Inside the Circle – November 18, 2025

As winter approaches and snow starts to fall more often, it’s important for you to remember that snow and ice can make travel more risky and increase the chance of accidents or injuries.

Take a moment to watch this video for some helpful tips to stay safe while you’re out and about in the community this winter.

As the year comes to a close, this is a great time to review your payroll schedule and statutory holidays for 2026. Taking a few minutes now will help ensure everything goes smoothly as we move into the new year.

Santa Claus Parade

• When: Sunday, November 23, 2025
• Traffic Changes: The Parade will start at 12:30 pm at Christie Pits, located at 750 Bloor Street West. The updated route will proceed east along Bloor Street to St. George Street, continue south on St. George, east on Hoskin Avenue, south on Queens Park Crescent and University Avenue, east on Wellington Street, and south again on Yonge Street to Front Street.
• From there, the Parade will head east on Front Street and finish at the St. Lawrence Market at Jarvis Street.

Lakeshore Blvd W near Ontario Place

• When: November 17 – December 1, 2025
• TTC/Traffic Changes: Lane reduction to 1 lane in each direction

You’re required to be certified with valid and current CPR training. You must also be properly fitted for N95 masks. Please see the upcoming dates below.

Upcoming Mask Fit Dates (Head Office):

• Tuesday, December 2, 2025
• Tuesday, February 3, 2026

Upcoming CPR Dates (North York):

• Tuesday, December 16, 2025
• Tuesday, January 27, 2026

You must register for an appointment directly with First Aid Care on the Circle of Care Training Hub, or call 905-272-9214.

You can also register by text for CPR sessions.

Text 647‑496‑5189 with the following details:

1. Full Name

2. Email Address

3. Training Location

4. Preferred Session Time

Please read before your session:

• Please arrive at the training session 15 minutes before the class begins.

• After you have booked your appointment, please speak to your Service Coordinator if you need any scheduling arrangements and have clients that you will need to be booked off from to attend the CPR and/or mask fit training. Please try to book a date/time where you do not have client visits scheduled.

• Your schedule will be blocked as ‘unavailable’ for you to attend the session. You do not need to use your phone to sign into the training.

• You will be paid a total of 4 hours for the training (CPR) and 1 hour for mask fit – this will be added to your schedule 1-2 weeks after the session has been completed and you will receive payment. The code will appear on your paystub as ‘Miscellaneous’

• All bookings/cancellations must be managed through the online portal. You will receive a confirmation email/text notification and will also receive a session reminder.

Just a reminder to please take a few minutes to fill out the Global Workforce Survey. This survey gives you the chance to share your thoughts about your workplace. Your answers will help us understand what is going well and what we can make better.

The survey is anonymous (your name will not be shared). Thank you in advance for your participation!

Please complete the survey as soon as you can.

We know that you care deeply about your clients, but your own safety is just as important. If you ever feel unsafe on your way to work, going home, or while you are with a client, please speak up.

Remember, it’s okay for you to:

• Report roads that are unsafe or places where it’s hard to see.
• Tell your manager if a client’s home or neighbourhood feels unsafe to you.
• Take extra safety steps, such as waiting for a safer moment to cross the street or asking for help with transportation when you need it.

Your health and safety come first. We are here to support you.

Every Care Plan reflects a client’s unique needs and safety requirements. When we follow it exactly as written, we keep our clients and ourselves safe.

Notify your CSS immediately if a client’s condition has changed, or if you have concerns—we can review the plan. Often, we can escalate needs for additional staffing or equipment to support our client, and in turn, you as well.

It’s not just paperwork. It’s protection.

This November is Diabetes Awareness Month. By reducing the stigma around diabetes, we can better support the people in our lives who are living with the condition.

The truth is:

• Diabetes is not caused simply by eating too much sugar.
• People do not “give themselves” diabetes.
• The causes of diabetes are complex. They can include your genes, family history, ethnic background, environment, and lifestyle.
• Diabetes can lead to serious health problems, such as stroke, heart attack, or vision loss.
• Managing diabetes is a daily responsibility. There are no “days off.”

You can watch the video to learn more and talk about diabetes with confidence.

Has someone gone above and beyond at work? Give them a High Five!

The High Five program lets you publicly recognize staff members for their outstanding work. High Fives will be posted in your weekly Inside the Circle newsletter.

To give a high five, just click on the button below or use the link in the rotating banner on the Portal home page.

Please note: We do not accept anonymous submissions for this program. High Fives must be submitted by an individual person, whether they are a staff member or member of the community.

