Global News reported that B.C. Children’s Hospital says it is working to meet a key recommendation made by B.C.’s Representative for Children and Youth when it comes to autism assessment waits in the province.

The report Alone And Afraid, about an Aboriginal boy with autism, recommended that autism assessment wait lists be reduced to 12 weeks by the year 2021.

Right now, 2,800 children in B.C. are waiting to be assessed, and the wait times are lengthy, averaging 55 weeks. In the Northern Health Region, the average wait is 62 weeks.

B.C. Children’s Hospital oversees assessments in the province.

Following the report, the province’s advocate for Children and Youth is also recommending Health and the Ministry of Children & Family Development (MCFD) work collaboratively to develop a plan to ensure early identification, timely assessment and appropriate supports for children under six with signs of developmental delay and develop a protocol with the Ministry of Education to address chronic, unexplained school absences.

A number of national newspapers published stories last week highlighting the holes in current funding for the B.C. child welfare system.

CBC News noted that advocates are stating the system has become \”dysfunctional\” and in many cases has led to the neglect of children with disabilities.  B.C. child welfare advocates argue fundamental changes are needed to improve access for children with special needs.

A report highlighting how the system failed a boy given the pseudonym \”Charlie\” was released earlier this week by B.C.\’s representative for children and youth. The report details how the boy experienced years of neglect, malnutrition and a lack of support for managing autism spectrum disorder. The saddest part of this was that nothing in the report was surprising and neither were the recommendations, according to the Executive Director of Autism Community Training (ACT), Deborah Pugh.

The Ministry of Children and Family Development became aware of \”Charlie\” in 2006 while he was living with his single mother who was struggling with substance abuse. Ten years on, in January 2016, the 12-year-old was found naked, filthy, unable to walk and weighing 66 pounds.

Pugh said situations like this case where families, particularly single parents who have high-needs children living in poverty, are not provided with robust support or active engagement are all too common. Often, she said, it\’s due to a lack of communication between social workers for children with special needs and child protection social workers. In the case of \”Charlie,\” no child protection social worker ever laid eyes on the boy, despite four separate child assessment reports by the ministry. This type of situation points to a larger flaw of the system, according to Pugh.

Children with special needs are often pushed under the umbrella of child protection services but, Pugh said, an engaged family that\’s desperate to help their special needs child is seen as less of a priority than a child that\’s in immediate danger.

The Globe & Mail highlighted that Jennifer Charlesworth said social workers failed to comply with basic standards when responding to reports. She found that between 2006 and 2016, a range of professionals including police, doctors, income assistance workers and school staff contacted the provincial Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) to report a child protection concern.

The report said social workers were told Charlie appeared malnourished, that there were concerns he wasn’t accessing adequate medical care, that he had stopped attending school and that his mother’s mental health appeared to be deteriorating. Katrine Conroy, the Minister of Children and Family Development, called the behaviour of the workers responsible for the case “inexcusable.”

Charlie was taken into provincial care on Jan. 20, 2016, after police came to his mother’s home. Officers found there were no adults present and he had been screaming for half an hour, according to the report.

Charlie is now thriving in specialized foster care and back in school, Ms. Charlesworth said. But Ms. Charlesworth said the situation goes beyond individual workers. She said the fact no social worker ever saw or met Charlie is representative of systemic pressure social workers are under to do superficial and speedy investigations.

She made several recommendations to the government, including that MCFD should “ensure social workers lay eyes on children and adhere to timelines during child protection responses” and “ensure identification and involvement of an Indigenous child’s family, community and culture is made at first point of contact.”

Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, who left the position she’d held for a decade two years ago and now teaches law at the University of British Columbia, authored three reports dating back to 2011 raising concerns that children who were the subject of child protection complaints were never seen by ministry social workers. All three related to children with complex needs, and two were Indigenous.

Community Ventures Society full supports the recommendations and funding reforms addressed by Ms. Charlesworth. We hope that these recommendations are integrated into the system and we see an improvement in the near future.

