Couples raising one or more children with special needs may experience additional stressors that cause strain to the relationship. There is much debate about the divorce statistics among these families and whether the divorce rate is in fact the colloquial 80% often quoted or some lower figure. See Divorce Rate Doesn't Go Up As Families of Children with Disabilities Grow, by Adityarup Chakravorty, Univ of Wisconsin-Madison; see also Marital Stability and Marital Satisfaction in Families of Children with Disabilities, by Dick Sobsey, Univ of Alberta, Developmental Disabilities Bulletin, 2004, Vol 32 No 1. Regardless of the actual statistics, is it important to understand how divorce terms within these families could affect the ability of an unemancipated adult child to establish and maintain eligibility for much-needed government assistance.

The New Jersey Division of Medical Assistance and Health Services (Medicaid) and the New Jersey Division of Developmental Disabilities (DDD) each provide a suite of services to individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (I/DD). Each program offered by these agencies have separate and distinct eligibility criteria to establish and maintain services. This article will discuss the available government benefit programs and ways families can protect a child's current or future eligibility for these benefits during the divorce process through the use of special needs trusts.