A few pilot programs at the John McGivney Children's Centre in Windsor will continue for the next two years thanks to an Ontario Trillium Foundation grant.
The centre announced Friday morining, it received a $184,000 grant to continue with its Job Skills, Transition to Employment, Transition to Adulthood Planning and Life Skills programs.
Director of Client Services Jennifer Jovanovski says over the last couple of years, 115 young people with disabilities benefited from the programs.
She says with the additional funding, more than 400 youth with disabilities will be able to take part in the programs.
Jovanovski says the programs help youth with disabilities become more independent and part of our every day community.
"Learning how to be independent and go out into the world confidenty to gain employment and just be able to live a little bit more independently," says Jovanovski.
She says the pilot programs are not part of the centre's core funding.
"With this grant we're able to extend this project for an additional two years, expanding the project to continue the great work and provide some accurate data to hopefully get permanent funding in the future to run these programs," says Jovanovski."
Jovanovski says youth with disabilities identified supports that were missing.
"When we talk about things that are missing, it's the simple things like how do I go to the bank and get money out of the bank," says Jovanovski. "As a female, how do I put my hair up in a ponytail. How do I brush my teeth independently. It's things we take for granted on a daily basis that we want to empower our youth to be able to go out into the world and confidently do."
The grant is from the Ontario Trillium Foundation Resilient Communities Fund.
Windsor-Tecumseh MPP Andrew Dowie along with Durham MPP Todd McCarthy were on hand for the funding announcement.