By Emily Wrigglesworth
The Select Committee on Developmental Services will be holding public hearings to gather information. The meetings will be Wednesday at Queen’s Park in Toronto. The information will be put into a report that will be presented to the provincial government.
The 9-member committee is gathering information about people living with intellectual disabilities and those who have a dual diagnoses of mental illness and intellectual disabilities.
“I want to hear from families, individuals, siblings even who are in a situation and can give us first-hand knowledge,” says committee member MPP Sylvia Jones.
As a select committee, the members are from different ministries within the provincial government. Their goal is to get the ministries to work better together.
The existing programs split the responsibility of care for the individual. The problem is that the programs don’t blend with each other and there is very rarely overlap. This leaves the individual with no access to help for up to a few years. One of the most common cases is when the individual moves from the school system (usually ending at 18, but they are allowed to remain in the program until they are 21) to the next system, which can start at 21.
There aren’t always programs available at 21 though, and when there is, they can include a wait list. The committee hopes to improve the continuity between the programs, ensuring that the individual can always get the assistance they require.
“I’m hearing from… mostly older parents worried about what’s going to happen to their children when they pass away,” say Vice-Chair MPP Christine Elliot.
Elliot has been working to get the committee for over year. It was approved last year but before the provincial government could pass legislation for them to meet, Dalton McGuinty stepped down and the motion died in prorogation. When Kathleen Wynne took over, Elliot proposed the motion again and it went through fully.
The committee is hoping to get travel approval for the winter break. Elliot says they are planning to travel across Ontario, hitting communities in the four corners of the province, and visiting First Nations communities.
“A lot of families, because of the care needs of their family members, are not able to travel to Toronto,” says Elliot. “So we need to be able to get to them in, of course, reasonable limits.”
Elliot says that the First Nations communities are harder to work with because they are the responsibility of both the provincial and federal governments. She says that they want to include everyone in the solution and that means getting First Nations’ input.
The committee hopes to make their interim report in mid-February and have their full report done by mid-May 2014.
Emily Wrigglesworth 