The challenge: Once young adults transition out of the educational system at age 21, services are scarce and difficult to access and to navigate. Often families don’t know where to turn.
Many organizations that provide services don’t collaborate to optimize delivery and don’t solicit advice from families–stakeholders with years of lived experience.
Many people are not sensitized to neurodiversity and want guidance on how to be more supportive.
The solution: Alink is continually communicating with organizations and decisionmakers to promote the funding and delivery of services to young adults, to sensitize others and to offer insight as well as practical advice on how to create an inclusive and supportive community.
Here are some examples:
To help families better understand services, Alink organizes discussions on important topics, such as Quebec’s new tutorship laws and new Basic Income program.
Alink members participate regularly in forums sponsored by other organizations, such as SQDI, the Miriam Home’s Users Committee, the CIUSSS West-Central Montreal’s committee on rehab services for young adults and CIJA’s annual “Disability Fly-In,” in which advocates from across the country meet with federal officials in Ottawa to advance disability inclusion.
Housing is also a major focus. Alink works with a community organizer from the CIUSSS West-Central Montreal to better understand the roles played by various levels of government and is putting together a guidebook to creating housing. Recently it successfully asked the City of Montreal to extend rent supplements to people with RDSPs. Alink is also currently working with the SQDI on its housing mobilization campaign, J’ai Ma Place.