What Is It?
It is an annual funding given to people with mental disabilities to develop skills or better integrate with the community in order to live more independent lives. The passport funding program gives people with disabilities and their families more control of where they can spend money to best suit their own individual circumstances. Individuals who get approved can get annual funding up to a total maximum of $35,000 a year.
What Funding Can Be Used For?
The main categories that passport funding can be used in are Volunteering/Employment, Transportation, Respite Care, and Social Activities. Volunteering/Employment are items such as job training programs or job coaches and other paid services that help to place people into jobs and volunteer positions. Transportation covers public transit options like buses and also private transportation like cabs. It is also not limited to transportation that gets to and from work but also transportation that you can use to get around in general. Respite care is something that especially useful for primary caregivers of someone with a disability. Respite care is temporary accommodation where people with disabilities can stay so that primary caregivers can take time off from caring for their loved one. Social activities are another area where passport funding can be routed. This is probably the most broad of the categories. It can covers going to social events like bowling, or soccer games, admission to the zoo or concert and even taking painting classes. The last area is administrative costs. You can hire a person to help organize how to spend this money as well as dealing with invoices and submitting claims for the passport funding program. For this category you cannot spend more than 10% of your passport funding towards administration costs. But you are able to name whomever your want to be your administrator, this can be a family member or friend, just make sure it is someone you trust.
How To Get Approved?
Like with a lot of great programs and services there is a waiting list. To begin you will need to complete an application with the DSO (Developmental Services Ontario). Once you are approved you will then get in touch with a DSO staff member. It is at that time where you can talk about what services you want and need. Make sure you ask about getting on the waitlist for passport funding. This can be a long and drawn out process so make sure to get on the waitlist asap.
Using Passport Program
Once you have gotten through all the paperwork, it is now time to start looking at where to spend your funding. After you have selected the type of service providers you want, I would recommend that you reach out to your local passport agency and get confirmation that this service is acceptable use of passport funding. You don’t have to do this step but better to be safe than spend money you don’t have. Following your payment of the service, you can then submit a claim to the passport agency. It will take a few days for them to process the claim and reimburse your claim. If you don’t receive your reimbursement within 1 week reach out to follow up on the status of your claim.
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