Cuts, Gaps & Impacts

Provincial Groups Protest Cuts to Children’s Services: 

BC FamilyNet and the BC Coalition for People with Disabilities have both written to Minister for Children and Family Development Mary Polak regarding cuts to children’s services.  BC FamilyNet’s letter states:

BC FamilyNet Society, a provincial organization which promotes effective and readily accessible supports and services for people with disabilities and their families, is deeply concerned about the short-sighted elimination of programs which provide invaluable long term benefits to children who face extraordinary challenges, their families, and society as a whole.

Cutting funds for the Early Intensive Behaviour Intervention (EIBI) program for autistic children, and the Provincial Advisor Offices for the Infant Development Program (IDP), the Aboriginal Infant Development Program (AIDP), and Supported Child Care (SCC) represents a major policy shift in the use of always scarce dollars, yet your ministry has done this without apparent consultation with affected groups. Further we question whether depriving families of the proven EIBI program, to give them instead an amount of money insufficient to purchase similarly effective programs, while simultaneously spending $20 million on a building with no funded programs, meets the goal of equitable and effective service delivery.

The Provincial Advisor Offices for IDP, AIDP and SSC, rather than representing a needless level of bureaucracy, provide the research, training, mentoring and crucial connection between families, that are integral to the successful development of children across the province. These critical services are presently provided by extremely knowledgeable staff. To lose their expertise, or in anyway dilute the essential roles these advisors play in the lives of children and families, would clearly be false economy.

FamilyNet is greatly concerned about further cuts within MCFD and to CLBC. We remain concerned about the large number of children who receive no funding whatsoever. At a time when $14 billion can be found for capital stimulus projects, surely the amounts needed for long term investment in people can also be found.

BC Coalition for People with Disabilities wrote:

The BC Coalition of People with Disabilities (BCCPD) is extremely concerned about the proposed funding cuts for children with autism that will abolish the Early Intensive Behavioural Intervention (EIBI) program.

We are writing in the hope that you will reconsider this decision which will have tragic consequences for children living with this disability who will be unable to receive this crucial treatment as a result.

We support the Autism Society of BC’s (ASBC) position that the decision to take EIBI treatment away from all children is regressive, fiscally unsound and will result in a great human cost. For children in the program and those on the waiting list, the EIBI program is their best chance for living a productive, meaningful life. Without it, they will start school at a significant developmental disadvantage. Most will be unable to catch up.

As ASBC has noted, failure to treat autism early will ultimately cost the province significantly more than the cost of the EIBI program. According to your own ministry’s data, the cost of EIBI for the 70 children currently in the program is approximately $5 million per year (70 children at $70,000 a year). Research indicates that each $5 million invested will save British Columbians roughly $175 million in future health care and social services costs.

We respectfully urge you to reverse your decision to cut funding to this crucial program for children with autism in BC.

We invite parents to use this form to report service cuts, gaps or waitlists and their impacts. Please use the comments section, copy and paste the following questions and briefly answer them:

Your location (e.g. Vancouver):

Age of child/youth:

Diagnosis (e.g. Down Syndrome):

Date of request:

Service requested (e.g. respite, therapy, special ed):

Ministry or  delegated provider (e.g. school, agency):

Response (e.g denied, waitlist, cuts, offered alternative, etc):

Reasons given: 

Impacts on child/family: 

Other comments: