Report slams BC gaps, MOMs join Rep in urging new special needs support strategy
The BC government is coming under fire in the wake of a new report that strongly criticizes the Province's system of supports for children and youth with special needs and their families.
The report is titled " Isolated and Invisible: When chidlren with special needs are seen but not seen." It stems from an investigation launched by Mary Ellen Turpel Lafond's office after horrific media reports about a young girl with Down Syndrome who was found home alone and unattended 9 days after her mother died.
The report comes just months after BC's new Premier took office, promising an agenda for reform that would involve listening and putting "families first." Turpel Lafond urges Ms. Clark's government to act urgently to develop and implement a new strategy to address serious gaps in support for some of BC's most vulnerable children and their families.
The BC Association for Community Living issued a press release today reinforcing the findings of Turpel Lafond's report.
Meanwhile, concerns about serious gaps in the province's system of supports for children and youths with special needs were highlighted again last week with the heart-breaking story of an Abbotsford Dad whose daughter was rem oved from the home and placed in a psychiatric facility. The single father was struggling to raise two daughters with autism, without adequate family supports, and MCFD removed one of the daughters after she wandered away from home - a frequent challenge for many individuals with autism.
Premier vows Autism Centre will ‘hugely improve’ services; Minister disagrees?
Confronted by media questions about her plans to invest $20 million in provincial funding in a costly building instead of addressing gaps in autism services, Premier Christy Clark initially appeared stumped. But in a quick recovery, she assured investigative reporter Sean Holman that the centre was being designed to create a "huge improvement" in autism services:
(Video from Holman's Public Eye Online)
No word yet on exactly how the proposed $34 million East Van facility, with its I-pad equipped waiting rooms, "subtle" paint colours, North Shore views and rooftop gardens will help families in Chilliwack or Cranbrook who've been told there's no money for respite, zero funding/ support for kids once they turn 19, no money for aides in school, and only $6,000 a year for therapy that costs $50,0000.
But we're dying to hear PAFC and the "comunity leaders" helping to plan the building concept explain on Premier Clark's behalf exactly how they think that's going to work.
The Premier's promise also appears to conflict with statements by her Children's Minister, Mary McNeil. Last month, McNeil told MOMS the $20 million will go towards capital building costs, and that her government is counting on PAFC to fundraise privately to cover the costs of any promised improvements to autism service programs.
Meanwhile, Public Eye also quoted Housing Minister Rich Coleman, whose ministry is putting up the funding for the centre via BC Housing's budget for affordable housing. Under questioning from Opposition Critic Nicholas Simons in the BC Legislature, Coleman assured British Columbians that he was confident this was the right thing to do because his sister in Ontario was an expert on autism:
Read the full post on Public Eye .
Deeper cuts ahead as BC tells agencies to cut services to cover new costs, demands
More disturbing news is emerging around the growing crisis in services funded through CLBC, the agency responsible for supporting adults with severe developmental disabilities.
In today's Victoria Times Colonist, Lindsay Kines reports on new CLBC documents that reveal the BC government is forcing community agencies to make further cuts to offset new costs and new demands.
Meanwhile, the BC Association for Community Living has issued a news alert , noting that BCACL has written Premier Christy Clark asking her to urgently respond to the growing crisis. The BCACL statement includes new budget numbers, based on CLBC's own figures, that show the BC government needs to address a $137 million funding gap in community living budgets by 2014.
If you haven't already written the Premier to urge her intervention, MOMS invites you to support our campaign by doing so ASAP. For more info, please visit the BC Community Living Action Group , the ad hoc network of family groups, service providers, caregivers and staff working to urge government to resolve the crisis in community living in BC.
Please encourage other Biritish Columbians in your circle of contacts to help give a voice to fellow adults whose challenges make it very difficult for them to make themselves heard in the din of BC's provincial politics!
Dawn & Cyndi, MOMS
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Premier vows to help families featured on CTV expose: But what about the rest?
But Christy Clark's response only addresses specific cases cited by CTV, so MOMS urges other families denied support to write the Premier seeking similar relief.
After weeks of pressure from families, advocacy groups and opposition MLAs, CTV's "Investigators" confronted Premier Christy Clark on Friday with more undeniable evidence of the plight of families denied critical supports for adults with developmental disabilities, forcing her to finally admit that the crisis facing families and adults who rely on CLBC-funded supports is "not acceptable."
In two reports that led the 6 o'clock news on Friday, CTV's Mi-Jung Lee and Jim Beatty reported that Clark promised action to address the concerns raised by two families via CTV in the past week. One of the families has waited eight years to access services. Watch a replay of the two CTV news reports here (Click on the link "Correspondents on services for the disabled" to watch full details of both stories) .
The reporters suggested that negative media publicity and a possible upcoming election may have been a key consideration in the Premier's decision to back down from her insistence just a day earlier in the BC Legislature that a focus on growing the economy was the better way to help families impacted by CLBC's funding crisis.
