NEW HAMBURG — Calvin Gordon's goal is simple.

"I want to have a good life," said the 23-year-old.

Yet, his mother Gabrielle Thomson worried that might be out of reach for her son, who is blind and has a developmental delay.

The New Hamburg woman made it her mission to find opportunities for her son once he graduated from a school for the blind, but navigating the system proved difficult. She began to panic.

Then the pair was connected to an independent facilitator through a provincially funded program, and suddenly his future was full of possibilities.

"He has a great life. He really does now," Thomson said. "He belongs. He has his life now in our community."

An independent facilitator works alongside a person with a developmental disability to figure out their goals and then ways to achieve them, such as a job, volunteering, recreational activities, friends, or their own place.

"We look for opportunities and ways for those individuals to live their lives in community," said Donnamarie Dunk, executive director of Bridges to Belonging.

The Kitchener agency has funding to provide independent facilitation to 85 people in Waterloo Region. But the Doug Ford government plans to cut the program on March 31, sparking a grassroots effort by families and agencies to save it including the website independentfacilitation matters.com.

Dunk has seen people make great strides through independent facilitation since the provincial project started in 2015, and worries that progress will be lost when the program is axed.

"It's very devastating," Dunk said. "It's so sad when you start seeing people being put on a balance sheet."

She said most people won't be able to afford the service on a disability pension or through Passport funding, which is provided to individuals for personal support in the community but there's also a long wait list.

Bridges to Belonging receives $2,400 per person each year for independent facilitation. Yet with that modest investment — far less than the cost of running a group home, Dunk pointed out — the benefits are immeasurable.

Dunk said it's not just the participants, or the many more in the region that could benefit from independent facilitation, who will lose out. Involving people with disabilities meaningfully in the community fosters true inclusion.

"I think the other great loss for this is going to be the community loss," Dunk said.

Building social networks is part of the process, creating a support system around the person as they become more independent and the facilitator steps back.

"That becomes the sustainable piece," Dunk said.

Thomson calls the one-on-one personal help of an independent facilitator a "godsend."

"It's what's kept me sane and made it work."

Her son is busy four times a week at a day program around the corner from their home. He goes to dances and other fun activities where he's made good friends. The next step was looking into volunteering, and then respite and housing.

"It's ongoing. Things change all the time," Thomson said. "Everybody changes."

Gordon can't say enough good about his facilitator.

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"She is awesome," he said. She "wanted to know what I wanted to do."

jweidner@therecord.com

Twitter: @WeidnerRecord

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