Dante Wellington wants to be able to transfer himself in and out of his wheelchair independently.

But in order to learn to do that, the 15-year-old needs therapy.

It’s something the Ontario Disability Coalition says the government should provide families with adequate funding for. Whether it be occupational or physiotherapy, or speech therapy, families should have direct access to money to help pay for such supports — much as is happening for children with autism.

There’s a widespread belief that the needs of children with disabilities are fully covered by the province, but they aren’t, said Dante’s mom Ipek Kabatas.

Dante has quadriplegic spastic cerebral palsy, as well as bilateral hearing loss for which he wears hearing aids.

“Unless you are in the situation yourself, you don’t know the system is really fragmented and broken and currently there are ocean-sized gaps in funding and services,” Kabatas said.

“We want to debunk that myth.”

Just as the previous Liberal government did, the Ford government is ignoring children’s needs, members of the Coalition say.

Dante and Kabatas were among a group who rallied at Queen’s Park on Friday morning after meeting with Minister of Children, Community and Social Services Todd Smith, who took over the portfolio last June.

Sherry Caldwell co-founded the coalition to represent more than 50,000 youth in the province with physical and developmental disabilities.

“The neglect has to stop,” said Caldwell, who added the government would save in the long run by providing adequate preventative care.

Caldwell said while Smith did not make “any concrete promises or solutions,” she felt the meeting “was a great first step and look forward to our next meeting.”

Before the meeting, Smith said in a statement that he “(appreciates) the opportunity to meet with the Ontario Disability Coalition, and looks forward to hearing their feedback on how best to support those living with a disability.”

Smith said that “since being appointed to this file in the summer, I have made an effort to have honest conversations with Ontarians touched by our ministry, hear their ideas, and determine where we need to go as a province.”

Right now, much as they were under the old autism system, treatment centres are provided with the funding. Kabatas said the scant care Dante has been able to access has been consultative: involving figuring out assistive devices that might help, or simply advising the family on exercises to do at home.

Dante needs physiotherapy to stretch out his muscles, she said, and he has also developed scoliosis.

Three years ago, Dante’s power wheelchair broke down and the family couldn’t afford a new one, “but it had to be replaced,” she said. She had to go through a treatment centre to get it — and was told there was a waitlist of six months just to be seen and assessed.

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“Even with all my advocacy and pushback, it took over a year before he could have the chair replaced,” Kabatas said.

The cost of the chair was covered in part by the government, and the remainder by Easter Seals.