MOMS wants your feedback on whether the BC government's action plan and new funding are achieving the intended results.

Please limit initial responses to 2-3 sentences per question, as we can't analyze lengthy case histories to identify key challenges (e.g. denial or reduction of supports, denial of appropriate choices in living supports, waitlists, ineffective complaint resolution mechanisms, service quality concerns, lack of coordination between CLBC and other servicces, youth transition problems or failure to respond to a service request)

Please email your answers to [email protected] Your feedback will guide our advocacy efforts and those of partner groups such as the BC Community Living Action Group, which has played a key role in raising awareness of challenges in community living.

Community Living Survey:

1. Has the BC government's response alleviated your concerns? (Yes, No, Somewhat, Minimally, Mostly, or No - Situation Has Worsened)

2. State briefly what were the concerns re your personal situation and what has/has not improved:

3. If you sought help from the Client Support Team or the Advocate for Service Quality, were they able to resolve the concerns to your satisfaction? (Yes, No, Somewhat, Minimally, Mostly, or No - Situation Has Worsened)

4. Have you experienced any improvement in coordination of services between CLBC and other agencies/programs?

5. Have you experienced any improvement in challenges linked to age 19 transitions?

6. If you have unresolved problems in accessing the supports and services you need, briefly state what those relate to. (e.g. denial or reduction of supports/contracts, service quality, waitlists, lack of coordination between agencies, transition challenges, failure of complaint resolution mechanisms, denial of choice in living supports, unresponsive bureaucracy, etc)

7. To which specific program(s) do your concerns relate (e.g. residential, respite, day program, employment supports, CSIL, individualized funding, individual planning, transition supports, mental health/ dual diagnosis or Personalized Supports Initiative for adults with IQ over 70)

8. From what you have seen so far, does government's action plan give you more confidence in the ability of the following to meet your community living support needs, now or in the future:

A) CLBC

B) Client Support Team

C) Advocate for Service Quality

D) The Premier's Action Plan

9. Are you willing to share your experiences with the media and/or Minister Stephanie Cadieux and/or Opposition Critic for CLBC Nicholas Simons? If so, please provide your email and/or telephone number below, as well as the name of your community (e.g. Vancouver, Cranbrook, etc)

Thank you for taking the time to complete our survey - please invite others who may have experienced past challenges to do the same.  We will report a summary of the feedback but your individual comments will not be shared with anyone but MOMS coordinators Dawn Steele and/or Cyndi Gerlach without your express permission.

Have a great day!

Dawn & Cyndi, MOMS

Here's how the Michener Awards Foundation described the Times Colonist's entry:

"The Times Colonist in Victoria used its resources and expertise to expose a stealth policy by the B.C. government that forced people with developmental disabilities to move from group homes to cheaper accommodation.  The newspaper’s sustained campaign – featuring many personal stories of developmentally disabled individuals and their families struggling with government cutbacks – spoke for the powerless and the voiceless. The coverage forced the province to change course and commit $40 million to improve services, demote the minister of social development and announce policy changes. As well, the CEO of Community Living BC resigned and an internal audit of its operations were ordered." (Read more)

MOMS was one of many family groups and individuals who worked with Mr. Kines and other reporters to help expose CLBC's "stealth policy," which involved forcibly moving people with developmental disabilities from their homes, forced contract/support reductions and other harsh measures ordered by the BC government to cut community living costs.

Read MOMS' letter in support of the Times Colonist entry, commending the critically important role played by Mr Kines and his colleagues at the Victoria newspaper in holding the BC government accountable for the crisis created by these "stealth policies."

The winner of the 2012 Michener Awards will be announced in Ottawa on June 12.

MOMS congratulates the Victoria Times Colonist on the prestigious nomination and for its demonstrated commitment to excellence in journalism.

I love the diverse feedback we get at MOMS. For example one mom this week pointed that what's happened to CLBC is part of a far broader pattern -- a "Neo-Liberal" agenda that's driven policy excesses around the world and created widespread suffering, global instability and economic and social havoc. Overly simplistic assumptions have driven this agenda: that people always thrive when you stop trying to help them, that big government is the problem, and that austerity and deregulation will cure all evils (...like not having enough money).

Voters have been happy to endorse politicians who assure us that excessive taxation is the problem, and that a steady diet of tax cuts will restore health and vigour. It's an alluring message, and as with all false premises, a small grain of truth and a whole lot of wishful thinking gives it a compelling ring. But how true is it?

Premier Christy Clark warned that throwing more money at CLBC was not the answer, even as she claimed to be throwing another $40 million at the troubled authority.  A slew of internal reports reiterated over and over that CLBC needed to learn to better manage its money because we can't afford more and we all have to live within our means.

Well, we'd agree that CLBC has done many bad things. But living within its means is one task which even the staunchest critic would have to admit that CLBC has excelled at - notwithstanding high-profile failures like excessive bonuses and moonlighting employees (both serious errors in judgment, to be sure, but not the kind that put any real dent in a $700-million budget). And we can demonstrate the community living sector's fiscal virtue pretty compellingly, thanks to some nifty charts developed by accountants at the Developmental Disabilities Association.

Reporters at the Victoria Times Colonist revealed months ago that CLBC has reduced spending per person significantly since its inception. But with caseloads rising yearly, is the community living budget really unsustainable, as Premier Christy Clark, her predecessor Gordon Campbell and their political colleagues keep insisting?

In fact, in relation to what we earn as British Columbians, we're spending a smaller fraction of our income on community living services today than we did a decade ago, as the first chart shows (click on images to enlarge them).

Moreover, in BC, we've been cutting the proportion of our income that we provide to community living at the same time as the supposedly far more ideologically right-wing US governments have been steadily increasing the proportion of their citizens' earnings that go to supporting adults with developmental disabilities.

The result: BC now ranks near the bottom of the pack in North American jurisdictions. Relative to what we earn as BC citizens, we are spending a fraction of what fellow citizens in states like New York are spending to support adults with developmental disabilities. Our commitment lags somewhere below poor states that are generally not seen as bastions of progress and inclusion, such as Mississippi.

So let's give CLBC credit where it's due. On the whole, the authority has more than lived up to the obligation that we all share to be fiscally prudent. In fact, it's been pretty clearly established now that CLBC went way overboard in that effort, under unflinching pressure from a BC Liberal government demanding that it do ever more with less.

If anyone has not been doing their fair share, one could argue it is those who have benefitted directly from a series of tax cuts implemented in BC since 2001 - and that's primarily high-income earners and corporations.

So who are the "highly-skilled, resources and committed" individuals with the "strong culture of entitlement" that one government report said was responsible for CLBC's budget crisis?

Not the families fighting to restore what British Columbians saw as a fair and reasonable deal for adults with developmental disabilities just a decade ago.

Many contractors and agency directors claim it's a matter of survival. They tell us CLBC makes it very clear that if they don't cooperate in reducing services, or if they complain publicly about risks to their clients, their contracts can be cancelled and handed to someone else with less regard for quality of care.

The allegations are disturbing. But it's been challenging to document how systemic this is and what risks it poses to adults if no one will put complaints on the record.

Premier Christy Clark just released an action plan based on 3 internal reviews, none of which sought to explore these concerns, despite persistent complaints over 18 months. The silence among service providers also emboldened government to go on the offensive against families. One report dismissed advocates as over-zealous parents with a strong culture of entitlement who were blocking CLBC's efforts to improve quality of life and independence for their loved ones!

But CLBC contractors may be finally overcoming the fear factor. Victoria agency director Sarah Balazs, who runs group homes and supported living for high-needs adults, decided enough was enough. She started sharing her complaints with reporters after months of being ignored by CLBC, the Premier and Minister Cadieux. Predictably, CLBC and Ministry staff finally responded as soon as Sarah started copying her complaints to the media. A site visit is planned for tomorrow and we will be closely tracking and reporting on what comes next.

Sarah's complaints support many specific issues that families have raised and that were largely ignored in the recent reports and the Premier's 12-point plan. These include: insufficient funding to support youths turning 19, eroding quality of care due to budget pressures, threats against those who complain, no advocacy voice for adults without families, fundamental flaws in the CLBC model and rationing tools like the Guide to Support Allocation, crisis management focus that inflates costs, and growing health and safety risks.

The overall message is by now familiar to all: The government apparatus responsible for supporting adults with developmental disabilities is still overly focussed on cutting spending, without regard to impacts on health, safety and wellbeing of adults who have nowhere else to turn.

Below are copies of Sarah's correspondence, as shared with MOMS:

• January 19, 2012 letter to families, pointing out that the agency director is funding a deficit from her own pocket because CLBC has not increased funding levels for the agency's basic costs like food and transportation since 1994!!
• Email chain (Oct. 2011 to Jan. 2012), as the agency sought to bring concerns first to CLBC, the minister and Premier, then to news reporters, and eventually to MOMS, after getting no response from any of the above.
• August 2003 letter to Doug Woollard re cost reductions demanded by the Interim Authority (CLBC's predecessor). This illustrates how long agencies have been fighting and dealing with budget cuts that put their clients at risk. This is just the latest of many rounds that have severely eroded safety, health and quality of life.

MOMS applauds Sarah's courage in standing up to the bullies and demanding better for the adults whom she and her staff support.  We offer her our full support in her efforts to secure a fair deal and continue to encourage others to do the same.

Dawn & Cyndi, MOMS

This letter and our recent summaries reflect just one of what I'm sure are many perspectives, which continue to evolve as we pick up new pieces and learn valuable insights from others. The point here is that having conversations about these things is critical, both to fully informing ourselves and the broader public. As one email to MOMS put it:

"What is really important for families to understand is that the
> ground is shifting rapidly and the people who are exerting the
> most influence over what the future will be for people who have
> disability related supported needs, are not their families, but
> those listed in Appendix 2 of the Queenswood Report
> (Participants in the Review). These are people who are
> comfortably ensconced in their ivory tower and fundamentally do
> not understand the direct lived experience of families."

These reports, along with government's 12-point plan, outline another major restructuring: We're looking at potentially radical changes with lifelong implications for people with developmental disabilities. Depending on whether this time you're prepared to trust a governemnt that has failed us repeatedly, those changes portend a welcome break, a frightening descent into deeper crisis, or maybe some of both.

We are again at a critical juncture in community living, with 3 roads open before us:

1. We sit back and let the political leaders and bureaucrats do it their way, after another round of perfunctory consultation with families. This is the default route, one that represents another lost opportunity. The Premier and Minister Cadieux have just concluded no less than 3 reviews that primarily entailed bureaucrats consulting each other to establish the direction of change, I'm not confident that this is a good way to start an inclusive and successful process of reform.The Premier's mandate is to do what she thinks best for the majority of British Columbians in her political base (i.e. contain govt spending) - NOT what's best for community living. The bureaucrats' mandate is to please their political masters (contain costs with a minimum of outside noise) and make life easier for themselves. This is not criticism or partisanship - just reality. 

2. We start a bun fight and try to drown each other out by demanding that govt focus inadequate resources on our competing visions and priorities. This is what happened in 2001, after a small group of families led by the polically-connected Doug Walls mapped out "their" vision, consistent with the BC Liberal's priorities, and then told everyone else to take it or leave it. The public wants to see vulnerable people treated fairly. But public opinion, which is critical to shaping political priorities (regardless of which party is in power), will not be on our side if we can't send a strong, clear message about what is needed to achieve that.

3. Or we sit down together and try to understand and include the full range of perspectives in an effort to drive change towards a system that works relatively well for everyone. I believe the broader BC public would strongly support us and push the government of the day to do the same, if we can develop a strong, clear message together, as we did in the past year via BC CLAG.

There is an opportunity to do it right this time, but only if we step up and demand it or step out in front and create the sort of open process that is critical to achieving option 3.

MOMS has started the conversation but we are not going to lead what comes out of that. It is up to individual families, self-advocates and other stakeholders to step up and take control together - or just leave it up to the government of the day to lead us, and be satisfied with helping to adjust the details around the edges of whatever they decide.

We have shared some thoughts and sought to highlight some critical pieces, because we realize that most people are not going to read all 3 massive 100+ page doorstopper reports. (Although we'd strongly recommend at least scanning the table of contents and reading sections of particular interest for yourself!). Another problem, as self-advocates have pointed out, is that government didn't bother to produce "plain language" versions to help adults with developmental disabilities join the discussion. We've tried to make the information more accessible via our summaries. But these are just a starting point for discussion. We would like to see more thought-provoking letters to the editor, emails or Web comments highlighting what needs to be done, along with a broader community discussion in forums where we can discuss this face to face, with expert facilitation to guide a productive and respectful dialogue.

• What are your questions, your thoughts, your fears and what opportunities do you see?
• How and where do we have the discussion if we want to take back control of our lives and re-establish ourselves as real partners in community living?
• How do we develop a vision that encompasses lifelong issues and supports - early intervention, family support, education, MCFD, health, employment and income support as well as CLBC?
• How do we stop the steady erosion of public funding (in real dollars) to the full range of service for adults with developmental disabilties, children with special needs and the families and caregivers who support them?

