In this podcast, I will discuss the need for sustainable supports for people with high acuity support needs such as Autism, Developmental, Intellectual Disabilities, and Multiple Disabilities that require a level of support performance higher than most. In fact, a once size fits all notion does not even begin to address the needs of someone with complex communication needs, physical needs, and a combination of all. As my son and adult children of colleagues, I have met on this journey who are now in the thirties going of forty, the hope for sustained supports continue to wane. That being said, I have hope and optimism that the coming generations of our youth with have the empathy and inclination to include and differentiate the individual supports of people with more significant disabilities in workplaces, recreation, houses of worship, and our community in general.

A perspective and affirmation of my concerns that I thought it was only me having! After an interview was a new customer of mine and his parent, I saw through the lens of another the true reality that waning services and supports for high acuity individuals was a systemic issue. The passion for changing a service system, the movement of advocating for our sons through the school system that didn’t know what IDEA was, has seemed to have been misplaced. Working on the rights of inclusion is more than acceptance, more than inclusion, its full participation.

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