Disability Alliance BC recently sent a communication out to its partners highlighting that, effective December 1, 2018, the province of BC has introduced several positive changes to Crisis Supplements for people in receipt of Income Assistance, the Persons with Disabilities (PWD) benefit, and the Persons with Persistent Multiple Barriers to Employment (PPMB) benefit.

The changes are:

• The maximum monthly supplement available per person for food has increased from $20 to $40; and
• There is no longer an annual maximum cap on the amount of Crisis Supplements an individual is eligible to receive. The maximum monthly Crisis Supplement for food and shelter and the maximum annual Crisis Supplement for clothing remains in place.

To qualify, a family in receipt of Income Assistance, PWD or PPMB must demonstrate:

• It is needed to meet an unexpected expense or obtain an item unexpectedly needed;
• There are no resources available to meet the expense; and
• Failure to meet the expense would result in imminent danger to the physical health of a person in the family or the removal of a child under the Child, Family and Community Service Act.

Crisis Supplements are not available to cover the costs of any healthcare goods or services.

Disability Alliance BC noted that it acknowledged \”that these improvements to the Crisis Supplement were much needed and represent a positive step forward\”. It also highlighted that there was still a concern that the monthly and annual limits for Crisis Supplements for food, shelter, and clothing remain too low considering the rising costs of living across BC. Robust supports during crises for people living in poverty are a critical component of any effective poverty reduction strategy. As such, we strongly encourage government to take additional measures to protect the safety and well-being of vulnerable people in BC.

An interesting article and discussion on CBC Radio published at the end of November about Justin Clark, an individual born with cerebral palsy, who sued his parents for the right to make his own decisions.

Justin Clark communicates via a Dynavox computer screen attached to his wheelchair. He reaches out and touches letters and symbols on the screen, which in turn, activates a synthesized voice. Clark took his parents to court when he was 20 years old to prove that he was a mentally competent adult and could make decisions about his own life. Although he sued them, Justin highlights that his love for his family was never in doubt.

Clark was born with cerebral palsy. When he was two, doctors advised his parents to place him in the Rideau Regional Centre in Smiths Falls, Ont., a little more than an hour\’s drive from Ottawa. He grew up isolated from his parents and his five older siblings. In 1982, he won the right to leave the institution and make his own decisions about his future. The impact of his case — a pivotal moment in the Canadian disability rights movement — continues to be felt today.

Following the ruling, guardianship laws were re-examined, and in some provinces, rewritten. Disability rights advocates say there is still a long way to go, but Clark\’s case paved the way for other people with disabilities fighting to make their own decisions, rather than have legal guardians make them on their behalf.

Clark is now 56 and thriving. He has travelled widely — to Germany, Switzerland, France and to visit a brother in the United States. He sees his siblings and friends regularly, and corresponds with them by email. He loves his job at Computer Wise, where he designs greeting cards and calendars. Once or twice a week, he plays bocce at the gymnasium of an Ottawa rehab centre.

The example Clark set is one that we should all be thankful for. He took a bold step to change the course of his life and the lives of many others. He has clearly experienced the benefits of this and we\’re sure many others have as well.

To learn more about Justin Clark and his story, please read the original article and listen to the radio recording on CBC.

As an article featured on CTV highlighted, the Canadian Down Syndrome Society (CDSS) has  launched a campaign calling for people with Down syndrome to be put on the endangered species list.

CDSS is seeking public support for its “endangered syndrome” petition, saying that by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s criteria, the Down syndrome community qualifies as endangered in many parts of the world. The main argument from the Society is that as the population with the syndrome shrinks, so too does funding for services like housing, the charity said.

The CDSS launched a social media campaign to raise awareness of the petition, with people dressed as endangered animals. The goal is not to compare individuals with Down Syndrome to animals but they are trying to \”put a comparison in the world that says when someone gets put on the endangered species list they’re given all the support to help that species thrive and that’s what we want for our kids, for our community, is the ability to thrive,” Ben Tarr from the CDSS told CTV’s Your Morning. Largely the campaign is to raise awareness. CDSS said animal welfare groups have 90 per cent more funding than Down syndrome charities in North America.

To read more about this campaign or to support the petition, visit the original article by clicking here.