Canadian Resources

These resources are sorted by province, in alphabetical order, after the national resources. You will find below resources for funding, social services programs, wish granting, services, and education as well as others as I come across in my search.

National Resource

 

***MOST IMPORTANT STEP WHEN YOU HAVE A CHILD WITH A DISABILITY***

Disability Tax Credit! (forms found here) This entitles you not only for a huge tax break but as soon as it's approved you will be entitled to the Child Disability Benefit, which is an additional credit that is tacked onto your Canada Child Tax Benefit. Once you have applied and you have been accepted follow exactly what the letter tells you, to get them to back date to previous years you MUST ask them to do it. If it has been more than 5yrs since diagnosis you must tell them WHY you did not apply sooner, tell them these exact words "I WAS NOT INFORMED OF THE PROGRAM UNTIL "X" DATE".(eg. you applied on Nov. 28, 2012 but your child was diagnosed with their disability on June 8th 2010, tell them "I was not informed of this program until Nov. 26th 2012" and that you would like them to go back further than the 5yr mark. You preferably want the date you found out to be no further than 2-3 months before you applied and/or had your doctor fill out the paperwork)

Funding

President's Choice Children's Charity
PC Children's Charity helps families with children with special needs by providing financial grants for specialized equipment and therapies. To qualify your child must be 18 and under, have been diagnoses with a physical disability or developmental delay, and you must be a Canadian citizen and/or have permanent resident status in Canada. Your total annual income must be under $70,000, they go by your income from the PRIOR YEAR, with no exceptions, for instance our annual income in '11 was 84K but we relocated and lost a good chunk of income and now make 56K which is far below their cut off. When we contacted them because we needed their assistance we were told they did not care what our circumstances were, or how badly we needed the funding, they solely go by your income from the previous year and to contact them again after we do our taxes in 2013.

Ontario

Funding

Jennifer Ashleigh Children's Charity
The Jennifer Ashleigh Children’s Charity assists children who are seriously ill or have a permanent disability. To qualify your child must be 21 years old or younger, permanently live in Ontario, and have a combine household income less than $60,000. They provide funding for emergency relief, respite and nursing care, therapy, and medical care as well as specialized equipment.

Social Services

Assistance For Children with Severe Disabilities (aka ACSD)
Do not let the name fool you, your definition of "severely disabled" is nothing like their definition. I thought for sure we would not get it, my oldest son was not "severe" in my eyes, but in theirs he was qualified as severely disabled. Find your local office and apply, do not fret over the paperwork, I could not for the life of me figure out how to put a price on some of my son's costs, but they have special workers that will come out and help you fill it out. Some offices don't even wait for you to ask or even give these papers to you (just the income form) they have the person automatically come out and do them with you. If for some reason they send you the forms phone them and ask for help filling them out, within a few days someone will come to your home and help you.


Special Services At Home
SSAH is a program that provides funding to families for respite care and personal development and growth activities. When/if you apply for ACSD they will direct you to also fill out an application with SSHA, now there have been areas that have put freezes on this program and are not approving any new applications, however, if you are lucky enough to receive funding DO NOT let it lapse. When it is time to renew make sure you get everything they need in ASAP and BEFORE the deadline, there have been many families for various reasons who have submitted their forms after the deadline and have lost funding and been put at the bottom of the wait list to receive funding again. This can be very disruptive to families and their children, especially if you are using the funding for personal development and growth activities, some programs have limited spaces or long wait lists and if you miss the deadline and funding is cut off you risk losing your child's placement or having to find a way to cover the gap in funding until your application is re-approved and/or you move to the top of their wait list again.

Specialized Schools and Day Cares

 

Greater Toronto Area

Silver Creek Preschool


Silver Creek provides a positive pre-school setting with therapeutic services (physio, occupational, speech & language, and music therapy) delivered within a caring and creative early education classroom with low student-teach ratios. They help children with and without physical and developmental delays to reach obtainable goals as set out by the teachers, therapists, and their parents.



Silver Creek also has equipment specialists come into the school, they can fit AFOs and order walkers, wheelchairs or any other equipment your child is in need of. They fill out all the needed paperwork for ADP and Easter Seals, you just sign it and send it back, no more running all over the place to have all your child's needs met. They DO have a long waiting list, place your child on it ASAP, even a bit before their second b-day. Our son was placed on their waiting list 10 months before he turned two and had a placement on his birthday for the coming school year.


Silver Creek Pre-School
65 Hartsdale Dr.
Toronto, ON
M9R 2S8
416-249-9770




Bloorview School Authority


Bloorview School Authority offers a unique setting for students in Junior Kindergarten to Grade One. The full day program is based on The Ontario Curriculum for Kindergarten and Grade One. Our approach is holistic and child-centred and based on the students’ individual strengths and needs. Our small classes allow for an academic focus on the acquisition of early literacy and numeracy skills to create the foundation for early learning. Library, music, visual arts, adapted physical education and aquatics enrich the weekly school timetable.


***Your child MUST be a client at Bloorview to enroll in their school, it is not guarantied that they will get a placement either, you MUST also enroll your child at their home school (your local school) because it is them who pick up the tab for sending your child there. This must be done ASAP, if they are accepted and your child is not registered at their home school yet you risk losing their placement! Also get the referral to Bloorview ASAP, you child MUST be seen by someone for one of their services BEFORE intake or your spot will be denied!


Bloorview School Authority
150 Kilgour Road
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M4G 1R8

Tel: 416-424-3831
Fax: 416-425-2981

E-mail: school@bloorview.ca

Therapy (Including alternative therapies)

Ability Camp


Ability Camp offers an intensive training and rehabilitation program improving the lives and functional outcomes for preemies born with complications and children with brain injury or Cerebral Palsy as well as adults who have suffered a stroke or brain injury. Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy combined with Conductive Education programs in a setting where families can stay together and support each other while having the ability to use the therapy equipment after the class is unique and families have traveled from all over the world to attend.

They offer specialized programs based on age groups to make therapy more fitting for those groups. They have Mom & Tots programs too meant for infants so you can start this therapy as early as you like as long as you can get the funds for it.

For more information and to receive a Free DVD call Kevin (Director)at 1-800-442-6992 or email to kevin@abilitycamp.com