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Possible business venture

NorthernRedneck

Well-known member
GOLD Site Supporter
Before I get into the business venture I've been presented with, let me give you a bit of background info. In the past, I've worked for an agency providing support to people with disabilities for close to 7 years. I took a break from that to work in a mill for 8 years till it closed. When the mill closed, I went back to the human services field working with a child welfare agency working specifically with foster children after they have been placed in foster homes.

Now, in Canada, the court system deems a child to be an adult at the age of 18. That means the foster children I work with are deemed adults at age of 18 and are essentially on their own when they reach that age. Working in this field for 5 yrs now, I've noticed a trend. The kids aren't generally ready to be on their own yet at that age and are pretty much scared. And that is for the normal kids with no identified disabilities.

This leads me to the possible business venture.....

How it works right now in the system is that when the foster child reaches the age of 18, they are out of the foster home and put on an extended care and maintenance program (ECM for short). They receive a sum of money each month to help out with paying rent, groceries etc. It isn't much but it's better than nothing. Here's where the problem lies. When a child with disabilities reaches the age of 18 under our child welfare system, they still fall under the same provisions as a so-called normal child. Let's face facts. Many of these children with disabilities will never be independant. The way our system is designed is that the disabled children regardless of being in foster care or not, are referred to the Adult Developmental Services program which is run by the province(Ministry of Community and Social Services) to be exact. The referral process to get these children transitioned to adult services begins around the age of 15. It begins with an application to the service accompanied by a psychological assessment and doctors reports. Next comes a lengthy interview style meeting looking at every aspect of the child's life and identifying what accommodations they would need to do things as any other "normal" person. The next step is where the system fails.

Once the referral meetings are complete, the child's application is filed until they actually turn 18. At that time, the application is sent to the ministry for approval which could take 6 months to a year to complete. Many of the disabled children in foster care "fall through the cracks" and are basically left without services or families to care for them until the adult services kick in. Unlike disabled children with families who haven't grown up in foster care, these children raised in foster care often have no family support to assist them until the adult services kicks in.

Here's my possible business venture....

I am currently in talks with an external agency providing specialized care to foster children. These types of agencies aren't bound by the same guidelines as identified child welfare agencies. They generally work with foster children who can't live in regular foster settings for one reason or another. They provide specialized counseling services. The agency I am in talks with is currently in the process of establishing homes and services in our city. I have been approached to go work for them. I would be doing the same job as I am now but with more money and less of a caseload. I am seriously considering the offer. But this leads us to the true venture. Even though I am not officially an employee of this outside agency (yet), I have been meeting with the guy in charge of the outside agency to make a plan to provide support to these children with disabilities who would otherwise be without support until the adult services kicks in. This could lead to specialized foster homes for disabled adults and/or group homes where these children could go once they are out of the regular foster care system while they wait for the adult services to begin. Currently there is a high need for this type of service province-wide and there are no agencies that specialize in it.

We will be applying to the ministry for licensing and funding for the programing. Currently, there are no services in our province for these disabled children from the time they reach 18 until adult services kicks in. I intend to change that.
 
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