BCers want more early intervention!
Here is some good news for a change - but will BC's government listen?
Poll shows support for increasing early childhood spending
Tom Sandborn
April 28, 2010
More than 70 per cent of B.C. residents underestimate how many of the province's children enter school developmentally vulnerable, an Angus Reid poll released today shows.
And most of those polled expressed strong support for increased public spending once they learned how many B.C. children are at risk and how low Canadian investment in early childhood education and daycare is in contrast to other wealthy countries . Read more
Youth hits black hole, MCFD seizes siblings
This has to be one of the most heartbreaking stories I've heard. CBC News readers have reacted with an outpouring of outrage, but whether this has any power to move Ministers Coleman or Polak remains unclear:
Children taken because of mentally ill brother
Kamloops parents say lack of government help for son put other children at risk
April 27, 2010
A couple in Kamloops had their three youngest children removed by the B.C. government after they gave shelter to their violent, mentally ill adult son, who had been turned away from government care.
"We were backed into a corner," said the children's mother, Leah Flagg. "We had to choose between the well-being of one child or our other children."
Leah and Steve Flagg have four children, aged 11 to 20. Leah said her oldest son, Trevor, has brain damage and has been diagnosed with several types of mental illness. She said he can be paranoid, obsessive and violent.
When he was 13, he beat his mother badly, she said, so the parents placed him in the care of B.C.'s Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD). He had also harmed his younger siblings.
"He does really well when he's on medication and the medication is working. When he's not stabilized, conflict can become a physically aggressive situation in seconds," said Leah.
Nowhere else to go
Trevor was living in a secure youth residence, with 24-hour supervision, when he turned 19. At that point, because he was an adult, the ministry was no longer responsible for him. His parents said they could find no other government agency or community agency to take him in . Read more
Busy fighting education cuts…
I haven't been able to post updates in the past month, with every spare moment devoted to trying to stop or at least mitigate the horrendous cuts to special education - and everything else - in our public schools across this Province.
Here are some links to information on education and special education cuts:
- Vancouver Parents for Successful inclusion : letter to minister warning that provincial framework forces districts to concentrate cuts in areas like Special Ed to offset provincial funding shortfalls. Read the letter
- Vancouver Special Education Advisory Committee documents loss of special education teachers despite a 35% increase in students with special needs, warns further cuts planned for Vancouver will present safety risks and deny access. Read the brief and district stats
- BC Education Coalition/Stop BC Education Cuts: Provincial website and Facebook group gathering information about cuts and various initiatives to fight them. The site includes a section devoted to special education news and impacts