{"id":17852,"date":"2017-07-19T15:58:05","date_gmt":"2017-07-19T19:58:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=17852"},"modified":"2017-07-19T15:58:05","modified_gmt":"2017-07-19T19:58:05","slug":"kerrys-place-grapples-with-services-for-aging-population","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/kerrys-place-grapples-with-services-for-aging-population\/","title":{"rendered":"Kerry\u2019s Place grapples with services for aging population"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Autism Spectrum is very broad, and so too are the range of people living on it \u2013 but this range is growing all the time and it is a challenge Kerry\u2019s Place Autism Services will be tackling in the years ahead.
\nSince coming on board as the Aurora-based organization\u2019s new Executive Director this spring, Sue Coke has been meeting with Regional leaders and stakeholders to develop their new Strategic Plan, which will carry them through the next three to five years and chief among the challenges in their path is grappling with the needs of Canada\u2019s aging population.
\nWe all know the immediate burdens the aging population could place on the health system, but Kerry\u2019s Place is looking not only on these commonplace challenges, but also the very unique ones facing the thousands of individuals they support through residential care.
\n\u201cObviously, we always want to look at the full person, but as these individuals with autism age they are going to have more medical problems and we are already seeing that,\u201d says Ms. Coke. \u201cHow can we make sure we are meeting their needs? Some of our individuals are non-verbal, so how can we make sure we know that they may have other issues aside from their behaviors?
\n\u201cWhat I am helping to do is not only encourage people to make sure we\u2019re doing evidence-based practices on the behavioural side, but I also want to see evidence-based practices for people who have any physical issues that might need treatment. As people age, we have to make sure we\u2019re addressing all of their needs.
\nMs. Coke comes to Kerry\u2019s Place after years of work in acute care, including serving as the Executive Vice President of Sunnybook Hospital, with an additional focus on working with organizations \u201cthat are in transition and having a lot of challenging events happen.\u201d
\nTo that end, Kerry\u2019s Place is a particularly good fit, she says, because Kerry\u2019s Place itself is in transition.
\nIt is not only the aging population that is putting Kerry\u2019s Place in this transitory state, but the new autism program handed down by Ontario\u2019s Ministry of Child and Youth Services. Set to change the way support is offered to children and families who are on the Autism Spectrum, the plan will see increased funding for Autism supports and innovative ways of addressing waiting lists for Autism services, which Ms. Coke describes as \u201chuge.\u201d
\n\u201cThere is a third category, and I think this is where Kerry\u2019s Place can really be innovative, and that is the children are funded for ASD support until they are 18 and after that there is no financial support from the Ministry,\u201d she says. \u201cWe have individuals who are coming out of high school and they no longer have any support. A lot of people who have ASD in schools, many of them have support from either a support worker, they get teaching support, they get coaching, but it ends at 18.
\n\u201cI see an opportunity for Kerry\u2019s place to work with other stakeholders and to fundraise and develop programs that will help young adults who are going to be either entering university to go to university, seek a trade, seek employment. They need help, they need coaching on how to apply for a job, how to interview, how to do their resume. Social interaction is challenging, so I believe that we can really help this group of people because there is nobody out there doing it. Looking at employment, looking at their future in education, and helping them just with social skills.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Autism Spectrum is very broad, and so too are the range of people living on it \u2013 but this range is growing all the time and it is a challenge Kerry\u2019s Place Autism Services will be tackling in the years ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17829,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-4DW","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-14 13:26:09","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/2017-07-20-04.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}