Life After School in Ontario: The Full Menu of Options for Adults with Developmental Disabilities

If you’re supporting an adult with a developmental disability in Ontario, one of the hardest moments comes when school ends and someone asks, “So what now?” There is no single right answer — a good adult life is built from a menu of options you combine and revisit, not one track you pick once. This guide walks through the real choices — employment, day programs, volunteering, continued learning, and recreation — how Ontario’s public supports fit together, and where the system falls short, with every figure sourced and dated so you can plan with clear eyes.

The short version

• A meaningful adult life is built from a menu of options that people combine — competitive or supported employment, day programs, volunteering, continued learning, and recreation — not a single track. The goal is a self-directed life, not “filling time.”
• Employment is the most under-covered and under-realized option. Only about 1 in 4 Canadians with a developmental disability is employed (26.1%, 2017 Canadian Survey on Disability). By contrast, per Statistics Canada’s 2022 Canadian Survey on Disability, “62% of working-age adults (25 to 64 years of age) with disabilities were employed, compared with 78% of persons without disabilities.” Ontario’s own overall disability employment rate (45.4% in 2023) is below the national average.
• Ontario has largely ended sheltered workshops (subminimum-wage segregated work) as of January 1, 2019, in favour of an “Employment First” direction favouring real jobs at real wages — but the supports that would make that vision universal remain thin and fragmented.
• The core public supports are ODSP Employment Supports, Employment Ontario / Integrated Employment Services, and a network of supported-employment agencies (many belonging to the Ontario Disability Employment Network). Passport funding supports community participation, day programs, and respite — but not wages.
• Community-participation day programs are one legitimate option — valuable for social connection, skills, and routine — but they are one item on the menu, not the default or the ceiling.

What every family should know

1. Frame it as a menu, not a track. After school ends (typically at 21 in Ontario), there is no single “next step.” A good adult life usually blends several options that shift over time. Plan for a combination — for example, part-time paid work plus a day program two days a week plus volunteering plus a recreation program — rather than choosing one destination.
2. Employment deserves the most attention because it is the biggest gap. The evidence is consistent that paid, integrated work improves income, identity, wellbeing, social connection, and even health-service use — yet people with developmental disabilities have the lowest employment rate of any disability group. Under-employment is driven by low expectations, thin supports, benefit-design disincentives, and employer attitudes — not by inability.
3. There is a real menu of employment models: competitive/integrated employment, supported employment, customized employment (with “Discovery”), self-employment or micro-enterprises, and social enterprises. Each suits different people; none requires proving “readiness” in a segregated setting first.
4. Ontario’s public supports are real but fragmented. ODSP Employment Supports, Employment Ontario’s Integrated Employment Services (IES), and supported-employment agencies overlap and can be confusing to navigate. Authority over funding and “real jobs” often does not sit with the person or family. For a bird’s-eye view of how these pieces connect, see How Ontario’s Adult Developmental Services System Works: A Family Map.
5. Continued learning is a genuine post-secondary pathway. Inclusive Education / Community Integration through Co-operative Education (CICE) programs at Ontario colleges offer a real college experience with modified curriculum and work placements.
6. Day programs, volunteering, and recreation provide structure, contribution, and belonging, and are frequently funded through Passport. They are valuable but should not substitute for a fair shot at employment where the person wants to work.

This page focuses on the “meaningful day” side of adult life. Where someone lives is a closely related building block covered separately — see Housing and Residential Options for Adults with Developmental Disabilities in Ontario.

A self-directed life, not “filling time”

The end of secondary school (in Ontario, students with developmental disabilities can remain enrolled until age 21) is often described by families as a “cliff.” The framing that matters is that adulthood should be self-directed and meaningful, built from a personalized combination of paid work, learning, contribution, and connection.

