Interim Plan? Let’s say NO to Childhood Budgets
On June 20th, 2019, Lisa MacLeod was demoted and taken off the autism file, and it was like removing the first major roadblock from the path forward. There was still a long road, but at least the autism community could be hopeful of real progress in achieving an autism program that worked.
Skeptical? Of course. We have every reason to be. Trust hasn’t been a key component of the Ontario PC government so far, but with a change of Ministers we were in a better situation than we were the day before.
MPP Todd Smith took over as Minister, and it wasn’t initially clear what we might get from him. He took a few weeks to get himself up to speed, then the first real tidbit of information we got didn’t come from an official announcement or mainstream media, but from a piece in Belleville Intelligencer that quoted the Minister as saying:
“We’ve been taking some steps, I met with the Ontario Autism Panel last week in Toronto and gave them a new mandate to move forward with.”
This was a bombshell.
Rewind back to May 30th, and recall that the Advisory Panel was assembled by Lisa MacLeod and her staff. It would have been MacLeod’s office that issued the initial mandate to the Panel.
What that initial mandate was is still unclear, but we have reason to believe it involved keeping the foundation of the MacLeod plan, then using the remaining funds to create a needs-based component of some kind.
It’s been abundantly clear that the autism community would not accept that as a solution. A program can not truly be needs-based if individual need was not the foundation of the program. A component was never going to work.
But when Todd Smith took the podium on July 29th and stated that there was a NEW mandate to create a fully needs-based program, it implies that the initial mandate did not include the option of scrapping the old plan completely, but rather they were tasked to build from it.
It’s worth your time to watch this clip of Minister Smith, being interviewed recently on Power & Politics:
When talking about the eventual new version of the OAP Smith says:
“It’s going to be a needs-based program. What I’ve heard loud and clear from families, and from service providers as well, is that we need to move away from the Childhood Budgets and move into a needs-based program.”
So there’s promise of a fully needs-based program, but according to the Ministry website:
The ministry is aiming for implementation of a new program April 1, 2020.
Autistic children in Ontario can be broken down into a few main groups:
Currently in service under the previous Liberal needs-based program
From the official News Release, we know this:
Families will continue to receive services outlined in their current Ontario Autism Program Behaviour Plan until its end date. Families will then be able to renew their plan for a second six-month extension of up to six months at their current level of intensity, or less where clinically appropriate. There will be no gaps in service.
Then, in theory, they will be transitioned into the new program. TBD of how that will actually happen. This group has already put in their time on the waitlist, most waiting for several years, and they are the group who are breathing a little easier right now.
Those who are on the waitlist, and remain there, until after the new program is active
When their name comes up, if a new program is fully ready to go, these kids will get the benefit of the clean slate program. How long they will wait to get in is anyone’s guess, and likely very difficult to predict.
Those who have received, or will receive, a 5k or 20k Childhood Budget cheque, based solely on their age, sometime between June 2019 and whenever the new program is ready
A lot of questions come up from this group. They receive their cheque, but then what happens to them? They spend the money (assuming they had a place to use it), they reconcile it (hopefully having spent it appropriately), but then they enter a strange new limbo. Will they have gaps in service? They’re technically considered “in service” by the government at this point, and are not longer considered to be on the waitlist, but what guarantee do these families have that their kids will get what they need? Sadly, it seems this cohort was not given a lot of thought.
So when it came time for MCCSS to decide what to do with the time between Smith’s announcement that the new program was coming, and its actual arrival, the Ministry has elected to continue rolling out Childhood Budgets:
For children not in service, childhood budgets will continue to be issued to families as the province works towards a needs-based program.
This was a big misstep from the Ministry.
If Smith said himself that “we need to move away from Childhood Budgets” … WHY is the government continuing to hand out these cheques in the interim? A policy that’s both insufficient and wasteful at the same time should not be the fallback. It makes no sense.
Given the current government’s willingness to allow the kids currently in service to receive extensions within the old program, and that same government’s admission that the Childhood Budgets were a mistake, it should follow that the better interim solution should be to bring new kids into the previous Liberal version of the OAP, at least until the new program is ready.
By continuing to hand out Childhood Budget cheques there is a growing cohort of children receiving inadequate service potential, as well as other children receiving move funding than they need or could possibly spend. Furthermore, it creates a huge gap in service that needs to be addressed.
It’s a mess.
It. Does. Not. Make. Sense.
In his July 29th annoucement Minister Smith used the word “reset” when describing the fate of the OAP.
Unless they stop the Childhood Budgets immediately, and revert and reset back to the Liberal OAP until the new program is ready, we’re going to see continued problems. April 2020 is a LONG way off.
How many more therapist layoffs will we see before then? Capacity is already crumbling.
How many more families will be forced to remortgage their homes? Crisis is spreading.
How many more families will have no choice but to do nothing, and watch their children fall further and further behind without adequate support? Families don’t deserve this.
Minsiter Smith, we’re trying to stay hopeful that the new program will be better.
Until it’s ready, continuing with Childhood Budgets is not the answer. A true reset is needed, and you don’t have to wait for the Advisory Panel to finish their work to do it. The Liberal OAP policy details are already available. Let kids receive therapy based on need NOW.
Please do not delay.
