I was at a meeting today where the discussion was focused on how frustrated parents are as a result of the inhumane lack of funding for adult individuals who have a developmental disability. The wait lists for service and funding are horrifying and horrendous and as a result many of their sons and daughters are left without anything to do in their adult life. Families face a tremendous amount of stress, sometimes having to quit their job in order to support their son or daughter. They don’t know where to turn and they just don’t know what to do.
As the discussion continued, a comment was made that “any support that families get from the Ministry of Community and Social Services is at the benevolence of the government.” In other words, if the government continues to feel kindness and compassion towards families, they will continue to fund programs that offer valuable support to families. Kindness and compassion? This is ludicrous.
Many of their children have a severe and/or a very complex disability, which is often compounded by mental illness or fragile health. This translates into parents are over-stressed, exhausted and weighed down. Families cannot balance such a load and the overall health and well-being of the entire family is at risk. And we are at the mercy of government funding. Give me a break!
Enormous amounts of funding have been provided to advancing medical technology and medicine which have helped to sustain the lives our children, but to increase funding to help support our children and maintain the integrity of the family is unheard of these days.
Families remain oppressed and overloaded, potentially resulting in family breakdown or a decline in their own health. Something must be done. We must convince the government to change the value of funding for supports from that of benevolence, kindness and compassion, to necessity and essential service. How can we accomplish this challenging piece of work?
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