Ontario’s own policy language reflects this. The province’s ten-year developmental-services reform plan — “Journey to Belonging: Choice and Inclusion” (MCCSS, released May 18, 2021) — sets out a vision where people “are empowered to make choices and live as independently as possible through supports that are person-directed, equitable and sustainable.” Read the menu below as options to combine, weigh, and revisit — not a hierarchy, and not a single track. Day programs are one option among several and should be presented without bias.

Employment — the most under-covered piece

Why employment matters

Paid, integrated work has been positively linked to a wide range of wellbeing outcomes for people with disabilities — life satisfaction, quality of life, self-esteem, psychological health, financial independence, and social-identity affirmation. Research on people with intellectual disability specifically points to job satisfaction, social connection, and mental stimulation as core benefits, and a Frontiers in Sociology (2024) Ontario cost-benefit paper notes employment is linked with “greater lifetime financial stability and reduction of poverty,” social connection, and even “lower use of healthcare services.” The consistent research theme: higher expectations lead to better outcomes.

The employment models — explained

• Competitive / integrated employment (also “competitive integrated employment,” CIE): a regular job in the community, at minimum wage or higher, working alongside co-workers without disabilities, where the employer is not paid to provide support. This is the identified goal of Employment First policy.
• Supported employment: competitive, integrated employment with ongoing support services (job coaching, job development, on-the-job training, employer liaison) for people who need help to get and keep a job. Support can be time-limited or ongoing.
• Customized employment: a form of supported employment for people with the most significant disabilities. It begins with “Discovery” — an individualized, non-standardized process to identify a person’s strengths, interests, and ideal conditions — then negotiates a personalized job, often “carving out” tasks that meet an unmet employer need. The term originated in 2001 with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy.
• Self-employment / micro-enterprises: the person runs a small business (for example, a craft, product, or service). ODSP Employment Supports explicitly includes self-employment supports, and ODSP treats business profit (revenue minus approved expenses) under its earnings rules.
• Social enterprises / Work-Integration Social Enterprises (WISEs): businesses (often non-profit) that intentionally employ people with disabilities in real, paying jobs — commonly cafés, food production, cleaning, or horticulture. Ontario examples include Cristina’s Tortina Shop (Brampton), Wayne’s Cup (Markham), and the Lunchbox Café (Milton, run by Community Living North Halton). Research cautions that WISEs can either be a bridge to open employment or, if poorly designed, replicate segregation — the design and pay matter.

Ontario’s public supports — what each does, and how they differ

• ODSP Employment Supports (Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services). Implemented January 1999, this program funds goods and services to remove disability-related barriers to competitive employment. It uses a brokerage model where third-party service providers are funded based on employment outcomes (placement and retention), and it is cost-shared 50/50 with the federal government under the Workforce Development Agreement. Eligibility is separate from ODSP income support — you do not need to receive ODSP income support to qualify; you must have a disability expected to last a year or more that creates a substantial barrier to competitive employment. It funds job development and placement, job retention, self-employment supports, and exceptional disability-related work supports.
• Employment Ontario / Integrated Employment Services (IES) (Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development). Ontario has been consolidating social-assistance employment services into Employment Ontario’s IES model, delivered locally by Service System Managers and Employment Service Providers. It serves all job seekers (age 16+), including people with disabilities and ODSP recipients, offering career counselling, job matching, wage subsidies, retention supports, and up to 12 months of post-placement support. Many providers train staff through ODEN. This is the “front door” the province directs disability job seekers to.
• Supported-employment agencies — many are members of the Ontario Disability Employment Network (ODEN), a professional network of Employment Service Providers. Per ODEN, “We have over 140 member agencies, all in the business of helping people who have a disability get into the workforce. Members are from every corner of the province and support people of all disability types.” ODEN does not itself place people; it builds sector capacity, engages employers, and runs initiatives such as bringing Project SEARCH to Ontario (2017) and the Youth Success Strategy (2021, MCCSS-funded).
• How they differ: ODSP Employment Supports is disability-specific and outcome-funded; Employment Ontario / IES is universal (all job seekers) with disability-serving providers; supported-employment agencies are the delivery arm and may be funded through either stream. The overlap is a known source of family confusion.