A starting point for this discussion is the "Outside Noise - BC Families for An Independent Review" Facebook group - where some of these discussions are already happening among families, self advocates and others. Please join us there and add your thoughts.

A first question might be: Is that the right place to start such a conversation. If not, does someone have a better solution?

======

----- Original Message -----
From: Dawn Steele

To: [email protected]

Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2012 11:36 AM

Unlike the other reports, the new Queenswood Consulting report is only available on request (but you can download a copy here). This is a must-read for families, self advocates, service providers and individuals from linked sectors such as Health and MCFD, and it re-emphasizes the urgency of securing an indepdendent review of CLBC and community living in BC!

Columnist Vaughn Palmer cites parts of this new report extensively in a Vancouver Sun column.

Below are key extracts from this report, which includes both eye-opening revelations and very troubling warnings about the direction in which the BC Liberal government may be hoping to take community living. 

On the real reason for CLBC's creation:

Page 46: "One of the key motivations behind the devolution of service delivery from MCFD to CLBC was a belief that the proposed system would offer more predictability and overall sustainability than the historic model. There was a belief that a cost-effective model would be possible by utilizing options like individualized funding, increased role of families, and an increased use of generic and community services."

Christy Clark, Gordon Hogg, the BC Liberals, Doug Wollard, Doug Walls, the Community Living Coalition and families and self advocates on the Interim Authority board all assured us repeatedly that CLBC's creating was about a better life and empowerment for adults with developmental disabilities and their families MOMS, BC FamilyNet, DDA and other groups were denounced as contrarians for warning all the rosy promises and visions were a smokescreen for cutting funding.

So how to get the cost-cutting CLBC vision back on track??

1. More budget cuts:

Page 20-21: "In April 2010, CLBC committed to undertaking a one-time initiative to review all contracts managed by the organization... An overarching goal of the initiative is to examine each contract to identify areas where savings could be realized....This review is now underway, and a standard manner for regions to implement and report on the initiative is outlined in CLBC’s Savings Initiatives Tracking Template (SITT), which was distributed to CLBC offices in April 2011. The contract review process applies to all contracts except direct home share, individualized funding and microboards. As of August 2011, 696 reviews of staffed residential and community inclusion program contracts had been completed, with another 888 contract reviews still in process. The total amount of savings identified in completed reviews stood at $24.87M (on contracts with a total value of $145.45M), which CLBC will use to apply to caseload growth and addressing the needs of people who are on the RFSL. As a result of contract reviews, 64 homes have closed in staffed residential services, with 169 people moving into different residential arrangements. In community inclusion service contracts, 33 locations have closed. Where the existing service continued, 166 contracts had no reduction in funding, while 301 had funding reduced. Along with the 888 reviews still underway (estimated savings: $16.05 M on total contract values of $234.63), the contract review process will include an additional 1,303 contracts where reviews have not yet started. There is not yet an estimate of potential savings with respect to the 1,303 reviews that are still pending.

Page 26: "...It is likely that a review of community inclusion contracts will identify and illuminate opportunities for efficiencies, as has taken place with residential contracts. CLBC is now going through these contracts to assess whether services, supports and staffing levels are appropriate. Where discrepancies are identified, contract will be re- negotiated. Regions will be encouraged to identify efficiencies.

"...Communications must also consider how to address larger issues of entitlement and expectation, both from families and from service providers. Traditionally, these groups have directly or indirectly determined how services are provided. If CLBC and government more generally is to bring about a more efficient and rationalized service approach, considerable efforts must be made to address this traditional presumption."

Wasn't CLBC created to support more involvement of families and communnity as partners in developing more choice and personalized services?

Page 27: "CLBC is also promoting a conceptual shift towards meeting disability related needs by ensuring that family, community, and other "natural" supports remain in place and are not supplanted by funded services....The hope is that this will foster a greater shared understanding that, within current financial restraints, government alone cannot be responsible for serving people with disabilities. ... Overall, this is a fundamental shift that...holds promise for substantial and structural efficiencies."

So families will have to assume more of the responsibility for delivering community living with no help from government, while the bureacrats give us less say.

2. Reduce expectations

"Page 47: "It was recommended that CLBC clarify and clearly communicate that its role is to appropriately and competently allocate resources, not to act as an advocate. This was part of an overall recommendation to better communicate with the sector, in order to manage expectations and reduce frustration amongst clients, partners, and stakeholders.

Progress: Beginning in the summer of 2009, CLBC started specific effort to clarify its role... increased efforts to manage and address unrealistic client and stakeholder expectations will be a focus of communications going forward."

3. More partnerships

Page 46: "A key component of this strategy going forward will be to more effectively communicate that the service delivery model for people in British Columbia is comprised of many parts, and that government-funded services are only one part of this support system."

4. More use of generic services

In other words, convince people requesting CLBC services to rely instead on community centres, etc.

Page 47: "CLBC annually conducts public awareness initiatives to raise awareness of the importance of inclusive communities and the work that CLBC does. The Start with Hi’ initiative is now in its third year, and aims to increase understanding

Page 48: "An Ageing Parents Planning Pamphlet was developed and explained to a number of community agencies, including mayors, community colleges, police departments, health services, hospitals and first emergency responders, and recreation and seniors centres."

5. Promote innovation

For more on how CLBC defines and measures success in achieving innovation, see Performance Metrics below.

6. More emphasis on employment

Page 25-26: "Transition from children’s services is challenging, in part because families are relatively richly served through MCFD and the education system. There is a wide perception that children and families come to CLBC with expectations that far exceed the ability of CLBC to financially meet, partly because they have become accustomed to special education and MCFD-supported services that are not as vigorously tested for relevance to disability-related need. Particularly with respect to the education system, there are clear opportunities to streamline service provision, rationalize approaches, and address discrepancies in family expectations versus government and public resources.

"...CLBC estimates (very roughly) that about 50% of its current clientele is employable, but have grown up in a system that assumes they will not work, and fails them by not teaching relevant skills and abilities. CLBC, looking to jurisdictions like Washington State, is at the start of a process to put much more emphasis on employment supports and services. There is recognition that it will be challenging and require significant investments to shift individuals and families from a fully supported, service-dependant environment to an approach that emphasizes employment readiness, as it must be based (at least initially) on a very individualized approach.

"...CLBC is now exploring ways of promoting employment readiness and employment support services. Options under consideration include the recognition and fostering of agencies who are committed to employment first programs over those who retain community inclusion/day programs."

