BC’s Ministry of Children and Family Development has just announced an end to the Autism Funding Programs and school-age extended therapy benefits, effective 2025. See media release here: https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2021CFD0067-002047

There are very few details of what will replace the program; the lack of specifics is likely to cause parents significant anxiety. However, there is time to develop a community response to this initiative – the first step is to see whether MCFD has a detailed plan that can be analyzed. ACT will work with our community partners across disabilities, including the Representative for Children and Youth, to prepare detailed questions for Minister Mitzi Dean. 

We are especially concerned to determine if the new initiative will be grounded on evidence-based practice. We are also concerned about whether there will be guaranteed levels of service, and the funding to support adequate interventions for all children with support needs. A very important consideration is whether there will be parent choice in service providers.

If you are the caregiver of a child with support needs and have questions or concerns that you would like to share with ACT, please fill in the form linked below. We will be compiling this information and posting it on a special page on ACT’s website.

Share your input

https://forms.office.com/r/k69mifvea5 

Update: MCFD has posted the recording of the press conference with Minister Mitzi Dean regarding this announcement. View the full conference here.

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Questions for ACT? Email us at [email protected].

MCFD’s June 22nd press release announced its limited pandemic supports for families will continue through the summer. View the full press release.

How many ‘new families’ will benefit?

It is unclear how many new families will benefit from this announcement – whether the 1,300 families who received $225 a month from the Emergency Relief Fund as of April, will still receive it after July 1st when the next round of funding begins. The release refers to doubling but does not specify how much MCFD is investing in this new initiative. MCFD has specified that 30,000 children are eligible for emergency respite funding, depending on their level of need and have left it to social workers to decide.

Katrine Conroy, Minister of Children and Family Development

Minister Conroy’s emergency response focuses on a new service delivery framework

On June 23, 2020, Minister Katrine Conroy, in a CBC interview defended MCFD’s much criticized emergency response record. Many families are reporting to the media and to their MLA’s that they feel desperate and abandoned by government. See ACT’s Community Feedback – Responses from Families.

The Minister defended the lack of emergency funding for respite supports for all families of children with special needs in crisis, by focusing on MCFD’s plan for a new MCFD service delivery framework – which will not be released until 2021.

Unlike other ministers, both provincial and federal, Minister Conroy does not differentiate between the requirement of government to provide emergency support and the long-term issues of policy development. If those responsible for the extended care sector in B.C. had decided to provide a limited emergency response to only 10 per cent of COVID-19 infected care homes for only three months, while they overhauled long-term policy, it would have been a catastrophe.

No New Money – will clawing back autism funding pay for emergency respite?

A common thread that is running through MCFD’s response is that there appears to be no new money for this huge ministry tasked with protecting the most vulnerable children in the province. The current emergency provisions give families more flexibility in spending the existing limited funding envelopes that they already have, but no new money is being pumped into MCFD. The money that MCFD is clawing back in unused Autism Funding that families can’t spend on therapy could pay for this limited respite many times over.

Details of the June 22 Announcement

Emergency Relief Fund “Final Round” – July 1 to September 30, 2020

This “final round” of the short-term Emergency Relief Support fund, which provides payments of $225 per month for three months to eligible families, will be made available from July 1 to September 30, 2020. Children/youth who are eligible for the Autism Funding Program and the At Home Program medical benefits are eligible for this funding if approved for MCFD CYSN services prior to June 15, 2020. It has not been made clear if families who previously received these payments will be eligible for the second round of support.

When first announced in their April 8th press release, the Emergency Relief Fund consisted of $900,000. The MCFD has not announced what the funding envelope is for this “doubling” of emergency support.

Autism Funding extension still limited

The limited autism funding extension for children turning 6 or 19 has been extended to include children whose 6th or 19th birthday falls between March 15, 2020 and August 31, 2020. These families will be allowed three additional months to use unspent funding. The continued refusal of MCFD to extend contracts for all, because of the disruption to therapy triggered by COVID-19, has infuriated families. Nearly 8,000 signatures have been added to the petition calling on MCFD to reverse its decision. The primary request is that MCFD allow all families of children with autism to have more time to spend their treatment funding, given COVID-19 has shut down most therapy services.

ACT’s advocacy efforts will continue

ACT continues to call on Minister Katrine Conroy and Premier John Horgan to provide clear, compassionate and rapid support measures to families desperately trying to care for their vulnerable children. We urge families and the professionals who support them to let them know that this is not the time to focus on balancing government budgets at the expense of the most vulnerable. To read the letters from families that ACT has been copied on, see Community Feedback on COVID-19.

It is worth acknowledging that the pressure that families are bringing to bear on the provincial government through their advocacy efforts are having an effect. Families and professionals should continue to contact the provincial government. The letters we are receiving from across the province make very real the confusion and distress of families supporting children with special needs. In contrast, the Ministry of Social Development and Community Living BC have done a much better job of being compassionate and transparent.

Share your advocacy efforts with the special needs community

We invite the special needs community, including professionals, to share your feedback on ACT’s Facebook Page or by email to [email protected] if they wish to remain anonymous. We have especially appreciated the insights of Children and Youth with Special Needs Social Workers and we would like to hear from school district staff who are taking the initiative to provide in school support.

