A point frequently made in the interviews was that personal support networks can be created for a variety of purposes. As one informant emphasised, it is important to always ask: “what are you hoping to achieve”? Personal support networks cannot be neatly categorized; there are nearly as many approaches to, and nuances among, personal support networks as there are networks. That being said, some common themes emerge. Three of these are: (i) individualized funding and service delivery; (ii) friendship and community (and, relatedly, security for when parents are gone); and (iii) person-directed planning and facilitation. While these themes or approaches may (and often do) overlap, different networks emphasize them to varying degrees.
A. Networks to facilitate individualized funding and service delivery
The first “Microboards” appear to have been created by David and Faye Wetherow, in 1984, in Manitoba. An important motivation for the creation of these early Microboards was frustration with then-available funding and service delivery mechanisms. Indeed, establishing Microboards was one part of a multipronged effort to transform support services for persons with disabilities in Manitoba, which, at that time, were limited to residential services and day programs provided by agencies. These efforts began with persuading the government to provide some of the first individualized funding – that is, funding specifically based on a single person’s support needs, and segregated for those purposes – alongside development of both a housing cooperative that was de-linked from services, and a services cooperative that could help people manage their individualized funding and obtain the necessary services.
Microboards then built on this model. The Wetherows explain that individualized funding and the two cooperatives “paved the way for the creation of the first Microboards” in part because of their shortcomings. While they were an improvement over the older system (given that everyone’s funds were segregated and portable), having a single services cooperative maintained some of the weaknesses of the traditional “agency model” – for instance, the challenges of board members having to make decisions about when and for whom to advocate, given that peoples’ interests might not coincide. Microboards were proposed as a solution to these problems, which would “bring the structures for providing supports more into line with person-centered and family-centered principles”. As the Wetherows explain:
The structure of the first Microboards began with a simple question. We asked our friends in government, “what is the smallest unit of human organization that would be eligible to receive ‘agency’-level funding?” The answer was ‘a 3-person non-profit corporation which could be organized to support as little as one named individual’. Hence, the ‘Microboard’.
Beginning in 1990, Vela Microboard Association of British Columbia began to provide services to persons wishing to establish Microboards in that province, copyrighting and trademarking the term. Since 1990, Vela has assisted with the creation of over 900 Microboards, and interest in Vela Microboards is reportedly growing. Eighty new Vela Microboards were established in 2013 alone, and a Vela employee indicated that more than half of the Microboards currently in existence were created within the last four years. As in the Manitoba model, Vela Microboards may (but do not have to) receive funds earmarked for the supported individual, arrange for services, and act as employer of record. The idea is that a person with his or her Microboard can “create services that are creative, flexible and reflect the needs of the individual”. Some people in British Columbia have also created incorporated personal support networks (called “person-centered societies”) outside the Vela model.
“Probably the first Ontario ‘microboard'” was created in 2002 around a man in Guelph. The creators of that network decided to adopt a model different from Vela’s, and replaced the word “Microboard” with “Aroha entity”. The path to this first Aroha entity was also somewhat different from the early Microboards, as there was already an active informal personal support network in place, along with a number of legal arrangements for individualized funding and housing through the Guelph Services for the Autistic (GSA) housing trust. However, the group formalized the “core” of the network as an incorporated entity in order to take on legal powers that it viewed as essential to continuity after the man’s parents were gone. As an incorporated entity, the Aroha could receive and administer individualized funds, act as employer of record, and make contracts relating to housing. The creators of this model argue that Aroha entities have a greater ability “to address the vulnerable person’s planning and support needs, to create solutions, and to manage resources in ways that are responsive and accountable”.
Incorporation and a desire to directly receive and manage funds often go together. Networks will not normally incorporate unless there is a reason to do so, and foremost among these reasons is recognition from government as eligible to receive funding, and from private third parties as eligible to enter into legally binding arrangements. However, individualized funding and incorporated networks are not always perfectly aligned.
First, incorporated networks sometimes have other purposes. While some people opt to create Microboards in keeping with the pure service-delivery model (sometimes alongside another network with social purposes), others have more social objectives. For instance, David and Faye Wetherow describe Microboards as a means of “engaging members of the larger community in purposeful personal support networks.” In setting out the qualities that “define the identity and purpose of a true Microboard”, they emphasize values such as “[a]n unencumbered focus on the identity, needs and express wishes of the person” and maintaining an active and engaged “circle of support” more than they do services. Similarly, Vela has broadened it mandate and, since 2009, has supported Microboards that do not receive funding or act as employer.&n