High Five for PSW Zhem De Los Santos

“Zhem is amazing and patient. She’s a great asset to Circle of Care and deserves a lot of praise.” – Client

High Five for PSW Rukinder Kaur

“I’m very happy with Rukinder’s care and I would love to have her whenever she’s available.” – Client

High Five for PSW Kayron Samuel

“Kayron is wonderful and has helped me a lot.” – Client

High Five for PSW Aria Culzac

“I’m very happy with Aria. I would like her scheduled as often as possible. She’s one of the best.” – Client

High Five for PSW Adora Mesaya

“I’m so pleased with Adora’s work and I hope to continue having her visits.” – Client

Why do new PSWs get more hours and the ones who have worked many years get punished by having their hours cut. I guess it’s better to quit and get re-hired again so we can get more hours.

Our Service Coordination team understands the challenges around scheduling and strives to assign clients based on seniority whenever possible. However, there are several other factors that can affect scheduling such as specific client’s requests for example, time preference due to medical reason, coordination with other service provider, client attending programs, two persons visit or delegation. These factors sometimes result in clients being assigned to other or newer PSWs.

That said, please don’t hesitate to flag your concerns directly to your service coordinator. We will be happy to review your situation and assist you. Thank you for your continued dedication and understanding.

Why is the travelling time always listed as 15 minutes? Sometimes it is 45 minutes. Sometimes there is no travelling time. Whatever Google says, the coordinator follows it.

Our Service Coordination team is aware of the travel time policy and takes it into consideration when scheduling visits. We also encourage team members to double check travel times when assigning clients to PSWs. If you ever find that the travel time between clients is not sufficient, please reach out to your Service Coordinator or speak directly with one of our Call Center agents. We will gladly review and adjust where possible.

Additionally, we will remind our Service Coordinators to ensure adequate travel time is scheduled between visits. Thank you for your continued hard work and understanding. It truly makes a difference.

Why don’t you allocate us to work in a specific place for all our hours to avoid travelling more? It’s so frustrating when you see a bus coming in the distance and it’s out of service. I end up having to walk long distances so often. 

Circle of Care’s service coordination team works hard to match PSWs with clients who require care. There are many clients who have preferences for receiving care from our PSWs based on gender (e.g. a female PSW) or who don’t speak English and need a PSW who speaks their language. They may also have specific needs on the times that they require care, or the type of care they need (i.e., delegated acts that PSWs may be trained on). All of these different requirements can make it challenging to organize a schedule for our PSWs that minimizes travel time. Despite our best attempts to schedule clients within close proximity to minimize travel, we do occasionally need to have PSWs travel further to provide care to some clients and ensure that care is delivered, if there are no other available PSWs closer to the client’s location.

If you want us to follow the schedule you better fill our availability given to you. Having 3-4 hours gaps will push us to see the client early as possible. Nobody wants to wait 3-4 hours doing nothing and not getting paid. That incident you mentioned wouldn’t happened if you filled in our availability.

Although we strive to minimize gaps in the PSW’s schedules, we are also obligated to meet the needs of our clients for the times that service is required. We cannot guarantee that there will be no gaps in schedules and do encourage the PSWs to engage with their Coordinator for alternative scheduling options. If there are clients who require specific times, we will schedule staff who are available so that we can meet our contractual obligations. If you have a long gap in your schedule, you can either go home during that time, or you can travel to a local mall, library, or community centre and wait there. That way you can stay warm in the winter months, and cool in the summer months, as you wait for your next client visit.

Circle of Care needs to stop telling PSWs to call their coordinators for more hours. There are some PSWs that get so many hours but don’t need them. I used to be full-time but I haven’t gotten the hours and now I’m part time.

If you are not receiving enough hours, and have already spoken with your coordinator, you should escalate this so an investigation can be done to see if there are hours available in a nearby caseload. You can connect with one of the Service Coordination Supervisors – Alicia Pelletier (ext.232) or Tariq Shafi (ext. 256).

We have some terrible coordinators and supervisors. I haven’t seen them or talked to them in months! It’s hard to reach them by phone, and none of them ever ask us  if we are OK here or if we have enough hours. Lots of clients also complain to us that they don’t get a call if anything changes in their schedule.

Thank you for your feedback. If you have a concern regarding a specific coordinator or supervisor, we encourage you to report this. You can connect with one of the Service Coordination Supervisors – Alicia Pelletier (ext.232) or Tariq Shafi (ext. 256).

I’d like to know how I can find out the total number of hours I’ve worked (from the date I joined Circle of Care) on my payslip.

You will need to log into Dayforce and check the last paystub of each year to show you the year to date values (YTD), which will allow you to figure out how many hours you have worked in a year. So if you started in January 2023, you’d need to look at the final paystubs for each of the years of 2023, 2024, and your most recent 2025 paystub, and add the YTD values together.

Have a question? Submit your questions or feedback anonymously below!

Please note that it may take us longer to provide some answers. If your question hasn’t been answered yet, we will get back to you as soon as we can.