The Family Support Institute of BC\’s Winter/Spring 2018 Possibilities Newsletter is now available. This newsletter is available to all families, friends and partnering organizations with the hope that the stories and information can help support or inspire families and individuals with diverse challenges. To access the most recent Possibilities Newsletter, click here.

The Family Support Institute of BC provides province-wide support to families faced with the extraordinary circumstances that come with having a family member with a disability. To sign up for FSI\’s newsletter, please click here to subscribe through Mail Chimp. Please note that all FSI members with email addresses will automatically be subscribed to FSI\’s newsletter by the FSI office.

We hope you find this newsletter valuable and it provides you with some useful information.

There is a group of very well respected BC researchers and practitioners working towards funding approval for an innovative adaptation of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for autistic adults who struggle in terms of executive functioning but want to work.

As they seek funding for this important work, the group has just launched an appeal on the UBC crowdfunding website, which contains a short explanatory video. Additionally, there is more information available on a Facebook page that has been set up for the project, which can be accessed here.

This set of research is important and can help individuals on the Autism Spectrum improve their experience in the workforce. If you have an interest in this project and/or want to help fund this work, please visit the crowdfunding page for more information.

On April 7th, 2018 The Province published a commentary by Al Etmanski that highlighted some of the missed opportunities that exist with Registered Disability Savings Plans (RDSPs).

Al highlights how Canada’s Registered Disability Savings Plan is the first poverty-fighting tool for people with disabilities in the world. The plan, which was created in 2008, is a coordinated effort of federal, provincial, and territorial. RDSPs have already benefited more than 150,000 Canadians with disabilities.

The article argues that the RDSP is only reaching 29% of those eligible. Due to restrictions set by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), it is not available for many other Canadians with disabilities who are poor. Al further argues that for this this to change, two things must happen: administration of the RDSP and the Disability Tax Credit must be taken out of the hands of the CRA and co-ordinated national action to eliminate the link between disability and poverty must begin.

Since the RDSP has three components: contributions by the individual, family or community; matching federal grants; and a disability Savings Bond of $1,000 a year. To be eligible, an individual must first quality for the Disability Tax Credit. Being eligible for the Disability Tax Credit, is where the issue often lies and something we highlighted in one of our blog posts on December 7th. 

Ten years from when the RDSP was created, it is clear that financial freedom for Canadians with disabilities makes a big difference. There is a discernible pride and confidence among those who have an RDSP.  Etmanski notes that the RDSP enables them to \”dream and start controlling their destiny\”.

In his article, Al goes onto to discuss individuals with disabilities and its relationship with poverty. He notes that the RDSP is only one tool among many that are needed because 70% of Canadians with disabilities still live in poverty.  Etmanski offers four recommendations to improve the RDSP and raise Canadians with disabilities out of poverty. These include:

1. Automatic enrolment in a RDSP once an individual becomes eligible for a Disability Tax Credit.
2. Remove CRA responsibility for assessing & providing eligibility for disability tax credits.
3. Federal accessibility legislation should address poverty.
4. Create a Guaranteed Basic Income Supplement for Canadians with disabilities

To learn more about the RDSP and Al Etmanski\’s recommendations for a change in the current program, please visit the original article in The Province.

A set of useful resources for educators and families who work with and/or are raising children.

Heart-Mind Online is for all those who are searching for evidenced-informed resources that educate the hearts of children. The collection of resources builds capacity in individuals and communities to support the Heart-Mind well-being of children, and promotes their positive social and emotional development. The Heart-Mind Online website was developed by the Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education.

To learn more about Heart-Mind Online\’s resources for families and educators, visit their website.

Tetra Woodworking is a 620-square-foot, fully accessible shop where anyone with a disability of any kind can come to learn woodworking using adapted tools, under the tutelage of a team of skilled and enthusiastic carvers and woodworkers. It is located in the sub-basement of Vancouver’s Blusson Spinal Cord Centre.

