To purchase copies of our documentaries to show your friends or community.
Contact our distributor V-Tape
401 Richmond Street West, Suite 452
Toronto, Ontario M5V 3A8
Phone: 416-351-1317
Fax: 416-351-1509
Email: distribution@vtape.org
Web: Laura Sky at V-Tape.org
Screening Our Films
Once a film is complete, the dissemination phase is crucial for affecting change. This is where it all happens. We encourage organizations, groups, schools, communities, libraries, professional associations, institutions, faith groups, and service clubs to host screenings. The films generate discussion, motivate people to action, reveal hidden realities and make the issues accessible.
For the more recent films, we train film participants to become facilitators. They animate the film to a whole new level. SkyWorks provides hands-on training and ensures the individuals who live the issues are prepared to lead an audience of any size through a powerful workshop. It is important to note the facilitation experience for the film participants is an opportunity for them to reach through the despair, to speak honestly and directly to communities. For many, it is the first opportunity to tell their stories and take a broader look at their common experience.
People living through an issue have little opportunity to put the ‚”big picture” together being so absorbed by the demands of everyday survival. Participating in the film and facilitating workshops is an opportunity to ask the bigger questions, to see that they are not alone, and that the solution is not just about survival but also about connecting with and inspiring others to be part of the change.
To book a screening of any film, please contact Laura Sky at (416) 536-6581; or at laurasky@sympatico.ca.
Commissioned Documentaries
A good part of Laura’s work is directed to documentaries were created on behalf of other organizations; documentaries that deal with issues brought by others but that matter to us as well.
Laura’s work on workplace issues, women’s status and rights, criminal justice and mental health has all been strengthened and enriched by partnerships with commissioning funders with whom she shares common concern.
Sometimes in fact, a commission will take our work group down a path we’ve never gone before, expanding our own awareness and leading us to new fields of discovery and investigation.
The following films have been assigned to SkyWorks as commissioned works:
- This Film is About Compassion
- Extra Ordinary People
- Prescription for Addiction
- Until Someone Listens
- Household Work: More Than it Seems
- Mary Coyne Jackman
Community Development Services
For Laura and her colleagues, community development means using our documentary process to create real change by working with groups and communities engaged in a change process.
Laura continues to provide consulting and training services to assist organizations and workplaces that are committed to a systemic change process. A major component of these services is the training programs to support organizations engaged in philosophical and structural transformation.
We have particular skills and experience in working closely with staff and volunteers in areas related to community and institutional health care, mental health and front line social services.
We have worked with groups who want to include our organizational skills and documentary tools in order to take thoughtful risks and to reach out to others who feel the same need for positive change. This process includes identifying and taking on tough issues, challenging and resolving the obstacles to positive change, and creating new, achievable goals and directions. In working with these groups, we search out shared values, their diverse beliefs, expectations, reservations and commitment to change. We work with their narratives to design and implement strategies for change that reflect their strength and growing capacity.
It’s a vital, organic, constantly changing process and we’re all in it for one reason – to make a difference around the issues we’ve taken on together.
We would love to discuss with you whether Laura is able to produce your commissioned film. Contact her at laurasky@sympatico.ca or 416-992-3446
Kids Care – Teacher Resources
Kids Care addresses the issues and needs of young people who have lost a loved one to cancer. The film, which is divided into eleven chapters, features a memorable group of young people who are learning to cope with the death of a parent, sibling, cousin or best friend. Through their compelling first-hand stories, Kids Care offers a range of learning opportunities for high school students, including: how children and their families and friends are impacted by illness and death, how friends can help those who are grieving, and the role of culture and religion in the grieving process.
The Curriculum Guides: Each course guide features a five to six day set of lessons exploring the issues of illness, death and the grieving. All blackline masters, assessment tools and resource lists are included. Please view the attachments below for more information.
View the Kids Care Teacher Resource Flyer
View the Kids Care Teacher Resource Package
Home Safe – Teacher Resources
The HOME SAFE documentary series was created by SkyWorks Charitable Foundation to draw attention to homeless families in Canada. Many of the children who file into Canadian classrooms each morning are coming from shelters, others from insecure housing. Many are hungry. Young people whose families are living paycheque to paycheque are frequently demoralized by financial pressures at home. It’s harder for them to learn and thrive in school. Most conceal their problems from teachers and peers. HOME SAFE allows us to hear the voices of these kids and their parents, the questions they ask of us, and the solutions they propose.
Developed and tested with educators, the HOME SAFE Education Resource is a DVD compilation of selected stories from the HOME SAFE series that can be used with students in many subject areas at many levels: elementary (Grade 5 and up), junior and senior high school. The material is also richly suited for teacher development and training, and for early childhood educators, child and youth workers, social workers, guidance counselors, support workers in schools, administrators, policy makers, and others in the educational sector.
The children, youth, and families we meet in this collection come from diverse backgrounds. All of them have struggled with economic insecurity and lack of access to affordable housing. Youth and parents speak candidly about their experiences of homelessness, food insecurity, job insecurity, their worries about the future, and the supports that are needed for families living with poverty and inadequate housing. HOME SAFE challenges stereotypes about homelessness, shows the strengths of families and kids living with poverty, and asks us to think about the larger economic and social reasons why more and more families are struggling to afford necessities like shelter and food.
HOME SAFE Educators Guide
The 16 documentary stories and excerpts included in this DVD compilation are supported by an Educators Guide which offers themes, quotes, and questions for discussion for each excerpt. The Guide also includes a thematic index, a list of books on homelessness for students, and links to further educational resources on the internet. The Educators Guide (PDF file) is included on a CD as part of the HOME SAFE Education Resource. The Guide can also be downloaded by clicking on the link below:
Preview or Download HOME SAFE Educators Guide (PDF file)
HOME SAFE Lesson Plans
The HOME SAFE Education Resource also includes Lesson Plans developed by the
Ontario Family Studies Leadership Council. The lessons are grouped into three learning packages: on Food, Economics, and Relationships. Lessons can be used in series or independently as teachers deem appropriate. All masters, assessment tools and resource lists are provided.
In addition to referencing the stories included in the HOME SAFE Education Resource, the Lesson Plans can also be used with the complete HOME SAFE series, or any of the individual documentaries (Home Safe Calgary, Home Safe Toronto, or Home Safe Hamilton).
A PDF file of the HOME SAFE Lesson Plans is included on CD as part of the HOME SAFE Education Resource. It can also be downloaded by clicking on the link below:
Preview or download HOME SAFE Lesson Plans (PDF file)
Ontario Family Studies Leadership Council
The HOME SAFE Education Resource was made possible by generous financial support from:
- Anonymous
- Catherine Donnelly Foundation
- Enterprising Non-Profits Toronto
- The Jackman Foundation
- Jane Stodgell and Arnold Massey Voices of Children Fund
- The Lawson Foundation
- Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation
To order the HOME SAFE Education Resource on DVD and CD, or the complete HOME SAFE series, please contact:
V-Tape
Tel 416.351.1317
info@vtape.org
www.vtape.org
View the Home Safe Education Resource Flyer