Disability Supports - Issues and Challenges

In Unison 2000: Persons with Disabilities in Canada

Disability Supports

Issues and Challenges

Disability supports are goods and services that assist people with disabilities in overcoming barriers to participating fully in daily living, including economic and social activities. Supports can include human supports (such as attendant services, interpreter services and respite care), technical aids and devices (such as wheelchairs, talking computers and Braille readers), and other supports (such as counseling, physio- or psychotherapy, and prescription drugs). Some people need extensive supports such as attendant care, while others need few supports, such as a hearing aid.

Disability supports are tools for inclusion. They are critical if people with disabilities are going to lead fulfilling lives and participate fully in their communities. Without them, many people with disabilities are not able to fulfill their social and economic potential.

In addition to being a key building block to full inclusion, disability supports are also directly linked to the building blocks of employment and income. For example, in 1991, 44 per cent of people with disabilities were not participating in the labour market, although more than half of these indicated that they would have been capable of participating if barriers and disincentives were removed (Health and Activity Limitation Survey, HALS, 1991).

There are several possible mechanisms for providing disability supports:

direct provision of supports to individuals and family or non-family caregivers (such as home care);

funding to individuals to offset the cost of disability supports (such as those provided through the tax system); and

measures to increase society's capacity for inclusion (such as building codes to ensure that public spaces are accessible).

While this report focuses on working-age adults with disabilities, the importance of disability supports in the lives of children, families and seniors is also recognized. Disability supports provided to children at an early age can promote optimal development and reduce the need for more intensive supports at a later stage. Disability supports become more important as people get older so, as the Canadian population ages, we can expect an increasing demand for disability supports.

Some Key Disability Supports Indicators

In 1991, more than a million working-age Canadians with disabilities needed help with one or more everyday activities. This number represented just under half of all working age adults with disabilities.

Of those requiring help with everyday activities, 47 per cent reported that they received all the help they needed, 42 per cent said they received help but that they needed more, and 11 per cent said they needed help but received none.

Fifty-six per cent of people who needed help received that support from family members.

More than 600,000 working-age adults with disabilities (about 25 per cent) needed aids and devices to address issues of seeing, hearing, speaking, mobility or the use of hands and arms.

Roughly 70 per cent of those needing aids and devices reported that they did not need more than they were using, compared to 15 per cent who reported needing more than they currently received and another 15 per cent who reported needing such items but having none.

Approximately 25 per cent of Canadians with disabilities who relied on income support programs cited loss of additional supports as a reason for not looking for paid employment.

Family members play a central role in the provision of disability supports. The importance of family can be even more pronounced in rural and northern remote areas where formal supports are not as readily available. For Aboriginal cultures in particular, the role of families and the community is central to the concept and delivery of disability supports.

Aboriginal persons with disabilities, particularly those living in northern and remote areas, face particularly severe challenges in the area of disability supports. These challenges often go beyond access to technical supports. For example, where there are poorly maintained road systems, it can be very difficult for wheelchair users to travel about in their communities; having to remain inside their homes can lead to isolation, loneliness and depression.

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