Monday, September 08, 2008

Lack of Adult Autism Facilities Separates Families In Scotland

Our autism heartache tells the story of the Browe family in Scotland that must travel 600 miles to visit their adult autistic son Darren in England because Scotland lacks specialist care facilities for autistic adults. The story describes the severity of the son's condition and the difficulties faced by traveling such distances to visit their son. Sometimes after traveling 600 miles they don't get to see him because he is having a bad day. The evening times report that such families are not unique in Scotland: "A UK autism charity says more than half the adults with autism in Scotland do not receive enough support to meet their needs and face having to move away like Darren."

The situation in Scotland is not unique to that country either. Here in New Brunswick, Canada, we are still exporting autistic adults to the United States because we do not have dedicated residential facilities for autistic adults and nothing suitable for severely autistic adults. We have placed an autistic youth on the grounds of a corrections facility simply because we have no facilities. An autistic adult has resided on the ward of a hospital in Saint John. Our province takes no action to address this need regardless which party is in power.

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