In 1993, the U.S. Department of Education estimated that more than 100 million children ages 6 to 21 had some type of severe developmental disability that will require them to remain at home or to live in a residential facility for the rest of their lives. The Department of Human Services Illinois Center for Rehabilitation and Education, a residential and educational facility just west of Chicago's business district, includes financial management in its curriculum. Because most of the center's students are physically, not cognitively, disabled, teachers and social workers must prepare their students for life after they leave the facility. Marion L. May, occupational therapy administrator with the center, said that an important part of this training includes financial management. Some of our students have never had money to manage.
Some students are wards of the state.
That child has to learn how to take out his own phone service, pay his grocery bill. As if negotiating the piles of forms wasn't enough, a state-designated doctor must observe each applicant, report to the Social Security Administration on the nature of that person's disabilities and recommend appropriate entitlements. But the process can be demoralizing. As a parent, you're always trying to think about all the things your child can do. Now the doctor asks me to focus on all the things my son can't do.