Exceptional Needs, the Community and the Government Part 1

In the past few days I have read three articles. Individually each article was reasonably well written but did not contain new information. None of the articles kept my attention for any longer than it took me to read it. However when read in combination with each other, the articles once again raised a question that Canadians need to address.

CBC reported on a mother and father who are planning on selling their home and then buying a townhouse so that their adult son who faces a number of challenges can have a place to live. The family hope that they can find a roommate who also needs some support so that they can create some sort of "group home" for their son when they are no longer able to support him. They are rightly frustrated that the provincial ministry cannot provide the level of support their son requires.

The second article was from the Globe and Mail who suggested that Canada's mental health system is underfunded - in fact the amount the Canadian government spends on mental health programs is near the bottom of a list of OECD countries. The argument made was that we need to do much better at supporting those who live with a mental health problem. The mental health system hopes that in the next round of health negotiations between the province and the federal government that mental health funding will be a priority.

The third article is in the September edition of the Walrus. It was an article written by a mother whose son has a learning disability and who had been struggling to get all of the needed accommodations to support him that had been agreed to by his university. The writer/mother while recognizing that there may be conflicts between supporting those with special needs within a post-secondary setting and universities maintaining it academic standards was also frustrated at how her son was treated.

All three of the issues presented by the articles could at least in part be resolved with more money. A lot more money. There is no doubt that Canada could afford to spend more than it does on providing a supports to members of the community. There is also no doubt that there is a sufficient level of expertise within those communities to develop the range of support programs that are needed. However at some point someone needs to ask the question: should we do it? And if the answer is yes, then the second question needs to be why.

My heart goes out to that family who are prepared to make (as they have done for the past 27 years) all kinds of life changes to ensure that their son has the best possible choices as he gets older. But the problem of not finding adequate or appropriate service is not a new problem. I can think of a number of families who struggled with that problem twenty years ago. Some of them explored exactly the same option as this family are doing. In the intervening years, the various governments have frequently increased the budgets of community based agencies. Community based programs in the last two or three decades have expanded both in terms their complexities and their comprehensiveness. I suspect that this family are frustrated by not only the lack of supports but also by the fact that it feels as if they have been lied to. When government operated facilities for children and adults who face challenges were closed - parents and the community were promised that there would be sufficient supports in the community. We promised fully integrated schools where young people of all levels of ability would socialize and learn together. We promised (because we believed it to be true) that there would be a range of supports available as the individual grew and as their needs changed.  We promised that the communities would be able to provide the opportunity for all individuals to maximize their potential. Those who made those promises, made those commitments were wrong.

They were wrong - not because the belief that everyone had the absolute right to be treated with dignity, and that everyone had the right to be given the chance to grow was misguided or wrong - but because we never explained (or even understood) what we were asking the community to do.

It is well past time for someone to do so.

to be continued.......................