Tribute Award for Leadership

By Patchen Barss 

Newcomers to Canada whose families include kids with disabilities often find it daunting to navigate barriers related to language, culture, and unfamiliarity with protocols for accessing services.

Founded on principles of equity and advocacy, SMILE Canada Support Services is a registered Canadian charity dedicated to supporting underserved racialized and newcomer children and youth with disabilities, as well as their families. With over 1000 families registered across more than 25 Canadian cities, SMILE Canada promotes safer, more responsive, and more inclusive services for many communities. They improve the lives of racialized children and youth with disabilities through access to rehabilitation services, partnering in research, and directly supporting families’ access to trauma-informed and culturally responsive care.

Their programs include “language-specific service navigation” to help non-English speakers access healthcare and other services. They also offer financial support for therapy and equipment, and provide services like wellness programs and parent coaching for families in need of them. Their innovative programs, dedication to measurable outcomes, and unwavering commitment make them a powerful force working on behalf of newcomers.

They have changed individual lives and also driven the shift toward more inclusive and equitable systems. In addition to directly supporting families, SMILE Canada Support Services also challenges systemic and societal inequities within healthcare, education, and social services. They confront implicit and explicit biases embedded in institutional policies, which weren’t always created with newcomers in mind.

SMILE Canada is a leader in shaping public discourse. Members of the organization actively participate in and organize panel discussions and storytelling events that highlight stories of barriers to access, exclusion, and discrimination. They focus on family experiences, ensuring that their efforts are rooted in the needs, goals, and realities of the communities they represent. This focus helps them guide public discourse toward critical reflection and action planning to promote culturally safer practices throughout the disability, healthcare and social service sectors.

The organization’s advocacy has its greatest impact at the intersection between displacement and disability, where it uniquely addresses individual, organizational, and system-level barriers with the intention of increasing the effectiveness of Ontario’s social service, education and healthcare system.

Meet some of SMILE Canada's kiddos

Click on the image below to see the photo gallery