Moms on the Move » Advocacy News

Op Ed: Cutting social services won’t pay benefits

Dawn — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 19:27:54 +0000

The following is an excellent Op-Ed published couple weeks ago in the Victoria Times Colonist. Sadly the 2010 Provincial budget presented March 3 promises exactly the sort of short-sighted, "penny wise, pound foolish" cuts that Ms Charlesworth warned against.

Cutting social services won't pay benefits

Slashing government programs will push up health-care costs

By Jennifer Charlesworth, Special to Times Colonist

February 17, 2010

An economist with one of Canada's big banks commented to media last month that health-care spending is the budgetary equivalent of Pac-Man, "eating everything else in people's budgets."

In B.C., health-care spending has risen almost 50 per cent in the last eight years and accounts for more than 40 per cent of all provincial expenditures. In Canada, the $128 billion a year spent on health care consumes 12 per cent of the national GDP.

Is that simply the price we have to pay for good health?

In a word, no. For many years, researchers have studied the factors in a person's life that determine good health. They concluded long ago that a good health-care system is by no means the only requirement -- in fact, it's just a quarter of the story. Read more

Update on MCFD restructuring & budget

Dawn — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 19:21:37 +0000

The Ministry for Children & Families, which now has responsibility for managing and funding all out-of-school services and supports for children and youth with special needs, faces significant challenges in the year ahead.

Despite promises to protect the budgets for special needs, senior Ministry staff have confirmed that unfunded new costs and rising demands will further strain existing services. On top of this, the Ministry is in the midst of another major restructuring, which includes integrating special needs services with other children's services in a new regional management framework.

MOMS was invited to a meeting on February 15 for an update on Ministry plans and challenges. Our unofficial report on the discussion can be found here. We will continue to share any further information or updates as they reach us and welcome first-hand reports from families about how the restructuring and budget challenges may be affecting them personally.

BC Professionals condemn autism cuts, changes

Dawn — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 02:01:34 +0000

As Victoria parents prepared for a candlelight vigil at the Legislature Monday Feb 1 to mourn the Province's closure of critical autism early intervention programs, the BC Association for Behaviour Analysis -- the equivalent of the BC Medical Association -- issued a lengthy position statement criticizing these and other recent autism policy changes.

The Association calls for significant increases to the current autism funding levels for preschoolers, for funding to be tied to individual need, and for restoration of the direct funding option for families. It also strongly condemned the lack of consultation over the controversial changes announced by Children's Minister Mary Polak last fall.

"Many people in the Autism community were shocked and disturbed by the closure of all of the EIBI programs and the funding structure changes," the BC ABA statement reads. "...Furthermore, discussions with stakeholders might have resulted in a more sound decision on how to achieve province-wide, equitable access to services for individuals with ASD."

The BC ABA joins parents, advocacy groups and other professionals who have universally panned the province's abrupt autism policy changes, stating that the new provincial funding formula for preschoolers with autism "is not sufficient to purchase intensive behavioural therapy at the level (25-40 hours per week) which research has shown to be effective." The Association cites the example of other Canadian provinces that fully fund the costs of early intervention, noting that "given the discrepancy between provincial funding and the actual costs of implementing an intensive ABA program, few children in British Columbia will likely receive the intensity of treatment that has been empirically shown to improve the core characteristics of Autism." (Emphasis added)

The statement also criticizes the elimination of the direct funding option for families, which means that all families must now submit invoices for often lengthy government approval and payment instead of being able to directly pay the private therapists who provide early intervention services for their children. The BC ABA warns that a critical obstacle for many families is being able to find and retain qualified therapists and that delaying payment in this mannner will only exacerbate this problem.

The statement urges the provincial government to increase funding per child to between $40,000 and $70,000 [i.e. approximately what government was formerly paying for the now cancelled EIBI programs which the Minister portrayed as wasteful] and to fund each child based on individual need.

The BC ABA recommendations support those that have been presented by parents, advocacy groups and international autism experts in numerous meetings and communications with Children's Minister Mary Polak and Premier Gordon Campbell, all of which have been ignored to date. Polak and Campbell now stand entirely alone, with no one left who has not denounced their unilateral actions that deny hope to BC's children with autism and their families.

