Hi CSA! My name is Jordan Bloom, and I am so beyond excited to join the Board of Directors as the Marketing and Communications Coordinator for the Canadian Stuttering Association. I’m currently based in Toronto, where I work at a creative advertising agency as an Art Director, helping form the big ideas that serve as the basis of integrated campaigns. I have a Bachelor of Commerce in Marketing Management from the University of Guelph, and a Post-Graduate Certificate in Art Direction from Humber College.

Hello Canadian Stuttering Association (CSA) members and our wider community. I am your newest Employment Advocacy Coordinator. I am a life-long stutterer. While the severity of my disfluency has improved with the benefit of therapy, my stutter remains.  

One of our members, Peter Holleley, was in a serious human rights dispute with the Landlord Tenants Board (LTB) which he then escalated to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO). CSA is supporting him and reaching out to see if there are other PWS in Ontario or the rest of the country who have had problems with the LTB, or any negative experience of being in a legal system where stuttering is not accommodated for. He is also looking for legal advice from a lawyer or paralegal.

Tess Casher is a young Canadian Rhodes Scholar who moved to England last year to attend Oxford University. A person who stutters, she has written a Young Adult book about a teen girl who also stutters. The novel, Sleuths in Skates, is a delightful and highly readable book suitable for ages 8-16. The protagonist, Ingrid Nielsen, is a fourteen year old girl whose family has moved from B.C. to a small Ontario town.

The research web site Pursuit, run by the University of Melbourne, has published an article about the genetics of stuttering. Researchers have linked a newly discovered gene to persistent stuttering into adulthood – giving hope to those with severe speech disorders.