Organizations That May Provide Support
- Lindsay O'Connell
- Dec 1, 2025
- 7 min read
The following organizations offer guidance, education, advocacy, and direct services to individuals with developmental disabilities and their families in Ontario. The list is not exhaustive and there may be additional organizations that can provide support.
Partners for Planning (P4P)
Partners for Planning is a national non-profit organization, founded in 2009, that supports people with a developmental disability and their families to plan for the future. P4P provides independent facilitation, helping individuals and families explore and create community based plans focusing on the individual's strengths and interests. P4P also operates the Planning Network (planningnetwork.ca), a free online resource with over 40,000 annual visitors, offering webcasts, guides, and practical information on topics including government funding programs, RDSP, legal planning, person directed planning, housing, and building personal support networks. Their free e-book, Safe and Secure: Seven Steps on the Path to a Good Life for People with a Disability, is a widely used planning resource.
PooranLaw Professional Corporation
PooranLaw is a Toronto based law firm providing legal services in disability law, wills and estates planning, government benefits, employment law, privacy law, and charity law. The firm's practice focuses on serving individuals, families, and non-profit disability service organizations. PooranLaw's managing partner, Brendon Pooran, teaches Critical Disability Law at York University and is a founding director of both Partners for Planning and Microboards Ontario. The firm offers the I Decide Law Program, a province wide pro bono initiative advocating for the decision making rights of people with intellectual disabilities. PooranLaw and Community Living Ontario have co-produced free e-books on future planning for people with disabilities (covering Henson Trusts, government benefits, legal decision making, guardianship) and on the law of engaging support workers. The firm has been active in policy advocacy, including successfully working with Community Living Ontario to change the Family Managed Home Care program's definition of Substitute Decision Maker to remove guardianship as a barrier to accessing FMHC funding.
Kelly Casey, KC Professional Solutions
Kelly Casey is a developmental services consultant with over 35 years of experience in the sector. Through KC Professional Solutions, she works with individuals and families on community building, person directed planning, and navigating the developmental services system, including brokering relationships with the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services. She has held roles at York Support Services Network, Vita Community Living Services, and Microboards Ontario. Her work focuses on reducing social isolation, enhancing community engagement, and supporting families in accessing individualized funding and building networks of support.
Microboards Ontario
Microboards Ontario is a registered non-profit organization that promotes and supports the development of Microboards across Ontario. A Microboard is a small, incorporated non-profit organization created by and for one person with a disability. The board is made up of family members and friends who know the individual personally and make decisions with that person at the centre. Microboards can receive and administer individualized or direct funding, act as an employer of record for support staff, oversee and manage assets, and provide a structure for succession planning. Microboards Ontario offers a series of courses (Microboards 101 through 104), peer mentorship, and an incorporation program (currently free to families except for a $220 incorporation fee). The organization operates according to the values, principles, and safeguards of Vela Canada, which pioneered Microboard development in the 1980s.
Surrey Place
Surrey Place is a Toronto based non-profit organization that has provided clinical services to people with developmental disabilities and autism since 1962. Surrey Place serves individuals of all ages through programs including infant and early childhood development, children's and youth services, adult clinical and wellness supports, speech language pathology, behaviour analysis, and service coordination. Surrey Place also operates Developmental Services Ontario Toronto Region (DSO TR), the access point for adults 18 and over seeking ministry funded developmental services in Toronto. Their service coordination team helps individuals and families navigate available services both within Surrey Place and in the broader community. Surrey Place serves over 10,000 clients, families, caregivers, and professionals annually from five locations in Toronto.
The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids)
SickKids offers two services that may be relevant to families of children with disabilities navigating funding and transition planning. The Resource Navigation Service, located within the Social Work Department, helps families identify, apply for, and access government funded programs and community resources. This includes assistance with applications for Special Services at Home (SSAH), Assistance for Children with Severe Disabilities (ACSD), the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP), Developmental Services Ontario (DSO), and other benefits. Families can apply for DSO as early as age 16 to prepare for adult services. SickKids also offers a Transition to Adult Care (TAC) program for youth with complex medical needs who require coordinated planning across multiple specialties as they move from pediatric to adult health care. The TAC program includes nurse practitioners, social workers, and nurse navigators who work with youth and families over a two to three year period, beginning at age 16 to 17, to build self management skills, coordinate transfers to adult providers, and connect families with adult community services.
