Emily Goodson on being October’s Volunteer of the Month!
Emily has been a long-time member of our Alliston FAMILY at The Dance Workshop. She has developed so much as a leader and has taken on so many different roles within our team that has made our FUTURE even more representative of our inclusive community. Emily works closely with the dancers in the class and develops FRIENDSHIPS that extend out into the community. She also has been one of our team leads and has supported our outreach to bring in more volunteers to our team. Emily understands how to use a strengths-based approach with our dancers both in-person and virtually. [...]
Congratulations Annie Yang on being September’s Volunteer of the Month!
Annie joined the Dance Ability Movement this year and has been such a great addition to our volunteer team. Annie makes Friends with all the Dancers she works with and learns everyone's names and interests on day one. She then works hard to incorporate this information into class to make dance more Fun! Wherever Annie ends up, we know she has a Future in leadership. Annie is exploring Social Work and OT and her ability to creatively adapt on the fly to make inclusion personalized will make her such a strong change maker. She understands that we all Function differently, [...]
The Dynamic OT Role at the DAM: Supporting the Instructors and the Community
We have invited Raven Brooks, student Occupational Therapist at the University of Toronto, to share some reflections about the dynamic roles the Dance Ability Movement OTs have based on her experience during her 10-week placement with us. Since Raven’s impressions covered diverse topics, we’ve decided to publish them in a series of blog posts. In her last blog post, Raven will share with you how our OTs support our instructors and help us build an inclusive and bright community. If you haven’t read her previous blog posts, click on the links below: Supporting New Dancers through an individualized approach Supporting [...]