Tips for Preparing Your Child with Special Needs for the Future
Having to think about setting up a new world for your child, one where you won’t be, is something that you shouldn’t have to do. When you have a child with special needs, you know that there will very likely be a time when they will need care that you can no longer provide. Overwhelming, huh? It’s a subject that becomes even more prominent in times where there is uncertainty due to CoronaVirus.
So, what do you do to prepare? How do you provide a safe space for your child emotionally as well as physically? Should you move your adult child with special needs into a community before you have to or is there a way to prep without them having to move right away? What will a new living arrangement cost when you’re looking at a permanent move?
How to Provide Financial Security for Your Child
Set Up an Insurance Policy
Investing in insurance policies during your lifetime ensures that your child will have funds after you’re gone. Talk to a financial adviser to decide which insurance plan will cater to your child’s special needs. Often these will cover their health care expenses, reimbursement for mobility aids, psychiatric treatments, physiotherapy, home modifications or rent, and future caregiver training.
Set up an ABLE Savings Plan
Known as ABLE, the Achieving a Better Life Experience Act, reduces issues with procuring long term financial security for people with disabilities in certain states. Under the ABLE Act, bank accounts known as ABLE accounts can be set up to provide a tax-free means of saving up for individuals with disabilities and their family members.
In order to open an ABLE account, the beneficiary must meet certain eligibility criteria:
- Their disability must have been diagnosed before the age of 26
- Their disability is expected to last a minimum of 12 consecutive months
- They must be a U.S. citizen and confirm one of the following:
- They are eligible for SSI or SSDI because of a disability;
- Experience blindness as determined by the Social Security Act; or
- Can produce a signed diagnosis form by a licensed physician if requested.
To find out more about ABLE Savings plans, check out How to Open an ABLE Savings Account for Your Child with Special Needs.
Set Up a Special Needs Trust
A special needs trust can provide funds for your child with a disability when they move out. An advantage of a special needs trust is that your child can’t lose his or her eligibility for government benefits such as Medicaid and Security Supplemental Income (SSI) even with the trust in place. A special needs trust can also protect your child’s funds from fraudulent activity.
During the course of your life, you can name yourself the trustee to manage their funds. Once you near the end of your life, you can establish a successor trustee who will manage the funds and assets in the account after your death.
Include Financial Security Measurements in Your Will
When preparing your will, make sure you include special directions for the needs of your child. You can choose to appoint a guardian for your child who will manage their affairs after your death or you may choose to bequeath your assets to them directly. Similarly, you can instruct the executor of the will to liquidate property and other assets in order to add monetary contributions to special needs trust accounts.
Living Arrangements for Your Child
With an Appointed Guardian at Home
It might not be easy for your child with special needs to move out of home. In this case, you could appoint a guardian. Guardianship is a legal proceeding in which someone (usually a family member) asks the court to find that a person is unable to manage his or her affairs effectively because of a disability. A guardian steps in the shoes of the person with a disability and makes the decisions for them.
Housing Options
Living with a guardian may not always be the right option for your child in the long term. You might want to look into other housing options for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities as well.
Other options include group homes, farmsteads (farming communities), integrated communities (where neurotypical and neurodivergent folks live together), own apartments with caretakers coming in, memory care, assisted living, or independent apartment communities.
About Stephen’s Place
Stephen’s Place is an independent apartment community for adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities, located in Vancouver, WA (7 minutes from Portland, OR).
If you have a loved one with developmental or intellectual disabilities, who is looking for a community to live in, please contact us for more information.
Originally published at https://stephensplace.org on August 29, 2020.