ODSP earnings rules — the benefit-design reality

As of February 1, 2023, a person with a disability on ODSP can earn up to $1,000 per month in net employment earnings with no reduction in income support. Per Ontario.ca: “you can receive up to $1,000 a month in net earnings with no reduction in your income support… so is 25% of any net earnings after the first $1,000. You can also get $100 as a Work-Related Benefit each month you earn money from working.” In other words, above $1,000 ODSP deducts 75% of net earnings (the person keeps 25 cents per dollar). Before this change, the exempt amount was only $200/month.

Per Ontario’s 2022 Fall Economic Statement (Ministry of Finance): “These changes would allow the approximately 25,000 individuals currently in the workforce to keep more of their earnings and could encourage as many as 25,000 more to participate in the workforce.” ODSP rates are now indexed to inflation. This still leaves a “welfare wall” concern: earnings and asset rules can deter full-time work, and people fear losing health benefits — though the Extended Health Benefit and transitional benefits exist to cushion the transition off income support.

Employment First and the end of sheltered workshops

Ontario committed to phasing out sheltered workshops — segregated settings where people with disabilities did work (packaging, assembly, clerical tasks) for a “training stipend” often far below minimum wage — beginning with a 2015 ministry announcement. The Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act, 2017 (Bill 148) removed the Employment Standards Act exemption that had permitted subminimum-wage sheltered work, with sheltered workshops to be fully closed by January 1, 2019. The MCCSS stated there was “no justification in the 21st century to segregate any group of people and pay them less.”

What replaced them: agencies transitioned participants into a mix of competitive or supported employment, community participation, and day programming. This was and remains contested — some families argued the closures happened without adequate consultation or alternatives, leaving some people with “a life of leisure” rather than the promised jobs. The “Employment First” philosophy (real jobs at real wages as the first and preferred option) is the policy direction, echoed in Journey to Belonging.

The reality: low employment, real barriers

• The rate. Only 26.1% of Canadians aged 15–64 with a developmental disability were employed, per Berrigan, Scott & Zwicker’s analysis of the 2017 Canadian Survey on Disability (published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, DOI 10.1007/s10803-020-04603-3) — versus 61.6% of the general population. This is a national figure: the primary source reports it for “developmental disability” Canada-wide, ages 15–64, and Statistics Canada does not publish an Ontario-specific or intellectual/developmental-disability-type employment rate. By comparison, per Statistics Canada’s 2022 CSD, 62% of working-age adults (25–64) with disabilities were employed (up 3 percentage points from 2017), but only 42% of persons with more severe disabilities aged 25–64 were employed (StatCan Daily, Dec 1, 2023). Ontario’s overall disability employment rate was 45.4% in 2023, below the national 47.1%.
• Income. People with developmental disabilities earn far less; Statistics Canada figures cited by TVO put average earnings around $18,000, with nearly half receiving provincial/territorial social assistance.
• Barriers. Low expectations from families and educators (a documented “perception of unemployability”); thin and fragmented supports; benefit-design disincentives (ODSP earnings/asset rules); lack of early work experience during school; and employer attitudes and lack of awareness.
• What works. Early work experience during high school (“start-early”), paid internships and co-ops, and intensive models like Project SEARCH (a 9–10 month workplace-immersion internship model). Per Project SEARCH’s own reported statistics (via the Texas Workforce Commission), “>75% of all Project SEARCH graduates gain employment within 9 months” and “>65% meet the enhanced Project SEARCH definition of competitive employment,” with a national average cited as 72% employment (64.8% meeting Project SEARCH criteria) — figures to treat as program-reported and drawn heavily from U.S. sites, not independently audited for Ontario.

Day programs as one option

Community-participation day programs provide structured weekday activity focused on social connection, life-skills practice, recreation, volunteering, and community outings. They serve an important role: routine, friendship, respite for caregivers, and continued skill-building, particularly for people for whom competitive employment is not currently the goal or the fit.