Future directions

If you've been following the decade-long community living restructuring, you will have read all this before - it's the same old failed zombie ideas presented by the same people in report after report since the Doug Walls glory days of 2001: In short: a serious attitude adjustment is all that's needed to compensate for government's unwillingness to pay its share to maintain supports for adults with developmental disabilities."

Once again, here are all the key components of the same old failed strategy:

1. De-emphasize paid supports

Page 90: "Many participants [See below for participants list - the only "participants" Queenswood consulted for this study were ministry and CLBC bureaucrats] in this review characterized CLBC (and the developmental disabilities sector in general) as being over-professionalized and overly focused on assessing need for paid care in its service delivery approach. This is not out of the norm with other jurisdictions, who also tend to emphasize paid supports. However, there is a growing recognition that, in the context of increasing demands and scarce resources, governments must address daunting financial restraints in a different manner."

2. Individualized funding

"Individualized funding was...at the core of CLBC’s service delivery and operational model... (Implementation has) been hampered by a general resistance...amongst CLBC’s front-line staff...There has also been a reluctance among families to assume the role of employer (and)...efforts have also suffered from a lack of leadership and support at the governance and political levels to strongly move families towards this option."

If families refuse to choose this option (as they failed to "choose" to give up group homes across the board), government should simply choose it for them.

3. Employment

"CLBC has been placing a greater emphasis on employment supports and services. Many believe the current system, from MCFD and Ministry of Education, prepares people to expect paid supports, and to specifically not consider the option of employment."

On the contrary, families of adults and youths who are capable of employment or supported employment have been fighting for more supports that promote independence, not less. That includes families fighting CLBC efforts to cut and restrict access to supported employment and training programs.

4. Adult transition

"There is a widely shared sense that the level of service that children and youth obtain from MCFD and the education system is so full [They actually said that - see Page 92] compared to what is available to them as adults that they are inevitably disappointed when they come to CLBC for assistance. Many believe that these systems result in a sense of dependency and an automatic presumption of paid services and supports... Earlier, more integrated communications to families – even if the message is only that there will be far fewer services to draw from when youths turn 19 – can only help to reduce conflict and smooth the transition to the adult service delivery system."

Good luck with that.

5. New assessment tools

"Steps are underway to identify options for assessment tools that would have a wider application, with the goal of identifying and implementing a standardized tool for assessing disability related needs for individuals with developmental. This work will include identifying the issues and options associated with implementing cross-ministry tools to enhance consistency of decision making, resource allocation and service fairness. "

See #7 below. The direction indicated is a single system serving CLBC and the broader disability population, with a simplified needs rating system (high, medium, low) and each individual gets a standard individualized funding allocation (covering health needs, community living, employment support, disability supports, social assistance etc) to buy what they can.

6. Disparity between DD and other disabilities

"The average amount of funding that is available for an adult with a developmental disability far exceeds that of adults with other disabilities... It is partly due, for example, to the relatively rich funding contracts that accompanied the closure of the institutions...but the sector remains characterized by a well-organized advocacy arm that is vigilant against any attempts to structure lower level services into the system."

Where does this bizarre comparison come from? Does the wheelchair-using Minister Cadieux think that an adult with IQ below 70, autism, life- threatening health issues and no verbal ability is a "lucky ducky" who should stop complaining and count him/herelf fortunate compared to her because they might at some point qualify for a home share placement and she doesn't?

7. Rational approach

"A different option would be to work towards a system that provides much more predictability and stability, perhaps through the automatic granting of set levels of funding. Different funding levels could be based on key factors such as the individual’s age and broad level of need (high, medium, low, for example).... Set, capped levels of funding would also provide government with much more predictability for financial planning."

This model is beloved of bureaucrats for its simplicity, but highly unfair to individuals and families, and an ineffective way to allocate scarce tax dollars in terms of benefits per dollar. Like the controversial new UK model and the autism funding models, everyone gets the same funding, regardless of the wide range of actual individual need within their category. It works well for those who can afford to top up their allocation out-of-pocket (i.e. wealthier folks) but is a disaster for those who have no resources to add when the funding is not enough to cover urgent needs. The result is an additional burden on other social services that are already severely stressed.

8. Cultural challenges

"Many participants in this review [i.e. bureaucrats] spoke of a sense of entitlement among families in this sector that is stronger than other sectors. Many of the families that lead advocacy in the sector are highly skilled, resourced, and committed to increasing the level of funding that individuals receive, rather than considering alternative support methods including an expanded custodial and care role for families themselves. Many families in this sector have high expectations for supporting their sons and daughters, and the sector has a demonstrated history of political sophistication to advance its goals. This is a fundamental contributing factor to the difficulty in making meaningful changes to the service delivery system as evidenced, for example, in the challenges that CLBC experiences when trying to shift individuals living in group homes whose needs do not match the need for this level of service to living in community.

"Addressing this culture should be at the core of any directions that government takes towards the service delivery system for people with developmental disabilities."

The problem is not CLBC, it's the families trying to hold the CLBC bureaucracy accountable for living up to the mandate that its political masters promise. Silence the families/Outside Noise and the problem magically goes away. (Forgive the profanity, but only a bunch of a$$-kissing bureaucrats could come up with such a brilliant solution!)

Other observations of interest:

CLBC Performance metrics:

Page 30 - 31: Performance indicator: "Innovation"

"Explanation: - Percentage of individuals newly entering into residence who do not go to staffed group homes; - Number of individuals who started the fiscal year in group home, but moved to another setting."

Performance indicator: "Quality of Life and Safety"

"Explanation: Total number of individuals deceased in the reporting period."

These are extraordinarily narrow measures of how well CLBC is doing, especially if one of the founding principles of CLBC was supposedly to improve the quality of lives of the people it serves. Not dying is currently about as good as it gets in terms of a good quality of life, as far as CLBC is concerned.

Queenswood's 2008 recommendations

Although 12 of 27 recommendations from the 2008 Queenswood review are incomplete or ongoing, Queenswood concludes that the "vast majority" are "substantively" complete. The issues it deems substantively resolved include performance management, integration with other government systems, fostering use of generic services and managing expectations, which Queenswood specifically identifies in this latest report as key concerns going forward. This is a significant contradition. Further, those deemed "complete" were checked off largely if not solely on the strength of CLBC's claim that the issue had been resolved (thanks to sloppy editing, Queenswood inserted "CLBC completed but forgot to delete the "we" from text that was clearly inserted verbatim from CLBC). One such example was the 2008 recommendation to review use of the controversial GSA assessment tool:

Page 43: "In March 2010, testing and feedback indicated that the a revised version of the GSA had greater reliability than the previous version. It was recognized that further enhancements would continue to enhance the tool’s efficacy and CLBC decided not to adopt another planning tool. The GSA remains in place as the primary tool for assessing need and allocation appropriate resources. Complete. "

So what about all those complaints in fall 2011 that CLBC staff rigged/ revised GSA scores to justify a proposed contract reduction?

