Respite Care Accessibility in Montréal’s English-Speaking Disability Community: A Needs-Based Assessment

This research project will critically examine the accessibility of respite care through community integration social services for Anglophone persons with profound intellectual and/or developmental disability in Montréal. The research is guided by the hypothesis that a rationed care model, which prioritizes access to respite services for Francophone Montréal residents, creates systemic inequities that disadvantage Anglophone residents; these systemic inequities are exacerbated by the rationing of English-language services, and the subsequent prioritization of higher functioning and more youthful participants, deemed to possess “the potential to learn new skills.” As such, I will investigate the social and economic impacts of the new rationing policy on English-speaking adults for whom families are seeking respite care. Section fifteen (15) of the Act Respecting Health Services and Social Services (chapter S-4.2) states that “English-speaking persons are entitled to receive health services and social services in the English language” (1991). Nevertheless, the Anglophone families’ ability to locate and assess the acceptability of potential programs is made difficult by the fact that many important documents are available by Santé Montréal, Montréal’s health and social service network, in French only (personal communication, March 10, 2018). The exploratory research will attend to a range of variables, including access barriers for Anglophone residents and for care-seekers who are deemed to be of a lesser priority, and the felt impacts of the prioritization of disability respite services.

As such, the research will address the following inter-related questions:

(1) How does access to respite care services influence the felt impacts of the prioritization of disability respite services?

(2) In regard to linguistic barriers, what availability, accessibility, and acceptability needs are and are not being met by Anglophone disability services for the English-speaking disability community in Montréal?