MCFD and MOE’s ‘relaxed’ attitude to special needs families in crisis

ACT continues to investigate how the COVID-19 crisis is affecting B.C. families with children with special needs, including those with autism. Neither the Ministries of Education or Children and Family Development have taken significant measures to seek out and support families in crisis. Most families struggling with high needs children are not receiving wrap-around supports including access to school and increased funding from MCFD. ACT is concerned that more children will end up in foster care or at risk at home, in the absence of sufficient support.  Read ACT’s update and let us know – are you concerned for vulnerable families?

Families in crisis facing complacent ministers

An update released by the MCFD Minister, Katrine Conroy, and MOE Minister, Rob Fleming, on April 14th has announced they will meet next week to coordinate a response. This meeting will be held over a month after the COVID-19 stripped families of children with high needs of all their supports. Neither minister appears to have an understanding of the stark realities that families with special needs are facing across B.C. Meanwhile, concerns within the special needs community are growing that many children are at severe risk and that neither MOE or MCFD are responding responsibly.

Forcing special needs children into foster care

It is appalling that these families are only being offered such limited support and that it is not being extended to all families trying to keep their high needs children in a stable environment. The $225 a month for three months is not enough to transform the lives of those with special needs who are now in crisis.

The practice of successive B.C. governments, over many years, has been to ignore families of children of special needs until they are in crisis. This has forced a growing number of parents to place their children in government care because they can’t ensure that their children are safe at home. Many of those children have autism and a significant percentage are aboriginal.  The chronic lack of support is now putting thousands under unprecedented strain and it is doubtful whether there are enough qualified foster homes in the province to deal with the influx of children into care that should be anticipated.

Just as COVID-19 is showing the terrible deficits in care for the elderly, it is exposing the chronic underfunding of support from MCFD for vulnerable children.

Still no concrete initiatives available from MOE

Both the Minister of Education, Rob Fleming and the Premier, John Horgan, have made it clear that school districts are free to decide how to support vulnerable students, including those with special needs.  Very few districts to date have issued information to parents of students with special needs to convey to those who are in crisis how they can access practical one-to-one support at their child’s school. Those that have should be recognized for raising the bar.

Time for unions and district human resource departments to step up

A recent snapshot by BCEdAccess indicates that there is no standard response coming from school districts on how to support the many children with special needs who cannot be supported remotely. Their teachers and educational assistants will know who needs to be brought to school. POPARD, the Provincial Organization for Autism and Related Disorder, funded by MOE, has published information to help families contact those responsible in their school district.

Although teachers and Special Education Assistants are still being paid, it is disappointing that neither CUPE or the BCTF has mobilized their members to offer practical in school support to students with special needs. Rather Human Resources departments in school districts appear to be focused on ensuring that school employees are not put under any stress, and the unions have supported this. Yet the Ministry of Health has determined that providing support to children with special needs is an essential service.

There are many teachers and other special education staff across the province who want to engage with their students but are being held back by the constraints of the HR departments at the district level who are responding to union demands. A compromise would be to allow those staff who do not want to provide individualized support to request to be laid-off. If there are union locals who can provide ACT with examples of how they are expediting support we would appreciate receiving these examples at [email protected].

MCFD’s rigidity is fueling parent petition – now 6,600 signatures and growing

A petition to MCFD has reached 6,600 signatures, and is continuing to grow, fueled by parental fears that their children with autism will lose their therapy funding if MCFD continues to refuse to extend the children’s contracts. The primary request is that MCFD allow families of children with autism to have more time to spend their treatment funding, given COVID-19 has shut down most therapy services.

There is a growing conviction among families and professionals that Minister Katrine Conroy is profoundly out of touch. The Minister has not given a press conference to explain MCFD’s stance. The number one question that families want Minister Conway to address is why she is refusing to allow a contract extension that would not add costs for MCFD?

Autism Funding Programs cost government $85 million in 2018/2019. Many believe that MCFD, a chronically underfunded ministry, is using this opportunity to claw back millions in unspent autism funding at a time when the majority of affected families are preoccupied with survival and keeping their children out of government care. Ironically, MCFD, which is tasked with protecting vulnerable children, may be the only B.C. ministry that saves money during COVID-19, while these children and their families suffer the most hardship.

ACT’s advocacy efforts will continue 

ACT continues to call on Minister Katrine Conroy and Premier John Horgan to provide clear, compassionate and rapid support measures to families desperately trying to care for their vulnerable children. It is also time that Minister Rob Fleming issue clear instructions to all school districts that they are required to be pro-active, not merely phoning to ‘check-in’. We urge families and the professionals who support them to email Ministers Conroy and Fleming and Premier Horgan to let them know that this is not the time to focus on balancing government budgets at the expense of the most vulnerable.

To read the heartbreaking letters from families that ACT has been copied on, see Community Feedback on COVID-19.

Share your advocacy efforts with the special needs community 

We invite the special needs community, including professionals, to share your feedback to government on ACT’s Facebook Page or by email to [email protected], if you wish to remain anonymous. We have especially appreciated the insights of Children and Youth with Special Needs Social Workers. And we would like to hear from school district staff who are taking the initiative to provide in school support.

COVID-19 Resources on Autism and Special Needs

ACT is continuing to update information on advocacy efforts and resources on our COVID-19 page. We welcome your suggestions for new resources at [email protected].

View COVID-19 Resources