I haven’t used a tracking device, but my son’s new cell phone is an Android device and I’m using one of the many tracking programs (Preyproject) available on that platform to track him via the internet. Of course these programs are intended for tracking phones, not people, but as a rule he has his phone with him when he’s out. We went with Wind, because they are the only provider using the infrastructure that makes WIFI access possible in some TTC subway stations.

I agree that it’s important to always ask for accommodations rather than waiting to have them offered to you. Even if you choose not to include your child in the SIS portion of the assessment (and I’m very glad that we did make that choice), if the travel to the local DSO office is a challenge you should definitely ask for a meeting at home.

Re: looking for day programs, not sure where you are in Scarborough but we have been very happy with the AAIMS program run out of East Metro Youth Service’s Galloway house (Kingston Road and Galloway). They have a scalable program so wait lists may not be as much of an issue.

Further to Jennypink’s comments, Parks and Rec offers, in the east and central regions, a day program called Active8 that is free and operates two days a week. It fills up fast, though. You should definitely reach out to the Adapted and Integrated Services people at Parks and Rec for Scarborough for other ideas.

Also, it’s important to understand that the agencies you will see exhibiting at the DSTO fair are definitely not “all the agencies”, they’re just the agencies that receive Ministry funding. Many of them are starting to offer fee-for-service programs, but their funded programs are accessible only through DSO, not directly with the agency. Be sure you clarify which services they are offering, to avoid getting all excited about a program when no-one can tell you when, or if, it will ever have a spot open for your son. Non-funded agencies can have their literature on a community table at the DSTO fair, but as Jennypink notes, the Community Participation Supports page on this site lists many of the non-funded agencies/organizations and their offerings.

Hope this helps.

Although it is certainly true that you need to go through the DSO process to have any hope of getting funded services, so this was bad advice indeed, the service provider might have been considering the possibility that people who qualified for services under the “old” system would not qualify for them under the new standardized criteria and so would lost their slot. I believe there is some uncertainty in this area. That said, even once you’re through the DSO process, it is strongly advisable to get a copy of your adult child’s record regularly so it is as current as possible – maybe make it part of birthday activities so you don’t forget. I also suggest that you get a copy immediately following the whole DSO assessment process: this should be give to you as a matter of course, but when I went through the process some years ago this was not the practice, and my son’s record was profoundly inaccurate.

Evi, I’m a parent as well, so I understand the panic and despair all too well (not that that’s much help, I know). First, and you probably already know this, be sure you tell DSO the full extent of your situation – tell them often. I don’t think there’s a lot of point in telling them in advance, no matter how obvious it is that you will be in in desperate straits upon your daughter’s graduation, but you need to tell them explicitly once that situation arises. Will money magically appear? No, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep in touch with them, being sure they know of every event and circumstance. Also, make sure your daughter is on the list for direct funding, and for person-directed planning. Request a copy of the information they are using to match your daughter to any programs that might open up at some time in the future – I found that some of the information in my son’s record was completely wrong – again, that doesn’t mean she’ll be put in a program, but if the information isn’t correct, any matches that might arise in the future won’t be appropriate.

The only other practical advice I can share is to try to make as many connections as you can with other families – are there any other parents, for example, in your daughter’s graduating class that might be able to pool resources with you to arrange transportation, or to share the cost of a support worker? Anyone you know from any other activities you or she take part in who might be in a similar situation? Personally I think the education system is incapable of doing transition planning, but you should talk to them too, maybe they can suggest a connection you haven’t thought of.

Sorry if this isn’t any use – I feel that one of the many ways the system fails parents is that it encourages us to remain in our individual silos rather than facilitating collaborative thinking and action. I believe Plan Toronto (now called Partners for Planning) can help build a “circle of support” in the community (I know, I can hear your eyes rolling, but desperate times call for desperate measures). Or if not that, do you have a friend who can help you brainstorm some ideas and work through some alternatives? I can’t imagine having been on the journey of raising a son with ASD on my own, but even with two of us we often find ourselves not able to think, if you’ll excuse the cliche, out of the box.

And yes, many of us are contemplating selling our homes and moving to less expensive parts of the province, as extreme as that sounds. I’m not sure we have a choice.

This might not fall into the category of “resources”, but in working with my son, who has ASD and cognitive delays, I found the best way to teach money skills is to allow the person you are teaching to actually have money and make choices around how to spend it. My son has extremely poor math skills on paper, but once we started paying him for doing household chores (instead of an allowance) and for participating in volunteer work/school co-op, it took him very little time to figure out financial matters related to his daily life. The key is motivation – he doesn’t find money interesting, but he finds things that money can buy extremely interesting. For example, he quickly grasped that a bottle of pop cost more than a can of pop, for example. He saves his money for desired objects (particularly DVDs) and suffers the emotional pain of having to not buy something he wants right now in order to be able to buy something later. We discuss his choices, but if he makes a foolish decision with his money (we’re talking relatively small sums here, of course) then he gets to feel the pain. We’re in the habit of counting his money before he leaves the house so he can plan ahead about what he might want to buy on a particular outing (and what he’s allowed to buy – without any rules he’d be swigging a coke for breakfast), and use envelopes for him to store his savings (keeping a visual tally on the outside of the envelope so he knows how close he is to his target). I remember soon after we started this effort, we were walking to a variety store and, unprompted, he decided he had to go home and do more work because he realized he didn’t have enough money for his treat: he wasn’t happy, but I was thrilled. I was also thrilled recently when he rather wistfully commented that “buying a pineapple wasn’t a good idea” (buying certain food items that he won’t eat but likes to have is one of his quirks).