UPDATE: Times Colonist reports on Victoria parents' Feb 1 protest plans

Feb. 1 Victoria Vigil for lost children’s programs

Dawn — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 17:58:15 +0000

Next Monday Victoria families will hold a candlelight vigil at the Legislature to protest the closure of the province's critical early intervention programs for autism (see notice below).

Children's Minister Mary Polak stopped funding the province's EIBI programs last fall to save $1.5 million annually, despite the desperate pleas of families and many studies confirming that these programs are hugely effective, saving on average $3 - 5 million PER CHILD in net lifetime costs to society (for more details and sources, see our EIBI Facts).

As a result, at least 70 BC children per year will be denied the intensive early behaviour intervention that provided the only hope for these children and their families of a near-normal life, unless they can afford to privately pay tens of thousands annually to top up inadequate subsidies and susbstitute programs to replicate the benefits that only a full EIBI program can offer.

These children join thousands more in BC who are already being denied access to the early intervention supports and programs that they need, due to foolish and short-sighted policies that place enormous and unnecessary strains on other provincial services, such as education, health care, welfare, community living, social housing, justice, etc etc....

Minister Polak and her colleagues also ordered the closure of a series of other cirtical children's programs (which collectively don't put the tiniest dent in the current provincial deficit). These include the provincial Infant Development, Supported Child Care and Aboriginal Supported Child Care program, the Roots of Empathy program, FASD prevention, child and youth mental health and more - all of which will directly impact children and create significantly higher long-term costs than the meagre short-term budgetary savings.

These actions cruelly target the province's most vulnerable children and directly violate Premier Campbell's 2005 promise to build "the best system of supports in Canada for children with special needs."

Your support

We invite families outside of Victoria who can't make it to the vigil to show their support by signing and circulating our petition calling on Premier Campbell to honour his promises to BC's children with special needs and/or by writing their MLAs to remind them that BC families will not rest until these and other programs are restored, and that all children with special needs are able to get the basic help and support they need - in a timely manner and in a form that respects their individual needs and those of their families.

The petition can be accessed online here.

Find out more and support the ongoing FAIR campaign to restore EIBI programs on Facebook

Good news & bad news

Dawn — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 02:53:45 +0000

Two great items in the BC media today:

A terrific Vancouver Sun Op Ed marking Children's Day by the Representative for Children and Youth, Mary Ellen Turpel Lafond.
An in-depth look at the cost benefits of investing in early intervention from The Tyee's Tom Sandborn.

The disturbing news arrived late on Friday afternoon via a BC Association for Community Living press release alerting the community & expressing well-deserved outrage at yet another stealth attack against families. The BC Liberals introduced and passed surprise legislation, despite the objections of the oppostion NDP, that eliminates the requirement to have family voices represented on the board that governs Community Living BC.

Leaked MCFD memo reveals planned cuts

Dawn — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:37:15 +0000

Leaked MCFD documents obtained today by MOMS describe a process that has been underway since August 2009 to achieve "baseline funding reductions" for contracted agencies that deliver most of the Ministry's front-line services and supports - with a focus on cuts to community-based intervention and early intervention.

The "North Region STOB 80 Reduction Planning Process and Principals" (sic) document refers to a process for "cost recovery" for the current year and outlines planning, roles, principles and provincial direction guiding a second process that is also now underway to determine further reductions for 2010-11 in order to meet Ministry budget targets.

While the document specifically refers to the process underway in BC North Region, Children's Minister Mary Polak has confirmed that this is a Ministry-wide initiative that affects all regions.

The leaked document refers to management teams being informed of budget targets at the outset of this process but does not stipulate what the funding reduction targets are for 2009-10 and for 2010-11. Minister Polak told Public Eye Online today that there were no targets and that this was just a discussion document, which is not consistent with what the Ministry document itself states (the Minister has also repeatedly claimed that there are no cuts, which is not consistent with any grasp of reality)

This process appears to be the same one cited in an earlier memo leaked via Public Eye in August, which cited a provincial budget reduction target of $3.6 million for 2009-10 for the contracted agencies under one provincial grouping.

The STOB 80 Reduction document states that contract funding reduction plans for 2010-11 must be submitted by December 15 and approved by December 18, so that the Ministry can give notice to impacted contractors by January 31, 2010.

