About CONNECT
CONNECT was founded by mother-son team Janet and John Sherwood in 1993 to provide a better pathway for people with acquired brain injury (ABI) and stroke. Drawing on their experiences with brain injury within both their family and their home care business, their vision was to create a new style of resource that could improve lives and provide better outcomes for people and their families.
Starting from a single group home in Langley, BC more than 30 years ago, CONNECT Communities has grown to 168 bedrooms in four cities in British Columbia and Ontario, and has served hundreds of people with Acquired Brain Injury (ABI), complex disabilities, addictions and mental health.
30 years of CONNECT
CONNECT’ s Leading Practice Model
CONNECT helps people redesign their lives after brain injury and stroke. We achieve this by providing complex and specialized services for people living with brain injury and stroke in a nurturing and innovative community environment.
Through our Life Redesign Model™, we empower people by applying our knowledge and experience to coach, challenge and motivate each person to reach their unique personal goals and build a fulfilling life for themselves.
CONNECT has honed its Life Redesign Model™, a “doing with” coaching culture of flexibility, creativity and personal accountability leveraging neuroplasticity (the brain’s ability to rewire itself) and equitable relationships for better outcomes. The model is interwoven with CONNECT’s values of flexibility, creativity, joy, kindness, learning and passion.
CONNECT is proudly accredited with Exemplary Standing by Accreditation Canada. This standing indicates and validates that CONNECT upholds the highest standards for the people we support and our valued coaches. We are one of few organizations accredited through Accreditation Canada using the Acquired Brain Injury standards.
Our People
Our Coaching Resource Team
Our coaching resource team is made up of professional coaches, resource coaches and Life Redesign Coaches. These coaches work directly with the people we support, their families and friends and with each other. We are so committed to coaching, that we have integrated coaching into our roles.
CONNECT has a whole team of rehab professionals, but we named them specifically to emphasize the coaching aspects of their jobs. Therefore, our Occupational Therapists are called Independence Coaches, our Physiotherapists are called Physical Coaches, our Recreation Therapists are called Play Coaches, our Nurses are called Health and Wellness Coaches, our Speech Language Pathologists are called Communication Coaches, and our Social Workers are called Social Wellness Coaches.
Life Redesign Coaches
CONNECT’s Life Redesign Coaches work with the individuals we support in our homes. They coach individuals to work on achieving the goals in their Life Redesign Plans and support them with community involvement, interdependence and maintaining and developing social capital in their lives.
Life Redesign Coaches are hired based on fit, not qualifications, and are typically passionate about helping others to achieve their goals and build a life of meaning. Life Redesign Coaches work within the coaching resource team to help bring “rehab” into everyday life and to serve as extensions of the professional coaches and help the people we support continue to work on “rehab” throughout their days.
Join Our Team
Redesign Your Life with a meaningful career at CONNECT
We are always looking for awesome people to join our multi-skilled coaching team at CONNECT.
Life Redesign Coach
Professional Coach
Support Coach
Volunteer
