It questioned whether an adequate standard of care could ever be provided in an institutional setting. With 52 children and young people, Grosvenor should be a priority for closure if Mrs Lo Po' kept her promise to move children first. But apart from a small annexe, Grosvenor is not on the list yet, and that's the way parents like it. The Canhams believe these young people are too frail for group homes. In Queensland, however, all children's disability institutions have closed, and one of the pioneers of devolution, Lynn Card, of the Brisbane-based Xavier Foundation, is a consultant to the NSW Ageing and Disability Department.
Card believes disabled young children belong at home with their parents, or with a foster parent.
Severely disabled and medically fragile children were among the 52 moved out of the Xavier institution from 1992. Five or six families were horrified. But we offered whatever in-home support it took. Card said the process was cost-neutral because institutions were very costly, a point likely to appeal to the NSW Government. In NSW, where most young disabled children have always lived with their families, and fewer than 200 are in institutions, the lack of respite and in-home services has created distrust about the Government's intentions.