The document also outlines the provincial direction guiding the funding reduction planning process now underway:

These reductions are consistent with the $32 million in cuts or "streamlining" being implemented internally by the Ministry.
Consultation and collaboration with partners such as the Federation of Community Social Services of BC (Federation) and the BC Association of Child Development and Intervention (BCACDI) in exchange for the Ministry agreeing not to meet its reduction targets via across-the-board funding cuts.
Non-discretionary services that already face significant cost pressures to be exempted: Children in Care (permanency planning), Delegated Aboriginal services, Child Care, Autism, Medical Benefits and Nursing Support
Budget cuts will primarily affect community-based intervention and early intervention services and non-residential services, whether the contracts are managed by the MCFD Regions, provincially or under CLBC
Cuts "required for 10/11 fiscal year may involve some service reductions after all other opportunities for savings have been exhausted."

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR REDUCTIONS

Funding services outside the Ministry Mandate (NOTE: MCFD's legislated mandate cover a very narrow range of child protection services, so this is a very broad range)
Uncommitted Funding Review
Discretionary funding
Contracts that have Repetitive Surpluses
Resolve any commitments that are greater than allocated budget
Reorganising contracts to provide efficiencies
Programs not Providing any Direct service

GUIDANCE

A communities vulnerability must be considered when planning reductions
Non Aboriginal Agencies First
Reductions to Agencies must not affect their financial Viability
Large contractors have the potential to manage some reductions through efficiencies

Moms shared this information earlier today with community groups, agencies, Ministry staff, media and the Opposition critic, calling for a transparent public process to review where BC is going with regard to services for vulnerable children in this province. Other concerns raised:

That Minister Polak and her senior staff have consistently and repeatedly denied to family stakeholders, the public, the Legislature and the media that budget cuts are in store or occurring within our sector, while discussing budget cuts for the current year and further cuts in the year ahead with staff and contracted agencies.
The extent to which some or all contracted community agencies have helped government to keep families and the public in the dark about budget cuts expected to negatively impact vital early intervention services for thousands of at-risk children in this province.

This Friday, we mark the 20th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which committed us all to putting the interests of children first.

MOMS calls on all those who still believe in that commitment to join us in making it clear that budget cuts to ANY services, programs or sectors that serve vulnerable children in BC are not acceptable - NOT when existing budgets already deny vital services and supports to so many children with special needs and children at risk in our province and NOT when this province can simultaneously afford to spend BILLIONS on other "priorities".

Another week, another rally?

Dawn — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:13:01 +0000

Families were out in the streets protesting against provincial autism policies again last week, this time in front of Premier Campbell's Point Grey constituency office in Vancouver. The rally was organized by FEAT BC (Families for Early Autism Treatment) along with the group Medicare for Autism and the ABA Support Network.

(r. to l.): Stella Hui from the Autism Society of BC, Dawn Steele from MOMs and Lori Doucette from FAIR - photo courtesy of FEAT's Tandy Tam.

The rally sought to draw attention to the fragile nature of provincial autism services, which Children's Minister Mary Polak was able to wipe out on a mere whim. In addition to cancelling EIBI programs, Polak eliminated the direct funding option under the provincial autism program, to the deep frustration of many families who used that funding to support their own home-based ABA programs. As with EIBI cuts, there was no consultation over this change.

Despite icy winds, the Nov 13 FEAT rally attracted a solid gathering of families and family groups. MOMS supported the rally and brought along our trusty campaign signs (which are standing up remarkably well to the rigours of street protests!) Other groups represented included the Autism Society of BC and FAIR, the family group fighting Polak's plans to eliminate the EIBI autism programs. East Vancouver MLA Shane Simpson (NDP) attended to show support.

BC Children’s Budget debate

Dawn — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:18:17 +0000

The BC Legislature debated the Ministry for Children & Family Development's revised 2009-10 budget on Nov 4-5. Below, an extract of Opposition Critic Maurine Karagianis questioning Minister Mary Polak about autism cuts:

"M. Karagianis: When we look at things like the EIBI program…. Let's talk about that very specifically — the financial implications, which the minister has said is really the sole issue here around why this program was cut. Why did the government not make an attempt to sit down with program providers and families and try and find a way to provide what is very admittedly an exceptional program with exceptional outcomes to more families, rather than saying, "Because we can only reach 70 families at a time, we're cutting the whole program," and rather than actually finding a way to make that very effective program available to, perhaps, more people?

