By Deirdre K. O’Brien in the Macon [GA] Telegram:

Across the nation and in our own community, families are faced with a significant lack of appropriate support services to meet the needs of their sons and daughters with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

At The Arc of Georgia, we are confronting what we believe is a national health emergency. Waiting lists are forcing family members to quit their jobs, give up their homes and make other sacrifices to care for their child. In Georgia there are more than 6,500 individuals on the waiting list and their families often wait years for services.

The Arc of Georgia is committed to working with The Arc of the United States to combat the waiting list – especially on behalf of the more than 800,000 individuals living with a family caregiver who is more than 60 years old. These families are perhaps hardest hit by the waiting list and time is not on their side.

Deirdre K. O’Brien is executive director of The Arc of Georgia.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 at 12:37 pm and is filed under caregivers, families, waiting list/waivers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.