Confusion over CLBC caseloads

Page 7: "CLBC currently carries a caseload of 13,696 individuals with a developmental disability and 181 individuals with FASD or ASD (September 2011)."

In other words, when CLBC says it's serving 13,700 adults, plus another 181 individuals through the PSI program, they're counting anyone they're in contact with, regardless of whether they're actually receiving any CLBC services or not. Many of the individuals whom CLBC claims to be "serving" are not receiving any CLBC-funded services at all.

Although it's hard to see how there could be any confusion between the verb "serve" and the noun "service," Queenswood accepts CLBC's outrageous misrepresentation of whom it is actually "serving."

- 10,856 individuals who are receiving services and supports appropriate to their needs.

- 2,126 individuals who are currently receiving services but who have also requested additional services.

- 832 individuals who are currently not receiving services."

Waitlists

Page 14: "For people not receiving service, the most frequently requested service is community inclusion such as skill development or employment.

Page 15: "While the demand for services is certainly growing and outstripping available resources (the RFSL included 2,327 individuals one year ago and 1,895 individuals two years ago), the bare numbers do not provide any sense of the more nuanced context. As summarized on the table below, 72% of people on the RFSL currently receive services and are waiting for more. Only 16% have been without any services for more than six months."

Glass half full/half empty: Almost 30% of those on the list (a number equivalent to CLBC's annual caseload increase - i.e. a full year's backlog) are receiving no services at all. When you add those who are only receiving services for 1 day a week or less, the number waiting is almost equivalent to a full 2-year backlog of new clients receiving no services or minimal services.

Families have also complained that many service requests are not included in this list. These gaps are not mentioned in the review, so the numbers waiting may be far higher.

Data on CLBC service delivery

• Residential services: 2,508 in group homes, 3.176 in other residential (average residential cost $75,202)
• Individual and family suport services: 7,797 users (average cost of $27,445)
• Employment services: 1,534 (average cost $4,563)
• Compared to other jurisdictions, CLBC's eligibility criteria to access services are more restrictive, so the population served has relatively higher needs on average (Page 71).
• CLBC's average spending per client, compared to other jurisdictions: housing (average); facilitation and referral (much lower); individual and family supports (average); and employment services (lower).
• BC's disability benefit rates are also the lowest among the comparable jurisdictions.

Although BC spending per client is average or less than other jurisdictions, despite limiting access to a smaller, higher-needs group, Queenswood concludes that "BC is a leader in meeting the demands of families of people with developmental disabilities."

Participants in the Queenswood review

For this report, the only individuals whom Queenswood actually consulted were the same Ministry and CLBC bureaucrats responsible for the current crisis in the first place. (See Appendix 2).

1. Funding:

Of the $40 million in "new" funding announced:

• Only $18 million is directed to CLBC operations, of which $9 million was the emergency funding announced last September – leaving $9 million in new money, but an $18 million yearly increase moving forward;
• $12 million is “tagged” by the government from the contingency budget to spend in case of caseload increases;
• $10 million is earmarked from the Ministry of Social Development for day and employment programs and transitioning youth;

Compare this to an estimated $70 million that CLBC needs just to address current waitlists, with at least 3,000 documented unmet requests for support from CLBC-eligible clients on hold. Waitlists grew during a two-year funding freeze in 2010 and 2011 when the number of clients grew by 5% annually. Besides millions needed to resolve the backlog, CLBC needs further budget increases of $35 million in April 2012 and again in April 2013, just to address projected 5% caseload growth for each of the next two years.

Conclusion: Better than zero but this is a Band-aid, not a solution. Stay tuned for more gut-wrenching crises and more outside noise.

2. Independent Advocate:

The Children's Advocate, Mary Ellen Turpel Lafond, will be given a limited mandate to advocate on behalf of youth turning 19 as they transition into adult services. This is very good news for young adults, but it completely fails CLBC's most vulnerable clients -- the hundreds of older clients who have no families to advocate for them, who can't go to the media when they have a problem, and who are unable to access the support of appeal mechanisms like the Advocate for Service Quality or the Client Support Team.

Conclusion: A+ for extending the mandate of the Children's Adocate, and a resounding F for the disgraceful and cynical failure to provide equal support for the more vulnerable older adult population who can't cause Premier Clark the same kind of political pain by describing their abuse/neglect at the hands of CLBC in front of the TV cameras.

3. Deputies' report

This report by senior provincial bureaucrats relied primarily on the internal audit and the CLBC Board's new vision report, released before Christmas. It proposes better coordination of CLBC services with other agencies and during adult transitions, plus more reliance on non-CLBC services (same old, same old).

In short, the Deputies' advice is that families and adults expect too much and that CLBC and its clients should stop complaining and get used to less support from govt.

Conclusion: F

4. CLBC Audit report

Key issues are summarized below:

1) Omissions: The auditors did not acknowledge, investigate or report on most of the troubling allegations around CLBC practices, as raised by families and the media:

• Firing of Vancouver coastal director Paul Sibley, which allegations have linked to contracting practices.
• Serious contracting and practice irregularities noted in the Lister consultants report, as reported by Global News and the Victoria Times Colonist.
• Complaints (Vancouver Sun) that CLBC staff improperly changed needs assessments using the GSA tool to justify contract cuts, or misled home share contractors by failing to be transparent about known risks like violence history, in efforts to reduce contract costs.
• Complaints about abusive/unprofessional contracting practices:  alleged threats, intimidation, or blackballing of contractors who raise health and safety concerns, allegations re preferential awards & of wildly divergent contract values for similar needs. Allegations that moonlighting CLBC staff paid themselves higher rates while cutting other contractors.
• Complaints about oversight failures: that clients were left in home shares with expired contracts, clients whose placement, status and care was rarely or never inspected by CLBC and or agency supervisors.

Conclusion: F. These are serious omissions that seriously undermine the report's credibility. Sweeping problems under the rug will do nothing to restore confidence in CLBC or help the agency get on track! Expect more outside noise.

2.  Projections: The audit admits CLBC has a good handle on projected caseload increases but claims that's meaningless for planning and budget purposes without detailed assessments of exactly what services each future client will need.

