Our Mission
FASD Connections is committed to building a community in which adolescents and adults with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder are included and encouraged and where their desire and potential is supported; where the experience of families is understood, acknowledged, and accepted; and where systems are equipped to respond in an informed, compassionate and responsible way.
"Confronting Choice, Confronting Change"
by J. Lutke
A Must Read!
Why FASD Connections; Why Adolescents and Adults; Why Now?
The accepted prevalence rated for FASD in North America is conservatively estimated at 1% of the population. In Canada, that translates into about 300,000 people, the vast majority of whom are 15 years of age or older (24,281,555 over 15, Canadian census data 2001 x 1% = 242,815 alcohol affected teens and adults!!). FASD has profound consequences for affected individuals and wide-ranging implications for society at large. The financial cost to society is estimated at about ***2.9 million dollars (CDN) (FASD Fact Sheet, FASD Centre for Excellence, Subtance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, US Department of Health) over the lifespan of each individual, excluding many costs, including those associated with the criminal legal system. There is no mechanism in place to even begin to estimate the financial, social, emotional and psychological costs to the individual and his/her family.
Through the inaction of society's adult disability support systems, adolescents and adults with FASD have become our homeless, addicted, incarcerated, disenfranchised and most marginalized members of society. The result has become a growing social and financial catastrophe for families, leaving these adults, who have the desire and potential to contribute, without the necessary resources to do so.
How does one put a monetary value on the unnecessary loss of productivity, contribution, belonging, happiness, inclusion, family, competence, success - quality of life for affected adults?? How does one put a monetary value on the loss of relationships, retirement, financial security, health, the “conclusion” of parenting - quality of life for parents??
Quality of life seems like such an obvious goal, one which all of us would support. The reality, however, for all of us involved with FASD is something quite different. The levels of distress this lack generates cannot be over-stated. Guilt, frustration, pain, anger, a feeling of powerlessness and hopelessness and the emotional after effects that happen when parents know they cannot - alone - help their adult children; when they can no longer fulfill their moral, social, value driven and emotional commitments to their children - those “ethical obligations” of parenting that transcend age.
The progressive erosion of quality of life as children and families grow into the future is not addressed by existing services, policies or ideologies. They are currently not equipped to handle this issue on even the most basic of levels. Systemic and systematic change is not only needed, but is essential for the very survival of the adolescents, adults and families we cherish.
Albert Einstein said: "The problems that we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them".
FASD Connections, formed in January 2004, wants to foster,engage in, support and be a part of that change.
“In the end, we will conserve only as we value
We value only as we believe
We believe only as we understand
And we understand only as we are taught"
Jan lutke
“Something is only impossible until it is not”
(*** 1.4 Million 1992 U.S.dollars)