North Coast MLA Jennifer Rice entered the debate over the provincial government's plans towards changing he model of supports for children in need, speaking in defence of the government revisions as part of the Monday morning session in the BC Legislature.
The announcement of the program revision by Minister Mitzi Dean has been among one of the more controversial of the busy fall agenda for the NDP government, with much of the focus of the opposition taking note of what the BC Liberals have observed has been a lack of consultation with support groups and the parents who would be affected the most.
Some of those themes were tackled by Ms. Rice in the course of her five minute presentation to the Chamber on Monday, which began with a look at the current status of the services available across the province and in the Northwest.
"There is an inequity in services delivered for kids who are neurodiverse or have a disability, and children and youth with Down syndrome, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, cerebral palsy or brain injuries are not qualifying for services that will help them thrive.
Every child and youth deserves the supports and services they need to live full, happy and healthy lives. We're taking action to put the needs of children and youth at the centre and make services better, more inclusive and easier to access from birth to age 19 and in every part of the province."
As part of her overview for the Legislature on Monday, the MLA called on her experience in Committee to frame some of her observations on the way the new government program will be rolled out, with a particular focus on the new 'hub system", an element that has made for some of the most controversy for parents and support organizations.
"I sit on the Select Standing Committee for Children and Youth, and these changes are in line with repeated recommendations from the Representative for Children and Youth and the all-party committee, as well as from conversations with families, advocates, children and youth.
We're putting children and youth at the centre of our new system. We're bringing services together by having multidisciplinary teams in one-stop family connection hubs throughout the province that will make it easier for families to get their children the supports they need.
These coordinated hubs, run by community service providers, will give families access to a range of professionals without the need for a referral, or a diagnosis.
Each hub will be responsible for having consistent core services and a multidisciplinary team for the children, youth and families they serve, in addition to services tailored for the individual children and communities that they support.
These will include speech-language, occupational and physical therapists, behaviour consultants and interventionists as well as other staff, as needed."
Ms. Rice also spoke to some of the conversations she has had with parents in the community as part of her presentation in defence of the government program plans.
"I've had exhausted families with kids with autism in my office in Prince Rupert.
They've struggled to navigate finding services for their child. The amount of research, time and energy that goes into sourcing supports for their child is enormous, and that's for families that are privileged enough to be able to do so.
There are numerous families falling through the cracks because sourcing services is a challenging process at the best of times.
And in rural B.C., often there are no services to be found. Services are concentrated in urban parts of B.C. I've also had families come into my office with children with other support needs or children waiting years for a diagnosis.
These families aren't qualifying for services at all. I've even heard of families who've cleverly shared their autism funding with other families, because a child clearly needed support services but didn't have the diagnosis for them."
Some of the challenges facing parents were outlined by the MLA, who cited the work of the Representative for Children and Youth in much of her overview of the need for a respectful, accessible system of supports.
The debate continues this week in the Legislature, with the BC Liberals challenging the NDP government narrative on how the hub system will be best.
And indeed, the very next speaker on the topic Monday, MLA Mike Bernier from Peace River South expressed some surprise that rural NDP MLA's were supporting the bill, offering up some thoughts on how they may be on the wrong side of the debate in this instance.
"For the few members on the NDP benches that are actually from rural BC, I'm surprised they are not fighting against this as well; because we know challenging it is to have those supports and those choices in rural British Columbia, so to take them away is downright wrong.
When the Minister of Children and Family Development announced this new hub model, it caught everybody off guard, cause there was no consultation, no discussion and parents are rightfully scared and concerned because their choice is being clawed back, they were blindsided" -- Peace River BC Liberal MLA on the theme supports funding
With the Fall session almost at an end and a lengthy winter break for MLA's ahead, the government is looking to move many of their fall initiatives to final passage before the session ends in two weeks.
Ms. Rice's office has provided a video presentation of her Full presentation to the Legislature posted to her Social Media page on Monday evening.
More notes from the BC Legislature can be explored from our archive page here.
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