‘I’m scared what he’ll do. I’m scared for the future’ VITALIY GOLYAK, WHO HAS CALLED POLICE FIVE TIMES IN THE LAST YEAR OVER HIS SON’S VIOLENT OUTBURSTS
Ontario’s ombudsman set to release long-awaited report today on the crisis in disabilities services
Five times in one year Vitaliy Golyak has resorted to measures no parent ever wants to consider.
Fearing for his family’s safety, Golyak called Toronto police to help subdue his son Tomer — diagnosed with autism, an intellectual disability and depression — after the teenager became distraught and aggressive, throwing things and threatening to hit.
On each occasion, between June 2015 and late April of this year, police took Tomer, 19, to hospital emergency rooms. On four of those trips, he was admitted to psychiatric wards for weeks at a time, sedated and sent home with no strategy, says his father. Then the cycle would repeat. “My heart is almost broken,” says Golyak, who quit his job in landscaping seven years ago to care for his son while his wife works to support the family. “My situation is crisis all the time. There is no plan.”
Golyak feels he has no other choice. Tomer has broken chairs and plates and been increasingly explosive, Golyak says. He puts knives, scissors and other sharp objects out of sight in their North York apartment and says that during the worst meltdowns he restrains Tomer while his wife calls 911.
Since Tomer turned 18, he has been unable to find a physician equipped to deal with both his autism and mental health needs. “I’m scared what he’ll do. I’m scared for the future,” Golyak says.
The situation is one example of the circumstances faced by some families of adults with developmental disabilities like autism or multiple diagnoses that include anxiety and other mental health conditions.
Once adolescents “age out” of children’s services at 18 and leave high school at 21, they enter an adult system with limited day programs and assisted housing options, and waiting lists that can last years.
A surge in complaints from families in crisis prompted the Ontario ombudsman in November 2012 to launch an investigation into the province’s developmental services. The move followed a series of headlines about desperate parents who, because of advancing age or illness, had left their adult children at short-term care centres for good, saying they could no longer cope with the demands of 24-hour care.
Ombudsman Paul Dubé is set to release that long-awaited report today at Queen’s Park. Last year, the ombudsman’s 2014-2015 annual report revealed the investigation had drawn more than 1,300 complaints, including “urgent, disturbing cases where adults with severe special needs were ending up in jail, homeless shelters and hospitals because no care or services were available for them.”
According to police, crisis workers and those who work with adults with special needs, cases like the Golyaks’ are becoming more common.
“This is sadly familiar to the police,” says deputy chief Michael Federico of Toronto Police Services, who oversees the community safety command.
“There are many examples where we’re called back to assist somebody in crisis repeatedly,” he said in an interview.
Beyond the role of intervening to prevent injury or harm, officers have few options beyond taking a distraught person to hospital or jail.
“I think we all agree that’s hardly the response this complex issue needs,” he said. These situations are “a symptom of a larger societal issue and a gap in society’s care for its community members.”
Golyak says the last time he called emergency services, in late April, Tomer spent a month in the psychiatric unit at North York General Hospital. Since his discharge at the end of May, two crisis workers have simultaneously been coming to the family’s apartment for up to nine hours a day, five days a week, through the Griffin Centre, which provides short-term crisis intervention for adults with developmental disabilities and mental illness.
But those services are limited to 90 days and Golyak is nervous about what happens in September when Tomer returns for his final year at a special needs high school he attends for half-days.
Last year, 50 cases in Toronto were designated as “urgent response,” including situations where there is risk of violence or a caregiver dies, leaving the disabled adult with no care, says Gabby Cappelletti, Griffin Centre’s director of transitional support services.
Tomer was diagnosed with autism at age 5, almost three years after his parents, who are originally from Ukraine and then lived in Israel, immigrated to Canada in 1999.
They applied three times for intensive behavioural treatment covered by the province, but Tomer was considered too old, said his father.
Tomer attended special needs schools and received Special Services at Home funding, which helped cover costs of recreation programs and respite care. He also had some occupational therapy, attended social skills groups and went to subsidized day camps every summer.
Those supports disappeared on his18th birthday. Almost two years later, Tomer is still on the waiting list for Passport, the direct funding program for adults that provides up to $35,000 a year for services such as respite care, recreation programs and personal support workers.
Tomer is on wait lists for group homes, which are more than a decade long, as an option down the road. But his parents want him at home with them, with appropriate supports in place.
Two years ago, the province announced an investment of $810 million to eliminate wait lists of 21,000 children and adults awaiting direct funding, add 1,400 spaces for residential care and ease the transition for adolescents leaving school. But according to Ministry of Community and Social Services, there are still 5,800 adults on the wait list for Passport and 9,700 awaiting residential care.
Passport funds could make a difference if Golyak could find programs that would engage Tomer in activities he likes or teach basic skills. Tomer loves to draw and is fascinated with aviation, proudly showing a visitor his sketch of an aircraft.
But when agitated, things can quickly escalate.
These days it’s hard for Golyak to think beyond the next crisis. But he hasn’t given up on a future for his son.
“Everybody has hopes.”
Beyond the role of intervening to prevent injury or harm, officers have few options beyond taking a distraught person to hospital or jail