Geneva Centre for Autism
The Geneva Centre for Autism, founded in 1974, is a Toronto based clinical services and training organization for individuals with autism spectrum disorder and their families. The centre provides direct intervention, assessment, behaviour and communication programming, social skills groups, respite, family support, and consultation across all ages. Clinical services are delivered by a multidisciplinary team that includes speech language pathologists, behaviour analysts, occupational therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers. The Geneva Centre serves over 3,000 individuals and families annually from two locations in Toronto and is a member of the Toronto Autism Services Network.
Kerry's Place Autism Services
Kerry's Place is Canada's largest autism service provider, serving children, youth, adults, and families across Ontario since 1974. Through the Ontario Autism Program, Kerry's Place provides children and youth under 18 with clinical services including applied behaviour analysis (ABA), social skills groups, entry to school programming, and family support. For adults, Kerry's Place offers residential and supported independent living at over 88 properties across Ontario, community participation programming, employment services, and adult skill building groups. Kerry's Place also provides respite, camps, and recreational programming. Services are available across multiple regions including Toronto, York, Simcoe, Durham, Halton, Peel, and others.
Community Living Ontario
Community Living Ontario is a provincial non-profit association that has advocated for people with intellectual disabilities and their families for over 70 years. The association works alongside 124 local Community Living agencies across Ontario and represents over 250,000 people with intellectual disabilities and their families. Community Living Ontario engages in provincial policy advocacy, public education, and sector development. The organization has partnered with PooranLaw to co-produce free e-books on future planning, legal decision making, Henson Trusts, and the law of engaging support workers. Families can connect with their local Community Living agency through the provincial website to access community based services and supports.
Family Alliance Ontario
Family Alliance Ontario (FAO) is a family based non-profit organization, formed in 1997, that supports the family perspective within Ontario's developmental services system. FAO represents thousands of families across Ontario who support a person with a developmental disability, and its volunteer leaders participate in advisory boards and committees at both provincial and local levels. FAO maintains a network of affiliated family directed organizations across the province, connecting families for peer support, information sharing, and collective advocacy. The organization promotes self directed, individualized funding and supports the principle that people with disabilities and their families should have the choices and control they need over services and supports. FAO's website includes a directory of affiliated family networks across Ontario.
March of Dimes Canada
March of Dimes Canada is a national non-profit organization that provides programs and services for people with physical disabilities. In Ontario, March of Dimes administers the government funded Home and Vehicle Modification Program (see Section 1 above) and operates its own Assistive Devices Program, which provides financial assistance to adults with physical disabilities who are in financial need to purchase assistive devices such as wheelchairs, walkers, braces, and communication devices. March of Dimes also provides attendant care services (non-medical assistance with activities of daily living in the home), brain injury services, non-profit supportive housing, employment services, and the Move Learn Grow program for children ages 0 to 16 with disabilities in Toronto.
Easter Seals Ontario
Easter Seals Ontario is a non-profit organization that has provided programs and services for children, youth, and young adults with physical disabilities in Ontario for over 100 years. Easter Seals administers the government funded Incontinence Supplies Grant Program (see Section 1 above) and the Top Up Grant for families also receiving Assistance for Children with Severe Disabilities. Easter Seals also operates an Equipment Funding Program that provides financial assistance to registered clients (children and youth with physical disabilities) for the purchase of mobility and accessibility equipment such as wheelchairs, walkers, bath chairs, and van lifts. Equipment funding is based on public donations and is separate from government funding. The maximum funding available is $3,000 per child per calendar year.
ARCH Disability Law Centre
ARCH Disability Law Centre is a specialty legal clinic in Ontario that practices exclusively in disability rights law. Incorporated in 1979 and primarily funded by Legal Aid Ontario, ARCH provides free, confidential summary legal advice and referrals to people with disabilities across Ontario on disability related areas of law, including human rights and discrimination, home care and attendant services, decision making rights and supported decision making, education, transportation, accessibility, and interactions with the Public Guardian and Trustee. ARCH also conducts test case litigation, law reform, and public legal education. For additional legal services beyond summary advice, Legal Aid Ontario financial eligibility criteria apply. ARCH's Summary Advice and Referral service is available by telephone to all people with disabilities in Ontario.
Family Service Toronto (Options Program)
Family Service Toronto operates the Options program, which provides case management and service navigation to individuals with developmental disabilities and their families in Toronto. The Options Children program serves children from birth to 18 with a confirmed diagnosis and offers information, referrals, and coordination of services through Community Resource Facilitators. The Options Adults program serves adults 18 and over with a developmental or intellectual disability and is accessed through Developmental Services Ontario Toronto Region. The adult program includes community networking, where facilitators work with individuals and families to build connections with community places and people. Both programs are funded by MCCSS at no cost to families.
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