The premier did not say whether other families facing waitlists or cuts would also see similar relief.
MOMS, along with other community living advocacy groups, is therefore urging other families who are waitlisted, who have been denied CLBC services or who have had their services cut to immediately contact the Premier to request that she intervene similarly on their behalf.
- Email Premier Christy Clark: [email protected]
To encourage a prompt response, please feel free to copy your request to any or all of the following:
- MOMS: [email protected]
- BCACL: [email protected]
- BC CLAG: [email protected]
- Opposition Critic for CLBC Nicholas Simons: [email protected]
If you don't get an appropriate response and wish to contact CTV's Investigators, email [email protected] or call 604-609-6333
Dawn & Cyndi, MOMS
While families plead for help, BC govt, community leaders mull $34M building
Rooftop gardens, north shore mountain views, i-Pad equipped waiting rooms, lifespan centre, subtle colours, cutting-edge technology & much, much more...courtesy of your tax dollars
The Pacific Autism Family Centre initiative has started to publish minutes of its advisory council meetings for those interested in following the progress of this inititiative: Read them here . After reading the minutes of their April 15 Advisory Council meeting, some comments and questions come to mind:
1) Priorities: With all due respect to well-meaning friends and colleagues, desperate families around BC are pleading with government to address the funding crisis that is tearing apart families, destroying hope and creating enormous risks. So why are autism "community leaders" and professionals sitting around discussing spending $20 million in scarce tax dollars on rooftop gardens, north shore views and i-Pad equipped waiting rooms??
If Premier Christy Clark really wants to put families first, why isn't anyone asking why she is spending $20 million on a vanity project for wealthy political contributors while telling families there is no money available to provide vital services or to respond to the crisis??
2) Participants: The list of attendees at PAFC's recent meeting includes a who's-who of the Lower Mainland autism/ABA establishment, but very few from outside the Lr Mainland, except Autism Kamloops. There were also no professionals who deliver non-ABA treatment and no BCACDI members, who deliver many autism supports/services in outlying communities.
While the Premier and her Ministers keep telling us this is not their baby, but a "community-driven" initiative , the whole agenda is very clearly being driven by senior ministry staff (Karen Bopp, Ian Brethour) and their ministry-funded consultants. The minutes indicate that invitees are basically just being asked to shape and endorse the cosmetic aspects of core decisions that have been politically-driven from Day 1, and from no less lofty a source than the Premier's Office.
MOMS was asked to participate and we have declined until the province is willing to debate the fundamental premise of investing in a costly building instead of re-directing any available dollars to the urgent needs that families around the province have indentified, both in our polling and in PAFC's own consultations.
3) Elephant on the table: After MOMS published leaked ministry documents in March, the Minister wrote us insisting that this project would not impact funding for existing autism services (and conversely, would not fix any of the serious funding gaps for those services!). She reiterated what we had been told in an earlier letter from Minister Rich Coleman , who said government has committed capital funding (i.e. construction costs, not ongoing program/operating expenses) for the building to be constructed in East Vancouver.
Media, agencies, NDP contradict BC govt: confirm cuts, forced moves, intimidation
The Victoria Times Colonist is continuing to unravel the ugly details of BC's community living crisis, with two new investigative reports documenting the disturbing story that Premier Christy Clark and Minister Harry Bloy are desperately trying to keep under wraps. Earlier this week, columnist Paul Willcocks reported the shocking statistic that CLBC's funding per adult client will have been cut by almost 1/3 by 2013, based on recent trends and current budget projections. Today, reporter Lindsay Kines quoted families and agency leaders who confirmed the closure of group homes and forced relocations of residents, along with the intimidation of families and care providers as CLBC tries to muzzle public complaints.
This past week, the Developmental Disabilities Association, one of BC's largest agencies serving people with developmental disabilities, became the first CLBC-funded agency that has dared to step forward to publicly contradict the official claims that group homes are not being cut, in an update posted on the agency's website .
These reports provide more evidence that Premier Christy Clark, Minister for Community Living Harry Bloy, and the CLBC CEO Rick Mowles have all been lying to British Columbians with their repeated insistence that group homes and other services are not being cut.
Meanwhile, we continue to hear from more distraught families all around the province whose adult or minor children meet all eligibility criteria but either had existing services cut or are being denied desperately needed supports. But while many continue to be intimidated and afraid that speaking out will cost them the few services they've managed to secure, too many are now speaking out for political leaders to pretend all is well.
Opposition MLAs have also been helping to highlight the concerns of families in their constituencies, both in the media, and during Question Period, with more questions posed directly to Premier Clark today ( scroll down to line 1410 ).
And this Channel A News report illustrates the absurd lengths to which the Minister is going to deny the cuts (Hmm - hands up everyone who thinks a cut is not really a cut when it's a "change").