Day programs should be understood as one option among several — valuable, but not a substitute for employment where the person wants to work. A good day program offers genuine community presence and skill-building rather than simply occupying time. The detailed taxonomy of program types and what to look for in quality is covered separately in Adult Day Program Models in Ontario: A Plain-Language Guide to the Options.

Volunteering and community contribution

Volunteering lets a person contribute, build skills and confidence, expand their social circle, and often build a bridge toward paid work. It reframes the person as a giver rather than only a receiver of services. In Ontario it is typically arranged through day programs, through disability organizations (for example, Special Olympics Ontario or Reena), or via dedicated inclusive-volunteering supports that match a person to a role and provide any needed on-site support. Advocates stress that volunteering should be genuinely chosen and enjoyed, not used as a permanent substitute for a wanted paid job.

Continued learning

• Inclusive Education / Community Integration through Co-operative Education (CICE): two-year Ontario College Certificate programs for adults with intellectual/developmental disabilities, offered at many Ontario colleges. Students take modified courses in an area of interest (for example, hospitality, business, office administration, or social service work), receive a learning facilitator for in-class and tutoring support, and complete a field or co-op placement. Humber College’s CICE was the first such program in Ontario. Typical requirements: age 19+, a documented intellectual/developmental disability, and high-school completion (OSSD, OSSC, or Certificate of Achievement); some colleges require a DSO registration letter. These programs are often over-subscribed.
• Life-skills and adult education: continuing-education courses, literacy and numeracy upgrading, and community-based life-skills programs (cooking, banking, transit, technology) round out learning options, many fundable through Passport.

Combining the options — and how Passport fits

A real week is usually a blend. For example: paid part-time work two mornings a week (supported by an ODSP Employment Supports provider); a community-participation day program two days; a volunteering shift; and an evening recreation or Special Olympics program.

Passport funding (MCCSS, administered by local Passport agencies via Developmental Services Ontario) helps pay for community-participation supports, activities of daily living, person-directed planning, and caregiver respite — and can be used for day programs, classes, camps, recreation, and hiring support workers. It is a reimbursement program (minimum $5,500/year; higher amounts up to a stated maximum based on assessed need). Crucially, Passport does not pay wages and is not an employment program — it funds participation, not a job. Passport mechanics are detailed separately; the eligibility “front door” for all of this is Developmental Services Ontario (DSO): The Front Door to Adult Services in Ontario.

Where families get stuck

• Policy says “Employment First”; the system still funnels many people to day programs. When sheltered workshops closed, not all participants moved into paid jobs; many moved into community participation or day programming because supported-employment capacity, funding, and employer demand were insufficient.
• Fragmented authority. ODSP Employment Supports, Employment Ontario / IES, and Passport sit in different ministries and streams with different eligibility. The person or family rarely holds unified authority over the money that would buy a customized job; genuine decision-making power is dispersed across agencies and caseworkers.
• Benefit design vs. work. ODSP earnings and asset rules, and fear of losing health benefits, blunt the incentive to pursue substantial employment even after the 2023 $1,000 exemption.
• Youth-in-school gap. Students still enrolled often can’t access the supported-employment services (job development, job coaching) available to those who have left school — undercutting the “start early” evidence base.
• Reform is slow and uncertain. Journey to Belonging (2021) promises individualized/direct funding over 8–10 years, but detailed funding-model changes remain largely undelivered as of 2025–2026, leaving families in limbo.

