New Brunswick Update
February 3, 2004
In New Brunswick, deinstitutionalization efforts in the 1980s led to a dramatic downsizing of the province's largest institution. Centracare is now a 50 bed psychiatric facility (it once housed 1600 people, including many people with intellectual disabilities). The province's institution for children was also closed in 1985. Institutionalization for many people still occurs through the placement of people in nursing home facilities and in smaller facilities called special care homes. Since the late 1990s, however, the Government of New Brunswick has increased funding for in-home supports. The government is also committed to a new disability framework that will develop individualized support options through a proposed Disability Support Program. A Disability Support Program pilot project is scheduled to begin in 2004.