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Abilities Magazine
| August 13th, 2007 | |
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Physical Support for Parents with Disabalities Nurturing assistance (the service) was first conceptualised and implemented in 1988 when a Toronto couple had their first child. They realized that a special service was needed for the mother (who has a disability and requires attendant services) to help her with child care/parenting activities. The couple was able to secure funding to hire nurturing assistants (the people) to assist the mother with her day-to-day parenting tasks and bonding with her child. Thirteen years later, nurturing assistance is still not well known, but the need for more support for parents with disabilities has become evident as a growing number of people with disabilities are deciding to raise their own families. The past decade has seen an increasing number of inquiries at the Centre for Independent Living in Toronto (CILT) from parents/prospective parents with disabilities who require physical assistance to care for and nurture their children. What is Nurturing Assistance 
Nurturing assistance is a time-limited service that provides physical assistance to parents with disabilities who have young children. Its function is to physically assist parents to undertake the tasks involved in caring for their children, as if the parents were doing it themselves. The service can last from birth through the first ten years of life.
Nurturing assistants are paid employees who work under the direction and in the presence of the parent with a disability. Their role is to assist the parent with bathing and changing the child, preparing meals, lifting and carrying, nursing and cuddling the child, playing and parent-child interacting, etc., according to the day-to-day needs of the parent and child. The parent is responsible for the child's care and safety. Why is nurturing assistance important? 
Not unlike personal attendant services, nurturing assistance helps people with disabilities in their day-to-day living, facilitating their full participation in their homes and communities. Nurturing assistance, for some parents, provides the support that they need to have and raise their own families in a way that dignifies their own control and their own choices. It helps to fulfill the emotional need of a parent to feel like he or she is participating fully in parenting, and it also helps to maintain the balance in family life. Nurturing assistance can also help strengthen the emotional and bonding aspects of the parent-child relationship. Speaking about her experience, one mother with a disability reported "I found this assistance during K-'s formative years, to be absolutely invaluable. My relationship with K- is so much richer than I might have thought possible and I know that a foundation has been built that will last all our lives." How does one get nurturing assistance? 
There are currently three avenues through which a limited number of parents have successfully obtained nurturing assistance in Ontario. One is through the Direct Funding Program - Self-Managed Attendant Services. Through Direct Funding, consumers receive funding to hire, train and pay their own attendants. Consumers with young children have been able to allocate some of this funding to hire nurturing assistants. The other two avenues are through certain Ontario Attendant Service Providers and through Outreach Programs that have arranged to receive funding from the government to provide nurturing assistance to the consumers they work with.
In all cases, nurturing assistance is not a stand-alone program. People wishing to establish this service for themselves must discuss with their attendant service providers about their need for physical assistance with parenting and negotiate it into their individual service plans. However, because nurturing assistance is not widely known, often service providers are not aware of how to implement this service into their policies. The Nurturing Assistance Project at CILT This lack of awareness, and ultimately lack of accessibility, is why CILT is publishing a book serving as a how-to guide for establishing nurturing assistance services. For service providers and funders, it provides a framework of how to develop a working model of nurturing assistance into their service programs. For parents and prospective parents it outlines the process they might follow in planning and obtaining their own nurturing assistance services. Finally, it provides stories and advice from current users of nurturing assistance services based on their own experiences, as well as documentation of the extent and type of parenting supports and/or nurturing assistance services that are currently available in Canada and internationally. Nurturing Assistance: A Guide to Providing Physical Supports for Parents with Disabilities was published February 2002 Contact Information  For more information on Nurturing Assistance or to order a copy of the Nurturing Assistance Guide, contact Kimberly McKennitt at CILT, phone: 416-599-2458, ext. 35 or 1-800-354-9950 (toll-free in Canada); TDD: 416-599-5077; fax: 416-599-3555; e-mail: [email protected]
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