Grey areas and points of confusion

• Employment vs. day programs. This is a genuine values-and-evidence debate. The dominant policy and advocacy position (Employment First, Inclusion Canada, ODEN, Community Living Ontario) is that real jobs at real wages should be the default expectation, and that day programs risk becoming a lower-expectations default. A significant minority of families argued during the sheltered-workshop closures that, for some people with the most significant needs, structured programs offered belonging and safety that the “real jobs” system did not deliver in practice. The honest position: employment should be genuinely offered and supported for everyone who wants it, and day programs and volunteering are legitimate meaningful-day options — the failure mode is defaulting people into programs because the employment supports don’t exist.
• Thin Ontario-specific outcome data. There is no published Statistics Canada employment rate specific to Ontarians with developmental disabilities; the widely cited ~25% / 26.1% figure is a national rate (Berrigan et al., analyzing the 2017 CSD). Statistics Canada reports employment by severity, not by developmental-disability type — the type-specific rate exists only because the researchers analyzed the microdata directly. Program success figures (for example, Project SEARCH’s >72%) are largely program-reported and drawn heavily from U.S. sites. Treat all sub-population and program-outcome numbers with appropriate caution.

A staged plan for a family

Concrete next steps for a family or adult planning a post-school life:

1. Start early (before school ends, ideally by age 16). Apply to Developmental Services Ontario (DSO) to confirm eligibility and get on the Passport waitlist — wait times can run several years, so applying at 16 to be ready before 18 is critical. If DSO confirms eligibility and Passport funding is offered, move immediately to planning how to allocate it across the menu.
2. Put employment on the table explicitly — don’t assume a day program by default. If the person wants to work, contact Employment Ontario / Integrated Employment Services and/or an ODSP Employment Supports provider (ask ODEN or 211 Ontario for a local supported-employment agency). Ask specifically about Discovery / customized employment for people with higher support needs. If a provider only offers “readiness” or in-facility activity rather than real job development in the community, treat that as a red flag and seek another provider.
3. Pursue early paid work experience while still in school — co-ops, paid internships, or Project SEARCH where available. The evidence that early work experience predicts adult employment is strong enough to prioritize this over waiting until graduation.
4. Use continued learning as a bridge, not a parking spot. If college interests the person, apply early to CICE / Inclusive Education programs (they are over-subscribed) and confirm whether the program includes a work placement that leads somewhere.
5. Build the week from several options and revisit annually. Combine paid work, a day program, volunteering, learning, and recreation; use Passport for the community-participation pieces. Re-plan yearly — the right mix at 21 is rarely the right mix at 30.
6. Watch the money math. Before scaling up work hours, model the ODSP $1,000 exemption and the 75% clawback above it, and confirm health-benefit protections (Extended Health Benefit). If earnings would push someone off income support, plan the transition deliberately rather than avoiding work.
7. Track the policy. Journey to Belonging’s move toward individualized/direct funding could materially expand family control; monitor MCCSS announcements.

How current is this, and what to double-check

The employment and benefit rules here reflect Ontario guidance current as of 2025–2026. Before acting, re-verify: (1) the ODSP $1,000 earnings exemption and clawback, current as of February 2023 and reflected in 2025–2026 guidance — ODSP rates are inflation-indexed and change each July; (2) Passport minimums and maximums and Journey to Belonging implementation, which are subject to change — verify against Ontario.ca / MCCSS at time of use; and (3) that the January 1, 2019 sheltered-workshop closure via Bill 148 remains in force — Bill 148 was partly rolled back by later legislation, but the sheltered-workshop / subminimum-wage change for people with disabilities was retained.

A note on the data: the strongest developmental-disability-specific employment statistic (26.1%) comes from the 2017 Canadian Survey on Disability and is now dated; the 2022 CSD reports disability employment by severity, not by developmental-disability type. Where only Canada-wide or U.S. figures exist, that is flagged in-line. Government sources (Ontario.ca, MCCSS, Statistics Canada), peer-reviewed journals, and established sector bodies (ODEN, Inclusion Canada, Community Living Ontario) were prioritized; some program-outcome and market-benefit claims originate from advocacy or marketing sources and should be treated as promotional rather than peer-reviewed. This is general information to help you plan, not financial or legal advice.

Related: How Ontario’s Adult Developmental Services System Works: A Family Map · Developmental Services Ontario (DSO): The Front Door to Adult Services in Ontario · Adult Day Program Models in Ontario: A Plain-Language Guide to the Options · Housing and Residential Options for Adults with Developmental Disabilities in Ontario