Ruby Ng, Executive Director of the Disability Foundation, said Tetra is celebrating its 30th anniversary and will be honouring volunteers who have been innovating adaptive technology to help the disabled. To celebrate its 30 years of helping others, Tetra is showing a gallery of videos at http://tetranation.org/video/page/2/ that showcase some of the innovative solutions Tetra volunteers and participants have come up with, such as a bocce ball launcher, a collapsible shoe horn, an extended toenail clipper, and a portable travel wheelchair ramp.

Most of all, the Tetra shop enables individuals a place to learn a new skill while they get out in the community socializing and having fun. This has made it a place where many individuals look at Tetra Shop as a place where they look forward going to every week.

What Tetra Shop desperately needs is more volunteers who can help out in the shop. The wood shop functions best when they have an instructor-client ratio that is one to one or one to two. More woodworkers are needed as instructors and volunteers. They could also use a wood sponsor, but for now clients pay a $10 drop-in fee, which covers the cost of basic woods to create coffee tables, step-stools, birdcages, Adirondack chairs.

If you are skilled in woodworking, want to help out or simply want to learn more about the Tetra workshop in Vancouver, click here.

The video below tells the story of Mark Wafer. An owner of seven Tim Horton\’s franchises in the Greater Toronto area and also a man who has been deaf since birth.

Mark is an advocate for individuals with disabilities and believes in inclusive employment, promoting what his over 40 disabled employees bring to his bottom line. This video explains what we, at CVS, believe and work hard to encourage in our community every day. Inclusive employment is smart business sense. Take the time to watch this video and learn about a great example of inclusive employment in action.

On Saturday, March 31st, BC Premier John Horgan announced that the BC government will be compensating pre-1974 Woodlands residents. The former “provincial asylum for the insane” was the site of horrific physical and sexual abuse, but government payments to former patients in 2010 only covered those who suffered at the facility starting on August 1st, 1974, based on a legal technicality.

The NDP government seeks to right a wrong through this action, Horgan noted. Horgan stated that the government wants to ensure that all currently living survivors of the Woodlands experience get the respect and compassion they deserved throughout their lives but most importantly since the government excluded them from the class action suit.

A class-action lawsuit was certified in 2005, which prompted the government to settle in 2010. The province offered between $3,000 and $150,000 for each patient in compensation. However, the government also imposed the 1974 cutoff date because that was when the law that allows people to sue government for wrongdoing, called the Crown Proceedings Act, came into effect. An attempt to appeal that was dismissed, leaving as many as 500 former patients at the time without compensation. Former residents said that the arbitrary cutoff date, though legal, was morally and ethically wrong.

Health Minister Adrian Dix – who has fought hard to get the original settlement changed – said there are believed to be between 900 and 1,500 survivors of pre-1974 Woodlands, and the government expects to pay between $9 million and $15 million.

Community Ventures Society is happy to hear about these recent developments. It is only fair to provide this compensation for the victims of these horrific acts. With the Woodlands facility being destroyed in 2011 and through this new government action, we hope it will enable living survivors to gain further closure and peace in this upsetting chapter of their lives.

For more information on this story, please visit the Vancouver Sun article published on March 31st, 2018.

An interesting article was published recently by CBC News highlighting the long wait times for wheelchairs for mobility aid users. The current average wait time for a medical device, according to The Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction is 46 days. However, mobility users have suggested it can take much longer.

Red tape often encumbers people with disabilities quite often and waiting month for assessment appointments and ministry approval is \”so common it\’s kind of beyond complaint,\” says Jeanne Morton from the BC Cerebral Palsy Association.

The Ministry, who is responsible for disability assistance, committed in February to review access to wheelchairs and other aids. The issue is not only with new wheelchairs or mobility devices but also for replacement devices when a wheelchair needs to be repaired or is broken. This can cause excess costs to the individual if they need to rent a wheelchair or if they can\’t find the funds to do this, they face the risk of being restricted in terms of mobility until a new mobility device is provided.

Community Ventures Society (CVS) would welcome shortened wait times for mobility devices and encourages the Ministry to make this a priority to enable mobility for individuals with disabilities.