It's a ludicrous assertion: In no other arm of this or any other government can bureaucrats predict exactly what will be needed by a consumer who walks in the door a year or two in the future.

3. Waitlists: After months of denying it had any waitlists, CLBC released data in September 2011 showing that 2,126 clients were receiving some services but were waiting for additional or enhanced services; while another 832 eligible adults were waiting and had not yet received any CLBC services.

While imperfect, CLBC's client file management system and waitlist data is better than most other arms of govt. The Children's Ministry, for example, can only guess how many kids most of their programs serve, and claims to have no ability to even estimate unmet service requests.

Yet the government auditors, after reviewing a sample of files from CLBC's Request for Service List (RFSL) and allegedly finding it riddled with errors, concluded that CLBC's waitlist numbers were unreliable and overstated. They concluded therefore that the data did not support the $65 million CLBC has requested from the province to eliminate the backlog, or the new funding required to meet projected caseload increases in 2012 and 2013.

The conclusion is at odds with the results of CLBC's December 2010 customer satisfaction survey, which also addresses the question of unmet needs. The audit cites the survey results, which actually support CLBC's waitlist estimates, and indeed suggest that unmet needs as per CLBC's RFSL may be understated, not overstated. It will be interesting to see the results of the December 2011 satisfaction survey, but it's not clear when that will be released.

QUOTE: "In recent months, CLBC has been subjected to extensive scrutiny and criticism, mostly due to client dissatisfaction. This is reflected in CLBC’s annual client satisfaction survey which in December 2010 indicated a client satisfaction rate of 71%, down from 76% in 2009. Of the clients reporting dissatisfaction with CLBC in 2010, 63% were waiting to receive services."

So 63% of 29% of CLBC's existing 13,700 clients were unhappy because they were waiting to receive services. That works out to 2,500 unhappy clients waiting to receive services a year ago.

A closer look at reported errors in the CLBC waitlists suggest more sloppy work on the part of the auditors:

1. QUOTE: "CLBC allows clients without a completed GSA to identify specific services they would like to receive and have them placed on the RFSL. As a result, the validity of the list is compromised because the requests have not been assessed by CLBC staff."

The draft GSA (Guide to Service Allocation) is not an official policy. It is simply an internal management tool used to ration available resources to meet legitimate community living support needs among eligible clients. It does not establish eligibility or validate service requests (both are determined by Legislation), so this is a nonsensical assertion. CLBC clients and their families must work with a CLBC facilitator to draw up an individual service plan, a lengthy, rigorous & detailed process. All requests from CLBC-eligible adults that are consistent with that plan are legitimate requests. The Deputies' report also acknowledges flaws with the GSA, which has been widely condemned as flawed, subjective and open to abuse.

2. QUOTE: "Some clients who were receiving CLBC funded services were incorrectly identified in the RFSL as not receiving any services and some clients had not had their priority score adjusted upon receiving CLBC-funded services."

Neither issue would change the overall waitlist numbers, or whether these are still legitimate unmet needs. The auditors are again asserting that only clients who score over 70 on CLBC's internal priority ranking tool have legitimate requests for service. This priority ranking system is simply another internal resource rationing tool, which has no relevance in establishing what are/are not legitimate requests for support from eligible clients.

The auditors make no reference to the 2005 Community Living Authority Act (as amended) to inform themselves or to evaluate the RFSL against CLBC's actual legislated mandate and service eligibility criteria:

QUOTE: "...in relation to the provision of community living support, the authority must endeavour to

(a) offer a range of funding and planning options that promote choice, flexibility and self-determination, for example, individualized funding, independent planning support and the involvement of community resources,

(b) promote choice and innovation in the manner in which services are delivered,

(c) encourage shared responsibility among families, service providers and community resources,

(d) utilize and further develop the capacity of individuals, families and community resources,

(e) assist adults with developmental disabilities to achieve maximum independence and live full lives in their communities,

(f) promote equitable access to community living support, and

(g) coordinate the provision of community living support with services provided by the government and community resources..."

Any request for support consistent with the above, submitted by an individual with a "developmental disability" as defined by the Act, and consistent with an individual service plan, is a valid request for service. The RFSL is therefore a reflection of the growing gap between legitimate requests and the extent to which Premier Christy Clark's government is willing to fund CLBC's mandated "endeavours."

CLBC also has other legislated obligations, such as adult guardianship and the Community Care Licensing Act, but the audit also failed to investigate compliance with these responsibilities despite serious allegations raised by stakeholders.

QUOTE: "While CLBC has not been able to fully demonstrate and support their need for increased funding, British Columbia is comparable to other provincial jurisdictions in the amount of funding it provides, based on the average per individual as at 2010/11 as shown in the following graph."

As noted in the Deputies' report, CLBC's eligibility criteria are narrower than the comparator jurisdictions, which means that CLBC is being asked to serve a higher-needs population with the same or less average per capita funding as the other jurisdictions compared in Canada and internationally.

Other issues include... QUOTE: "Services being requested that are not required for several months or years, resulting in the list overstating the current demand for services."

What is meant by "not required"? CLBC has recently been telling elderly parents requesting crisis supports that the requested services are not considerd necessary until within 48 hours of their anticipated death. The failure to evaluate the requests against CLBC's legislated mandate again undermines the conclusion that these are not legitimate unmet needs.

QUOTE: "As at September 30, 2011, there were 2,958 clients on the RFSL of which 2,126 were receiving services but had requested additional or enhanced services; and 832 had not yet received any CLBC services. These numbers are likely overstated given the inherent problems in the RFSL; the true number of clients waiting for new or enhanced services is not known."

Many families reported to the Minister after checking with CLBC and finding their own requests for service, registered in the context of an approved individual plan, were not included in the RFSL. Despite such complaints, the audit team did not investigate how many legitimate service requests were NOT included on the RFSL.

Clearly, some errors in the RFSL are legitimate errors, but not all errors are equal. In addition to the flawed evaluations and the failure to consider legislated mandates, as noted above, the Audit team's vague and misleading assertions failed to quantify how many times they encountered various "errors," and how such "errors" would materially affect the reliability of CLBC's  estimates of unmet need and new funding required.

4. Bias: Viewed collectively, the content of the audit report, with the errors and ommissions noted above, demonstrates a strong, clear bias. In sum, the distinct impression is that this audit was commissioned and directed to achieve a specific objective -- i.e. to undermine confidence in CLBC's waitlist data and projected caseload increases, while dismissing broader concerns about CLBC's management in relation to its legislated mandate, to provide political cover for the Premier's failure to respond to documented needs and concerns.

5. Management salaries: The audit also looks at management compensation, but adds little to what has already been discussed in the media.

