About the H-CARDD Program and Vita Community Living Services

This toolkit has been prepared by the H-CARDD team in partnership with Vita Community Living Services (CLS). H-CARDD is a research program based in Ontario, Canada, and has been studying health care outcomes of adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Vita CLS is a non-profit community organization that provides services to adults with developmental disabilities and dual diagnosis (developmental disability accompanied by a mental health support need). Vita CLS provides residential supports, treatment programs, respite programs, and community participation programs, as well as clinical and educational services. In 2017, we received a grant from the Ministry of Children, Community, and Social Services through their Modernization Fund to identify the needs of direct support professionals in relation to health care, and to design appropriate tools and resources together with them. This toolkit is the product of our two-year effort, informed by speaking with direct support professionals, supervisors, directors, and self-advocates from Vita CLS as well as with health care providers.

Why should you use this toolkit?

This toolkit is for direct support professionals to better support people with IDD when it comes to their health, as well as their health care. We now know that adults with IDD have worse mental and physical health than adults without these disabilities and their health problems can lead to the use of many medications, some with very serious side effects, lots of doctor visits, as well as visits to the emergency departments and even hospitalizations for some people. There can be repeated visits to hospitals, unnecessarily long hospital admissions, and even death. Many things can be done to improve the health of adults with IDD and direct support professionals can play a very important role. But to make changes, direct support professionals need information about how to manage common health issues, how to talk health issues and health care, and how to navigate the health care system. This toolkit has both information for support professionals but also tools that can be helpful for the people they support.