If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there? That’s why, as you begin planning for the future, you need to be clear about what you want. What are you trying to achieve for your relative? What do you imagine for their future? What are your goals? What do you want to prevent? What do you want to maintain? What do you want people to know when they gather to discuss your wishes after you are gone? Without specific answers to these questions, the rest of your planning will be cloudy and incomplete. The future planning begins with clarifying your vision and then goes further to a personal planning which is in more deep and detail to identify a “path” to achieve identified goals for an individual with a disability.

There is probably no one who can ever look after your relative with the same persistence, interest, and determination as you do. That’s fact. However, unless you’ve tapped into the fountain of youth, you won’t be around forever. That’s a fact, too. So what’s the next best thing? The best guarantee of a safe and secure future for a person with a disability is the number of caring and committed friends, family members, acquaintances, and supporters actively involved in their life. We review the current status of relationship of your loved one and identify what kind of relationship your loved one or you want to have in the future.

Relationships play an important role in enabling our sons and daughters to contribute their gifts. From the comfort of supportive friends, family, and Personal Network members, people with disabilities can find opportunities to work, volunteer, create, inspire, care, serve, and contribute. Our family members make contributions in two ways: Contributions of Doing and Contributions of Being. These gifts – often overlooked in our society – are critical to society’s well-being. Identifying the gifts and contributions of our relatives, through future planning process, leads to meaningful relationships.

Every parent would want their sons and daughters to live in a stable and hospitable living environment. We want the same for our loved ones with disabilities. A house, however, doesn’t become a home by accident. It requires thoughtful and careful planning. Some of our loved ones will want to have their own place. They might want to live on their own or with people they know and like. They will need very little support, while others intensive staff support. Once this sense of home has been clarified, you can examine the type of tenure and other technical details that best suit your relative. The key to creating a home is to have control over the home environment; to make sure it reflects your family member’s personality; to ensure that your family member chooses their own roommates.

Here and Now assists in exploring the potential benefits and consequences of various housing options for an individual with a disability including: home ownership, group home living, co-op housing, co-housing, and within family housing. Here and Now will take steps as requested to develop the selected housing options.

People want their wishes or choices to be respected. People with disabilities are not very different from them. We are wary of people who won’t make an effort to learn how our relatives express themselves, who are too busy, or who ignore – and perhaps worse – think they know what is best for our relative. This can lead to ignoring their wishes and eventually making all decisions, big or small, on their behalf. A good life of our loved ones starts with parents’ or guardians’ recognition of their choice making ability.

A Here and Now consultant identifies the benefits and limitations of guardianship and representation agreement: representation agreement, enduring powers of attorney, temporary substitute decision-maker, committee of the estate and of the person. Parents need to organize their supported decision-making including: health and medical decisions, financial decisions, and personal care decisions. Some additional options and resources will be considered such as individualized funding and microboards.

Most of us are not sufficiently wealthy to leave enough money in our estate to cover the costs of everything that our family members might possibly need. Until recently, there were limited options or tools we could use to deal with this challenge. Fortunately this is changing, particularly in British Columbia where the government is not only committed to assisting people with disabilities receive financial help from their families but is also committed to assisting families build up savings. Penalties and disincentives are being eliminated.

These changes signify that we are approaching a new partnership between families and government: a partnership based on shared responsibility which acknowledges the commitment that families have always made to the safety and well-being of their relatives with disabilities.

Here and Now provides an overview of how to plan for and protect the financial well-being of your family member with a disability both now and in the future including:

• General information on drafting a Will and planning your estate
• Importance of trusts, particularly discretionary trusts
• Registered Disability Savings Plan (RDSP)
• Government benefits
• The relationship among government benefits, the RDSP, and discretionary trusts

You now have a clear idea about what your loved one’s life will look like after you are gone. Your picture includes:

• Who their friends will be
• Where they might live
• How they will make their contribution to society
• Who might serve as an advocate and monitor
• What role your other family members play

You may still have one nagging concern: Who will monitor the plans I have made after I am gone? Our answer is simple: trust other families in similar circumstances. Here and Now was created by a small group of families who focus exclusively on the social and financial well-being of our relatives with disabilities. A Here and Now membership(link to membership) means we commit to overseeing and ensuring that the future plans you have made are carried out beyond your lifetime.