The United States is on the cusp of what could be a significant crises in long-term care for people with identified special needs.
Though no one can point to the specific cause and there are some arguments about the actual numbers because of claims that there was under diagnosis in the past and some over diagnosis now, the undeniable reality is that there has been a tremendous increase in the number of autism diagnoses in the last few decades.
The earliest children in the wave of this autism diagnosis boom are beginning to hit adulthood and age out of public school education programs and services, and parents are beginning to really have to grapple with what it means to provide lifelong care for a child with special needs.
Unfortunately, it can be very difficult for families to find the resources that they need to gather information about making lifelong planning decisions. For some reason, the autism discussion in society became politicized, and many advocacy groups took absolutist stances that simply did not reflect the real-life decisions that family members and people with autism needed to make about lifelong care and quality of life. In addition, autism is such a broad diagnosis that it encompasses people with a wide variety of life skills and capabilities.
Life planning for a person with autism is not a one-size-fits-all proposition.
For some young adults with autism, life planning means attending college and planning a career, while for other adults life planning means acquiring basic life skills. This means that a family’s supportive role can be very different, too, and the legal steps a family needs to take to ensure that a family member is cared for are going to differ according to the needs and abilities of the family members, not just of the family member with autism, but of all members of the family. Fortunately, there are now more resources for families dealing with autism.
At Mt. Bethel Village, we understand that when a family member has autism, the entire family is impacted. We are happy to offer one solution to life planning needs for families with autism.
