Robert Burciul is experiencing a full-circle moment this year.
Fifteen years ago, he was a high-school student at A N Meyer Secondary School who was assigned to volunteer in a class for students with special needs.
From that experience, he ended up forming relationships with them and, after that, decided he would go into the field of assisting those with special needs.
To get some experience in the field, Burciul, who’s from Niagara-on-the-Lake, reached out to someone he knew in town and asked about helping out at an organization she ran.
That person was Steffanie Bjorgan, the founder of Red Roof Retreat, a non-profit organization that provides recreational and respite services to children and young adults with special needs.
“I absolutely fell in love with it,” says Burciul of the experience.
Fifteen years later, Burciul, now 30, is back at Red Roof, working as a program co-ordinator, as the charity prepares to open the doors to its new, 5,700-square-foot facility in January.
When Burciul first started volunteering at Red Roof, the organization was a little more than 10 years old. Opened in 2000, inspired by Bjorgan’s quest to find recreational and respite programs for her son, Garrett, who has cerebral palsy, it now serves more than 200 families in Niagara.
“It’s such a deeply human place and is, really, a home away from home for so many people.”
Right now, while construction is underway on the new building at Red Roof’s main property on Concession 6 Road, Burciul and his colleagues are working out of the organization’s hub at Cornerstone Community Church.
While the location may be different, for now, he says what hasn’t changed are the people he got to know years ago — the clients, who are still a part of the Red Roof community.
“I’ve been gone for 10 years and I still know pretty much every single person that comes to our programs.”
Before becoming a program co-ordinator, Burciul worked a variety of jobs in the realm of education and personal support work for those with disabilities.
After graduating from Niagara College’s educational assistance and adult supports program, he worked in group homes, day programs for the District School Board of Niagara and helped create life plans with individuals and families at Person Centered Care of Niagara.
Something he says he values about working at Red Roof is the relationship all of the clients have with each other, particularly those who have been in the same programs for more than a decade — it’s a significant bond you don’t see often in these environments, he says.
“In a lot of the other settings I work, people will assume that everyone that lives together or everyone that attends a program together is friends and will call them friends, and I’ve never liked that, because it’s this assumption,” he says. “Especially when you have a handful of people who don’t even speak; we don’t know how they feel about each other.”
“But at Red Roof, so many of them are genuinely friends and really look forward to seeing each other,” he says. “I find that really meaningful.”
As program co-ordinator, Burciul is responsible for overseeing the variety of services Red Roof provides to its clients: the adult day program; respite services; youth night; the Saturday camp; and the summer camp — all with the goal of offering physical and personal care, social and emotional support, recreational and leisure activities.
In late August, he says he got to lead a program that he hasn’t had the chance to since back when he was a volunteer — the weekend respite program, which sees Red Roof take care of its clients overnight during Friday and Saturday nights.
“It’s a really cool experience as a job because it just feels like living life with people.”
The respite program is hosted out of Garrett’s home. Burciul hung out with him and two other guys Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday — a weekend with the boys.
“It was awesome,” he says. “We went to the movies and made some homemade chicken pot pie and did some crafts.”
There are four months left until the new Red Roof building is set to open. It’ll be 4,600 square feet larger than the old facility (which was 1,100 square feet) and two storeys tall.
“I never really imagined an expansion like that. When I first heard about it, I was floored.”
It’ll also be more accessible for those using mobility devices — that last upgrade is crucial, Burciul says.
“The old home, it wasn’t built for what we used it for, so it had a lot of narrow hallways and doorways that were challenging to get through with certain wheelchairs.”
The team and all the clients, he says, are looking forward to being back at the place they’ve called home for 26 years.
Speaking on what it takes for a person to be successful in the kind of role he’s in, Burciul says there is no one type of personality best suited for the job — it doesn’t take any one kind of person to do what he and his colleagues do every day.
“There’s a client out there for just about anyone that they could build a relationship with and get to know and be able to support,” he says. “It’s not one-size-fits-all. Every person we support is different, and therefore they require different personalities out of their staff.”
There are, however, a few qualities that come in handy, he says — patience, flexibility and a big heart.
