New funding will empower Manitoba adults with intellectual disabilities in day-to-day activities: advocates

New funding announced Wednesday will be transformative for Manitoba adults living with intellectual disabilities, and will empower them in their day-to-day lives, advocates say.

On Wednesday, the Manitoba government promised $775,000 in funding for two initiatives, including $100,000 for training people in the disability support sector on person-centred planning.

That training will be delivered through Inclusion Winnipeg, an organization that provides services to people with intellectual disabilities.

Janet Forbes, the group's executive director, said the update marks the beginning of a transformation in how people with disabilities can be supported to make decisions that reflect how they want their lives to look.

"We believe that all people can lead good, inclusive lives. It's not something that their disability should create any barrier [to]," Forbes said at a news conference Wednesday morning. 

"But it is up to us to look for the supports that they need to have, and to ensure they're in place at the right time and in the right way."

The province also announced $675,000 that will be awarded through an expression of interest process to develop peer-support programs and increase the use of assisted decision-making among vulnerable Manitobans.

Any interested community group can submit an application by Feb. 28, Families Minister Rochelle Squires said at the news conference.

That money is intended to develop peer support networks for families of people with intellectual disabilities, she said.

It's also meant to reduce reliance on Manitoba's public guardian and trustee by improving access to, and recruitment of, community-based decision makers who can help people living with disabilities, said Squires.

"Instead of having a legally appointed decision maker helping them make some of those decisions, whether it be in the banking sector or in any other of those day-to-day encounters that we all experience … this person might actually have a community behind them," she said.

"It might be a friend, it might be a neighbour, it might be a support worker, it might be somebody from their church or somebody from their community who is there to just guide them with some of those decisions."

The funding comes in response to Pathways to Dignity, Rights, Safeguards, Planning and Decision Making, a report released by the province's task force on vulnerable persons living with a mental disability in December.

That report said supported decision making — where someone gets help from friends, family and others in their life to understand their situation and what choices they have — should be the primary support for people with intellectual disabilities. 

But substitute decision making — where an outside person, like someone from the public guardian and trustee agency, is appointed to make those decisions — should only be used as a last resort, it said.

"While there is a need for formal substitute decision making powers in certain cases, the task force firmly believes these appointments should be made less often," the report said.

Families feel isolated: task force chair

Dale Kendel, who was the chair of that task force, said one of the most significant things the group heard about while writing that report was a sense of isolation among families who felt they were alone in making a decision for their loved ones with intellectual disabilities.

Kendel said many families also feel they don't have any other choice but to opt for the public guardian and trustee because they aren't aware of other options.

There are about 2,000 people in Manitoba with substitute decision makers, he said. And for many of them, using the public guardian and trustee wasn't a last resort as it's intended — it was "a convenient resort."

"Many families feel that they don't have a choice because they don't know. They don't know that there's options," he said at the news conference.

"And we're hoping that this process is going to help fully unwind some of those situations."

Kendel said the money from the province will also help develop support networks for families of people with intellectual disabilities to connect with and learn from each other.

"Families have told us that they learn some of their best practices from other families, so that's a really key piece of this as well," he said.

The new funding will affect the lives of roughly 7,500 adults with intellectual disabilities in Manitoba, and a workforce of more than 5,000 people supporting them, said Kendel.