Special Needs Grants
Enhancing access to healthcare and support for children with special needs in military families.
Because of the unique nature of their lifestyles, Canadian military families can experience a great deal of stress in finding and receiving appropriate healthcare. Newly posted military families often find themselves on wait lists for medical care. For a military family with a special needs child the challenges can be truly daunting.
Beyond significant wait times, military families caring for a child with special needs often lose access to critical services such as occupational therapy, speech language pathology, or physiotherapy when relocating. As a result, a child can go without specialized care for extended periods of time.
Military families with special needs dependents can apply year-round for a Special Needs Grant to assist with assessments and reassessments, as well as to offset some of the extraordinary costs associated with things like specialized devices, respite care, therapy, and medical travel.
Eligible applicants can apply to receive the following grants:
- Assessments and reassessments: a grant up to $1,000 to cover residual amounts not covered by federal, provincial or local resources, or personal insurance.
- Other: a grant up to $1,000 to offset costs associated with assistive devises, respite care, therapy, medical travel, prescriptions not covered by insurance, etc.
Regular and Reserve Force serving members with a dependent family member with a diagnosed physical, intellectual, or emotional condition requiring special medical or educational services are eligible for a Special Needs Grant. Please note the dependent(s) are required to be listed on the member’s MPRR.
- Complete Schedules A & F (required) and submit to your local SISIP Financial Counsellor, MFRC, or the Support Our Troops contact in your area.
- Consistent with our other programs, receipts that qualify will be reimbursed. Receipts that are submitted to insurance (i.e., Sun Life) must be cross referenced with the insurance statement and included with the application. Please also include the Expense Tracker (found here). Approval for funding will no longer be given in advance, except in exceptional circumstances.
- All applicable documentation to support the receipt must be submitted with the application. To access funds from the “other” category, the assessment report must clearly identify the item / service required.
- Eligible receipts are within 6 months of the application date. This also applies to service dates with health care professionals.
- A new application is required for each submission.
- First time applicants and / or families with a lower household income will have priority if program funding is limited.
- Applications for special needs assistance will be assessed according to the following factors:
- family composition
- access to local resources
- complexity of the dependent’s needs
- extraordinary costs related to the special need
- impact on the family
- family income (not necessarily a determining factor, but will assist in prioritizing applications to ensure those with the greatest need are addressed first).
*Incomplete applications will be returned.
Special Needs Grants are for the spouse/partner and/or dependent(s) of serving members only
Application forms and contact lists