6. Conflict of Interest: The single achievement of the audit report was the auditors' discovery that CLBC employees moonlighting as contractors to their own agency was a clear conflict of interest (how is it that CLBC's professional board, CEO and entire management team couldn't see what was so obvious to families in the sector?

Conclusion: The Audit report warrants an F. Families continue to demand an independent review, and CLBC will continue to lurch from crisis to crisis, since it appears to deliberately overlook most of the problems.

We thank all of you who have entrusted us with your stories, your hopes, your frustration and your fears. We are doing our best to bring these issues to public attention, with the help of our BC Community Living Action Group partners and with strong interest and support from the provincial media, in the hope of finally pressuring government to take real action.

Below, with permission, is an example of one of the dozens of letters in our inbox yesterday.

----- Original Message -----

To: [email protected]

Sent: Monday, November 21, 2011 1:57 PM

Subject: CLBC

Honorable Stephanie Cadieux:

This morning I had the opportunity to listen to you regarding CLBC on CKNW. It seems that despite the huge crisis in CLBC you still strongly believe (or keep telling yourself and want others to believe) that CLBC is meeting the needs of most families. That the huge media blitz is overrated and that there are just a few families being affected and are in actual crisis.

I can tell you that you are very wrong. There are countless families who are needlessly suffering emotional and financial stress due to CLBC's lack of concern, acknowledgement of problems and lack of financial support. Have you had a good chat with any of your front line facilatators or social workers lately? How's the morale?

To pay the CEO bonuses for not adequately supporting families in crisis is morally wrong and unethical. For you and the government to continually support a board that refuses to assist families in crisis is sickening.

Why do I feel this way? Because we are one of those families, we are just one of many. Thank God we have finally received some home share funding for our son but only after a significant long term crisis!

We begged for help. Care Plan after Care Plan was submitted and revised by me as I sought help and made revisions just so our family could survive. Finally we were forced to have our son removed from our home. Still CLBC refused funding, instead they preferred to use up significant police, ambulance and local hospital resources and expected the hospital to provide his housing. Then CLBC staff suggested and threatened that he be moved to the local homeless shelter. I won't go into the details as I have already done that in numerous emails to Premier Christy Clark and the former Minister for CLBC in May 2011.

Already I suspect the funding for our homeshare is not enough; as I am already getting hints from him (only four short months into the contract) that he feels he is not getting enough and was "railroaded" in the contract.

I have friends who are aging, unwell and tired, yet their facilitator told them they will likely not get funding for their son till they die. That's encouraging!

Apparently the funding contract for our son's home share provider is top secret. CLBC and contract provider can't tell; won't tell; confidential. Yet some staff at CLBC are getting multiple funding contracts for multiple homeshare clients. They know funding contracts and are negotiating their own contracts while working full time for CLBC! Interesting. How can this be? Don't home share clients require significant care? How are providers able to work full time or even part time if they are home share providers for needy clients? How do CLBC staff negotiate their own contracts if $ amounts are top secret? Who takes responsibility if our current home share provider feels his funding contract is too low? He's getting wind that others are paid more. What is the funding formula and why is it not consistent? Who negotitiates and advocates on behalf of a potential home share provider who is not familiar with a system full of conflicts of interest? Where's the accountability of home share providers? What safeguards, controls and oversight is there to these home shares? Who's watching that homeshare providers are actually doing what they are supposed to be doing, such as life skills training?

For 18 years I've been a stay at home parent due to my son's significant needs. How does one get one or multiple homeshare clients and still manage to hold down a full time job?

Lots of questions, lots of irregularities, lots of mismanagement and I suspect some are getting rich on the backs of needy, vulnerable individuals and families who are suffering needlessly.

Economy wise; families in crisis don't help the economy much either as it causes unnecessary mental health issues to ALL family members. Hard for a husband to work when his family life is in crisis. Might explain why divorce rates among families with special needs kids is so high. Has the Finance Minister ever considered that? Would Premier Christy Clark be Premier if her son was Autistic, Deaf and had Cerebral Palsy?

My whole family has paid a price!

Also, one more key question...... Can you tell me why there is an endless pot of money in the medical/hospital setting (ex.Children's hospital) where babies of all gestational ages and ailments are saved yet the pot dries out once these vulnerable, needy, disabled children are lovingly placed into the arms of their parents and sent home? Why is it that at that point almost all parents left out in the cold? The "AT Home Program" is not adequately funded, parents receive little supports or respite, if any, and then after 19 long years there is again no funding at the CLBC end. Any answers to that question?

Sincerely

(Name withheld to protect family confidentiality)

• Read the Minister's comments in today's Victoria Times Colonist and Vancouver Sun

The minister said her client support team has ordered CLBC to provide more services after validating more than 60% of the complaints reviewed to date.

• Find out more about the Minister's community living client support team and how you can file a complaint.

MOMS has written to the Minister to raise a number of concerns relating to her client support team and her comments in the media.  Minister Cadieux and Premier Christy Clark are still trying to manage the community living crisis as a public relations exercise when what is needed is a commitment to working in good faith with families and other community partners to effect real change.

Read a copy of our letter below:

Dear Minister Cadieux

According to reports in today's media, you have stated that the crisis in community living crisis "is not maybe as large as some would like us to believe it is" because your new client support team has only received 63 complaints.

We wish to express our disappointment at the disrespect your statement shows for the many hundreds of caring families, caregivers and community partners who have contributed enormous volunteer time and effort, in good faith, to help to identify key challenges in community living and offer positive solutions.

For over a year now, MOMS and other community partners have repeatedly sought to offer you and your predecessors our full support to help address the growing crisis in community living. We are volunteer family members who scramble to find time to give voice to the issues facing families in our provincial network - we have neither the time or interest to manufacture a phony crisis, as your comments suggest. We are also troubled by the continuing disinclination to acknowledge and accept responsibility for the serious, systemic issues in community living or to work respectifully with community partners to achieve meaningful change.

Your comments suggest you believe that 63 complaints to your client support team represent the full scope of problems within community living. That would be an astonishing assumption, given the following:

• You and your staff have have made no effort to directly inform the 13,000 adults and/or families served by CLBC about the existence of the new client support team and the procedures for filing a complaint, far less the thousands more eligible adults who currently receive no CLBC supports. The existence of this ad hoc team has only been communicated by a press release -- there has not even been a letter to families and adults informing them that this is now available.
• What about the 2,000 people identified as waitlisted for services, hundreds of whom have no services at all despite being confirmed as fully eligible and in need? Are you suggesting that 63 complaints means the other 1,900 are satisfied with CLBC's failure to provide the help they should be receiving?
• What about the hundreds of non-verbal adults in CLBC's care who have no family to call the client support team for them?
• What about all the families, individuals and care providers who have stated that they are afraid to complain to your client support team because they will be referred right back to the CLBC staff who denied them supports in the first place, and who have been threatened or intimidated into believing that they could lose existing funding if they complain?

