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Report’s Recommendations for Disabled Kids are ‘Urgent,’ Advocate Says

‘We will respond to what we’re hearing,’ says Jodie Wickens, the province’s new minister of children and family development.

Katie Hyslop 30 Jan 2025The Tyee

Katie Hyslop is a reporter for The Tyee. Follow them on Bluesky @kehyslop.bsky.social.

The Office of the Representative for Children and Youth has released a new report urging the government to act now to ensure kids with disabilities “receive the supports they need to thrive.”

The report comes two years after the province paused its service reform, which had promised to end individualized funding for autistic kids and youth and instead create Family Connection Centres to provide one-stop-shop services for all kids with disabilities.

The Office of the Representative for Children and Youth has published a dozen reports advocating for more services, support and funding for families of kids with disabled kids since the office was founded in 2007.

"Too Many Left Behind: Ensuring Children and Youth with Disabilities Thrive," released yesterday, offers an overview of the ongoing underfunding and under resourcing of services and supports for kids and their families, while recommending sustainably funded, wrap-around supports.

The report notes that this has been a consistent theme for the Representative for Children and Youth since 2010.

“It’s time for an all-of-government approach to ensure the well-being of children and families,” Representative for Children and Youth Jennifer Charlesworth said during a Zoom call with journalists.

“Particularly those with heightened vulnerabilities and those that have traditionally faced tremendous inequities and challenges in receiving services and supports.”

The source of the problem, according to the report, is that both the Liberal and NDP governments of the last 20 years have been knowingly providing insufficient funding for an increasing number of kids with an increasing complexity of disability diagnoses.

For example, funding for community-based Child Development Centres, which provide therapies for kids with disabilities — including before they receive formal diagnoses — has increased over the years.

The problem is that the funding increases have not kept pace with costs and the number of kids in need. Since 2006, per-child funding has dropped 16 per cent in urban areas to $1,302 per child, down from $1,549, and 42 per cent in northern B.C. to $1,842 per child, down from $3,178.

Waitlists for disability assessments and services and supports can be years long, the report says, leading to more expensive needs later in the child’s life.

In addition to highlighting unimplemented recommendations from past reports, the report highlights feedback the representative’s office has received from over 1,200 families and caregivers of kids and youth with disabilities.

Families reported the services that would make the most difference to them right now include:

Families also reported needing more respite for caregivers, and better housing and income supports.

Of the 1,200 families, 16.4 per cent of Indigenous families and 14 per cent of non-Indigenous families said they had considered putting their kids in government care in order to access services and supports they had been denied.

Among families who did put their kids in care, 20 per cent said it was their only option for accessing services.

Overall, 44 per cent of the families who provided feedback said they were deemed ineligible for supports under the government’s existing Children and Youth with Special Needs program.

Brenda Lenahan, chair and president of BC Complex Kids Society, a grassroots organization that advocates for 5,000 B.C. kids with complex medical needs and their families, says families have already reached their breaking point.

“We’ve been making these calls to action for years, and they are urgent,” she said. “Many of the [Representative’s] recommendations have not been acted on.”

‘I hope we can do better’

Too Many Left Behind estimates that over 120,000 children and youth in B.C. have disabilities.

Forty-one per cent of the 4,834 children currently in government child welfare placements are disabled, the report says.

Given that 69 per cent of kids and youth in care are Indigenous — despite the fact that just 10 per cent of British Columbians under 19 are Indigenous — Charlesworth says it is safe to assume a significant number of Indigenous young people in care are disabled.

Many more outside of the care system may not be receiving services at all, Charlesworth added.

“Many Indigenous families — First Nations, Métis and Inuit families — don’t feel safe accessing the voluntary care services for kids with special needs, because they are worried about the connection into the child protection system, and of course a lack of trust,” Charlesworth said, alluding to the legacy of Indigenous child apprehensions by residential schools and child welfare workers.

Too Many Left Behind is an extension of last year’s Don’t Look Away report, detailing the life and circumstances leading up to the death of 11 year-old Colby.

A First Nations child with complex medical and developmental needs, Colby’s abuse at the hands of family caregivers led to his death in 2021.

In addition to calling for better oversight and transparency of provincial child welfare services, Don’t Look Away also reiterated a common point from the representative’s office: Vulnerable, struggling families are falling through the cracks because they are expected to navigate complex, siloed government systems on their own.

“I can remember meeting with one parent and… I was so worried about her wellbeing, her mental health,” Charlesworth said of caregiver interviews conducted for Too Many Left Behind.

“[Families] have said over and over again that they need help,” Charlesworth added.

“Despite the challenges, I remain hopeful that we can do better.”

Some of that hope comes from the Premier David Eby’s mandate letter for newly appointed Minister of Children and Family Development Jodie Wickens.

One of Wickens’ mandates is to continue the work of establishing a new provincial child well-being plan and outcomes framework in collaboration with other government ministries and agencies.

In 2021 then-children and family development minister Mitzi Dean announced a new Children and Youth with Special Needs Framework, which would end individualized funding for autistic kids and youth and instead create up to 45 Family Connection Centres to provide one-stop-shop services for kids with disabilities.

But the framework faced significant backlash from First Nations communities, who were not consulted; disability advocates; and families concerned that they’d lose the individualized funding they needed for supports and services not provided by the province.

In 2022, the province paused the reform and restarted community consultation. A new framework is expected to be announced later this year.

Charlesworth says she’s looking for an “iterative approach” from the government that includes taking feedback and suggestions from all impacted parties into account.

“You’ll never have the perfect plan,” Charlesworth said. “So start somewhere, learn, gather the data, figure out what’s making a difference, but begin with the things that will stabilize families.”

This is not the first time the province has promised to revamp services for vulnerable children, youth and their families in B.C.

Charlesworth, who has spent decades working in child welfare and social services, noted past reforms have failed not because the ideas were bad, but because government has lacked consistency.

“We have good intentions and we don’t sustain them,” she said, adding families are falling apart under the current system.

Minister Wickens’ response

In an interview with The Tyee, Minister Wickens thanked the Representative for Children and Youth for the report, and expressed excitement about the coming framework reforms.

“I am really pleased with the direction given to me in my mandate letter, a clear emphasis on strengthening services for children and youth with support needs and mental health needs,” Wickens said, adding that includes aligning her ministry’s services with the health, social development, housing and education ministries.

A mother and aunt to children with disabilities, Wickens worked in family support services before becoming an MLA in 2016. “This is my passion, this is where I come from,” she said.

While B.C. is facing a number of urgent and competing financial priorities, Wickens says she is confident this cross ministerial reform will happen because children and youth are at the centre of everything the government does.

“I’m not someone who would ever give up on children and families and doing the right thing,” she said. “My expectation as minister is that we will strengthen these services, we will respond to what we’re hearing.”  [Tyee]

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