Poste - Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children

C A N A D I A N C O A L I T I O N F O R T H E R I G H T S O F C H I L D R E N
community-based services. 43 As a result, families are
increasingly responsible for the financial, physical,
emotional, developmental and social costs associated
with caring for children with disabilities. 44
Financial Assistance
Provincial governments have various programs to
financially assist families with the extra costs associated
with disability. A sample of programs includes:
• Quebec provides a supplementary family
disbursement of $119.22 per month to all families with
severely disabled children; 45 and
• the Saskatchewan Aids to Independent Living
program lends assistive devices free of charge to
children and adults. The Paraplegia Program supplies
additional benefits to eligible children, including
prescription drugs, medical supplies, rehabilitation
equipment and grants for home and vehicle
modifications. 46
A national study has found that in most parts of Canada,
there is little financial support for family members who
are primary caregivers of persons with disabilities. In
fact, most provinces and territories have no publiclyfunded
income support program for caregivers of
children with disabilities. 47 The exceptions to this are
Quebec, 48 Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland,
which have provisions for parents who care for their
children with disabilities. The federal, provincial and
territorial ministers of social services intend to better
coordinate income programs for people with
disabilities. 49 However, it is not known if children
will be a focus of this work.
Social assistance to Aboriginal families on reserve is
generally lower than what most provincial governments
provide to the rest of the population since band councils
receive funding from the federal government and federal
guidelines recommend lower levels of support. There is
no federal supplement for disability-related costs, so
parents of children with disabilities must cover the costs
of the disability themselves or move off reserve to
receive provincial social assistance benefits. 50
According to a 1995 survey of 117 parents of children
with disabilities conducted by the Canadian Association
for Community Care, the means tests determining
eligibility for support services are too rigid, access to
services varies and waiting lists are used as a rationale for
denying services. The cost of short-term relief care was
60
the most significant concern, followed by transportation
and equipment costs. Half of the parents surveyed
identified the absence of respite and child care services as
important reasons for out-of-home placement of children
with physical disabilities. 51 Parents said that foster
families receive better financial support than natural
families with disabled children. The Canadian
Association for Community Care found that the working
poor are often worse off than families on social assistance
since welfare recipients have better supports and services
available to them for their children with disabilities. 52
Sharon Hope Irwin, director of SpeciaLink: The National
Centre for Child Care and Community Inclusion, says
that primary caregivers of young children with
disabilities are much less likely to be in the workforce
than other primary caregivers and disability-related
expenses are an added burden. 53
Voices
of parents
I am worried about cuts to subsidized child
care for special needs children and for
funding and programming and support in
school... funding to schools is being cut...
So every need (programming, educational
assistants) must be fought for by the parent
and in some cases paid for by the parent.
There are waiting lists for everything...
Our employer-provided plan has been eroding
and no longer covers orthotics. The drug plan
is now reduced to 80 percent coverage.
There are cutbacks to the assistive devices
program approval process—it takes longer
and funding is more difficult to access. 54
Early Identification, Early Intervention and
Child Care
Special interventions for children with disabilities should
begin as early as possible. 55 While services for children
with disabilities have been developing over the past 40
years, the delivery of these services varies from