I've talked to program providers, and at no time did the government sit down with any of the program providers and say that "$70,000 per child" — if that is, in fact, the real number — "is not acceptable, and can we find a way to provide this program more cost-effectively?" No program provider was ever approached.

In fact, the government, by their own documentation, has said that because only 70 families at a time were able to take advantage of that program, we're doing away with it completely. The substitute for that, for all families now, is perhaps another hour a week in the kinds of therapies that $20,000 and $22,000 will buy. I'm sure that the minister and the government generally are getting the kind of enormous pressure from families that is very evident to members of the opposition.

I have attended numerous rallies. I have got truckloads of e-mail, as I'm sure has the minister. I have been cc'd on all of the correspondence that has gone to the government on this.

In the case where the outcome for children is so markedly improved and the support systems going forward for children into the future are so much more cost-effective by providing this kind of early and intensive behavioural intervention, why has the government not chosen a path of trying to reach the best possible outcomes, best practice — if we can use those terms?

I know the ministry talks about best practice in everything they do. Yet when I look at this, and many other cuts, it would seem to me that we've gone from best practice to lowest common denominator. Perhaps the minister could just say whether, in the business sense of taking the outcome for these children forward for the rest of their lives where they're not dependent on government funding or support or teaching assistance or anything else as an outcome of this….

It would seem to me that the savings are millions of dollars in the lifetime of a child versus a fairly modest investment at the front end. Why has that not been the criteria? Or would the government consider making that the next step — to try and find a way to work with families and service providers to take advantage of what is a very effective program? To see this thing disappear altogether — except for the wealthy, who might be able to afford it — seems a tragic decision to make and certainly not a good business decision for the ministry to make.

Hon. M. Polak: In fact, that is exactly what we are doing. It is incorrect to say that we are eliminating the EIBI program. We are eliminating the $70,000-per-child support..."

View the rest of the debate here and here and here.

Nov 6 rally to save autism EIBI programs

Dawn — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:05:32 +0000

When: Friday, November 6, 2009, starting at 9:30 am

Where: Mary Polak's Langley Constituency office, 20611 Fraser Highway, Langley

Please join parents from around the province who will be travelling to Langley on Friday for a protest action as they continue the fight to save autism intensive early intervention (EIBI) programs. Meet us outside Mary Polak's Langley office. We'll have signs and banners or bring your own.

Early intervention works! EIBI programs have decades of proven research behind them. They significantly reduce the burden on public schools/special education and liefelong social services.

BC can afford these programs! Last week, Minister Polak personally informed us that she has sufficient funding in her budget to save these programs and that cutting them is her choice because she thinks the increasing incidence of autism makes them unsustainable!

This is not just inhumane, but short-sighted and foolish. The costs of these EIBI programs have been stable since their inception in 2001 - provincial autism costs have increased drastically in other areas, not EIBI. And the additional lifetime costs for a single child who needs EIBI and doesn't get it are more than twice as much as the potential savings from cutting the entire provincial EIBI program!! BC taxpayers will pay far more by cutting these programs!

Polak's choice = Campbell's broken promise: In 2005 Premier Campbell promised to build the best system of supports in Canada for children with special needs and children at risk. Instead of cutting vital programs, BC needs to invest in expanding intensive early intervention to all children who need it! Alberta, for example, spends twice as much on autism alone as BC does, despite having fewer children, and has not cut early intervention despite a provincial deficit twice as large as BC's.

Please help us send a strong message to Minister Polak and Premier Campbell: BC can't afford to cut these programs.

If enough caring people stand up, government will listen - we have demonstrated this over and over again. If you can't make it Friday, please:

E-Mail Mary.Polak@gov.bc.ca and ask her to reverse her plans to cut EIBI programs
Phone her office at 250-387-9699
Write her a letter at PO Box 9057 Stn Prov Govt, Victoria, BC, V8W 9E2

Media coverage of campaign against cuts

Dawn — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:36:07 +0000

In addition to shaking up the morning commute, people around the province called MLAs and the premier, sent emails and letters and delivered balloons. Here, sad-face balloons being delivered to Burnaby MLA Richard Lee.

Below is an updated list of media reports on the October 28 day of action and the continuing campaign against cuts to programs for children with special needs.