The results of your client support team's work to date raise a further, troubling systemic concern. If over 60% of complaints so far have proved to be valid, how does the Minister expect families, adults and the public to have confidence in CLBC's ability to do its job? This follows months of families being forced to sacrifice their privacy by seeking resolution of their complaints via the media, with the minister repeatedly over-ruling CLBC decisions to deny urgently-needed supports.

And what does this say about the effectiveness of existing complaints resolutions systems for community living? Weeks ago, Minister, you personally informed us that the CLBC complaints office had a successful complaints resolution rate of over 90%. There is a major discrepancy between the statistics you gave us and the number of complaints now identified as unresolved and/or validated. Unreliable data and statistics - there's another issue to add to the list.

Finally, while any progress in resolving concerns is welcome, you should know that families have raised many concerns about your hastily-conceived client support team. Many report giving up after finding they are simply referred back to the same CLBC staff who were unable to address their needs in the first place, and who had nothing further to offer. You failed to consult with community partners before creating this client support team as a unilateral initiative. In doing so, you rejected a key recommendation from families, who have asked for a permanent, independent advocate with a transparent, legislated process for addressing individual complaints and systemic issues reporting to government and the public. There has been no discussion and inadequate transparency around the mandate, composition and operating procedures of your ad hoc internal team. Most people don't know it exists, few trust it and families have expressed concern that this is another piecemeal response that ignores the systemic nature of CLBC's problems.

Minister, your response to the community living crisis to date has done more to further erode confidence than to restore it. You have refused to work with community partners, you have rejected widespread calls for an open and transparent response, you have sought to dismiss and downplay the crisis at every turn and you have failed to understand the serious and systemic nature of the problems in community living.

But it's never too late to reverse this. We remain committed to collaborative solutions and urge you to reconsider the recommendations of the BC Community Living Action Group. If you have any interest in working with families going forward, we also urge you to issue an immediate clarification to your quoted comments addressing the above issues.

Dawn Steele & Cyndi Gerlach, MOMS

A history of Community Living

By Tracey Young, Burnaby Now

November 11, 2011

Dear Editor:

Community Living B.C. was doomed from the very beginning. It was never about greater individual and family control and improved service delivery. People have a short memory about how it was that Community Living B.C. was created. Read more

She argues that the flawed CLBC model was doomed from Day 1 and notes that the current crisis is just the latest, coming on the heels of the decision to return children's services to MCFD due to widespread concerns about serious gaps in how children under 19 and their families were being supported by CLBC. She also points out that scandal and alleged contracting irregularities dogged CLBC even before it was officially created in 2005.

Many argued that despite the grand vision, hopes and promises, CLBC was always intended by government to serve primarily as a mechanism to deflect political flack while doing the dirty work of cutting/controlling community living spending. That may have worked for a while. But recent media attention, while exposing new CLBC scandals almost daily, has kept the spotlight of accountability squarely on the political bosses in Victoria. Premier Christy Clark could escape accountability for a few months while she was new on the job. Then she bought herself another month by replacing the minister responsible and firing the CEO. But the continuing failure to respond decisively and transparently is quickly turning the CLBC crisis into Christy Clark's crisis, presenting a political opportunity that opposition parties will no doubt exploit.

The keystone of the CLBC design was to separate the role of "facilitators," which was supposed to turn social workers into strong advocates for adults instead of funding gatekeepers. But without the power to approve funding, CLBC's facilitators have become increasingly sidelined. The new "quality service analysts" who now control all funding decisions, and who have no social work training, are increasingly the ones who assess and respond to need.

We've heard the most appalling stories from families, agency directors, staff and home share providers, many of whom are too terrified of reprisals from CLBC to "go public."

• Home share contractors being paid the equivalent of $3/hour to care for adults with complex needs while CLBC staff and their relatives allegedly moonlight in the same roles at exorbitant rates.
• Home share "clients" with no contracts in place for almost a year, whose caregivers never hear or see anyone from CLBC -- sometimes for years! - unless they call to request a visit or report an issue.
• Agency executives describe meetings with CLBC officials in which all the agency directors sit staring into their laps, too afraid to speak or even make eye contact, after being traumatized and bullied into submission by brutal CLBC contract "re-negotiations" that have left their organizations surviving by the slimmest of threads.
• Families warned that if they complain about cuts they could lose the little they have.
• Families and caregivers who complain about lack of support suddenly finding CLBC investigating them as unfit care providers and/or taking their children away.

No one is suggesting that there are not also many good people doing the right thing or trying to do the best they can. But a system that allows such widespread failures and abuses is either deeply flawed or broken. CLBC cannot work if adults, families and the broader public don't trust its integrity and that it will act with the best interests of adults with developmental disabilities as the #1 objective.

And CLBC's mandate does not require it to serve the best interests of adults with developmental disabilities as its #1 objective. Its first responsibility is in fact to implement whatever budget or cuts government orders and to respond to whatever political priorities are set by the government of the day.  The Act that Christy Clark herself introduced in 2004 to create CLBC only requires the agency to "endeavour" to support adults with developmental disabilities while implementing whatever directions and budget it receives from the "shareholder" - i.e. Cabinet.

We're been asked whether CLBC should be dismantled. After watching hundreds of millions of dollars wasted on a decade of endless restructuring, the last thing I'd suggest is another major restructuring. Especially since a government bent on cutting community living will do it wherever it ends up and the results will be no less brutal than we've seen to date.

But is it worth spending $50 million a year from the community living budget on what's become an elaborate government contract management division? That question has assumed more urgency with recent allegations that CLBC's contract management has in some cases amounted to little more than a protection racket - with some families, agencies and caregivers bullied, threatened and coerced without mercy while others allegedly get sweetheart deals and/or exemptions from cuts?

What do you think?

UPDATE: Last week, a senior CLBC manager told agency directors that notwithstanding all the media coverage and government assurances, CLBC's orders are that it's "business as usual." That means more cuts to more people currently receiving services this year and further rounds over the next two years to accommodate all the youths turning 19 who have critical health and safety needs. The Minister was also overheard privately stating that there will be no new money for community living, so families, caregivers, staff and agencies will have to get used to supporting more adults with less government funding.