Minister Bloy dismisses CL concerns
Opposition MLAs questioned Minister Harry Bloy on the BC Community Living Action Group report in Question Period today, as the Legislature resumed sitting.In responding, Minister Bloy demonstrated a deeply troubling lack of understanding of community living, with a number of statements that were factually incorrect, misleading and shockingly insensitive.
BC CLAG wrote to Minister Bloy six weeks ago asking to meet with him to discuss issues and concerns in community living. He has not yet acknowledged or responded to that request. Had Minister Bloy demonstrated some interest in listening to families, self-advocates and community groups, he might not be so shockingly ignorant of the issues and challenges that fall within his responsibility for community living.
Below are some of the false or misleading statements made to the Legislature today:
Minister Bloy stated:
"CLBC has a budget of well over $700 million a year."
"In fact, we have increased our budget every year."
FACT: According to CLBC's Service Plan CLBC's budget is less than $700 million a year. CLBC's Operating Budget has been frozen at $681 million since 2010 and the Provincial budget calls for it to be frozen at that level until 2014. Between 2002 and 2004, the community living budget was cut by 12%.
Community Living Action Group issues report, solution for growing crisis
Premier Clark urged to listen, put families first again
MOMS' Dawn Steele speaking at the launch of the BC-CLAG report and recommendations, April 2011
MOMS joined other family and community living organizations today at a media event to launch a major report and recommendations urging BC's new Premier, Christy Clark, to honour promises to listen and to start putting families first again.
The report was the result of broad community discussions, including two major public forums hosted in Victoria and Vancouver last fall, when community living groups came together to respond to growing complaints about cuts, forced relocations, denial of services and choices, and the exclusion of adults and their families from crucial life decisions.
The report reflects an unprecedented consensus among all major partners in community living -- agencies, families, self-advocates and employee groups -- and focusses on solutions that emerged from the community dialogue launched last fall. (See more details below)
Please visit the website of our community partnership, the BC Community Living Action Group , to view the report, recommendations and other information about this initiative.
Please join us!
We urge families to support our campaign by calling on BC's new Premier, Christy Clark, to honour her promises to start listening and to put families first again.
On May 19, 2004, Ms. Clark, who was then BC's Deputy Premier and Minister for Child & Family Development, introduced Bil 45, the legislation that created Community Living BC. In doing so, she promised:
"This legislation gives British Columbians with developmental disabilities and their families better options and more opportunities in their communities. They'll be able to look forward to a safer, healthier and better quality of life."
MOMS restores leaked ministry document disputing claims re PAFC plans, benefits
Several days ago, MOMS removed links to leaked Ministry documents discussing the proposed Provincial Autism Family Centre (PAFC), at the request of Ministry officials who claimed that we were violating confidentiality requirements.
After further investigation, we have declined the request, as the documents do not violate the privacy of any individual and further, because we believe that sharing the contents is in the public interest. We have restored the links and the Ministry briefing notes can now also be accessed directly at this link .
However, we wish to emphasize that the best way to ensure that families and the public are fully and accurately about the Province's plans to address major gaps in services for children with autism and other special needs is for Provincial authorities to demonstrate greater transparency and openness than has been true to date.
Background: We received these documents last summer. After months of further research and investigation, we requested in an Open Letter dated Oct 7, 2010 that the Province clarify several issues and concerns raised in the documents.
In particular, we noted contradiction relating to claims by Provincial authorities that public funding support for PAFC would improve services for children with autism. The leaked Ministerial briefing notes discussed plans to reallocate budgets for existing autism programs to cover PAFC's operating expenses, despite warnings from provincial policy advisers that this would negatively impact access to diagnosis and assesment, for example. In our open letter to Premier Campbell, MCFD Ministry Mary Polak and Rich Coleman, Minister responsible for BC Housing (the source of the promised $20 million capital contribution to PAFC) we raised the following questions:
Unresolved complaints highlight need for independent Rep for adult services
We have received a number of enquiries recently from families expressing alarm and frustration with the failure of CLBC's complaints resoultion mechanisms. I thought it might be helpful to share a recent question received via our Website, along with some helpful advice kindly provided by BCACL staff and others, along with links/resources that others may find useful.
QUESTION: "Does CLBC allow outside (CLBC Quality Control) non-partial investigations into abuse and if so how do I make a request for one? I requested an investigation by CLBC Quality Control but was told I couldn’t access the results. They also have not done a proper investigation because they have not contacted anyone directly involved (ie: witnesses). Any ideas would be appreciated."
MOMS RESPONSE: I discussed your question with staff at the BC Association for Community Living, who have a better understanding of the legal & policy requirements than we do, and here is the response:
“My experience with investigations of abuse is that the third party should be the RCMP or local police. Once there is the involvement of police all other processes should stop pending the outcome. If you feel that the CLBC investigation has not been sufficient and you have concerns about harm done and/or safety of a person then involving the police is appropriate. The involvement of the police is not a matter of choice for CLBC or any other body, agency or service provider.”
UPDATE: Here's some additional advice from another veteran service provider: