Are you on the voters list? Be ready for the May election.

Elections BC is conducting an enumeration and updating the voters list for the May provincial election. From Feb. 25 to March 15, over 1.9 million notices will be mailed to residential addresses in B.C. 

These notices ask residents to register or update their voter information using Online Voter Registration or by phoning Elections BC toll-free at 1-800-661-8683. 

In addition, from March 6 to 23, Elections BC officials will provide voter registration opportunities at shopping malls, community centres and campuses throughout the province. 

During that same time period, voter registration officials will be conducting door-to-door visits in high mobility neighbourhoods, new subdivisions and residential complexes. 

For information about the voter registration and door-to-door activities scheduled in your area, see the map and lists of electoral districts here.

Also, during the first part of April, Elections BC officials will visit long-term care facilities and homeless shelters in the province to provide voter registration and update services. Check with your facility administrator or call Elections BC toll-free for more information.

Tim Agg on the effects of inadequate supports for at-risk youth, seniors and families

Tim Agg, the executive director of PLEA Community Services, is concerned about how provincial freezes and cutbacks in supports for so many community programs impact front-line workers and at-risk youth, seniors and others in need. He discusses the issue is an interesting one-on-one interview with journalist David Berner.

Inclusion BC’s budget report card

Summary: 

Inclusion BC Executive Director Faith Bodnar and political analyst and Inclusion BC supporter Michael Prince were in Victoria to respond to the budget and its impact on children and youth with special needs, adults with developmental disabilities and their families.

The Minister of Finance announced the 2013 BC Budget today. Visit the BC Budget 2013 website to read official budget documents.

Highlights:

No budget increases were made to Community Living BC, despite our repeated calls for an immediate and urgent investment. Inclusion BC continues to hear from families who are told there is simply no money to provide them with the supports they desperately need. While we are encouraged by the work being done on the 12 recommendations from the Deputy Minister's report, without an immediate financial investment, CLBC will continue operating in crisis-mode. 

No increases were made to Persons with Disability benefits. Despite the rising cost of living in BC, one of the most expensive places to live in the country, our PWD rates are 6th lowest in Canada. The Province of BC recently responded to community and made many positive changes to PWD benefits, including raising the earnings exemptions. However, we continue calling on Government to raise the rates so that people with disabilities are not consistently forced to live in poverty. Read the report, "Overdue" for more information. 

Children and Youth with Special Needs

The Ministry of Children and Family Development will see an additional $76 million over three years allocated towards the BC Early Learning Strategy. The funding will create new child care spaces and improve the quality of care.

While this is a welcome announcement, improvements to the access and quality of the supported child development program must occur to allow children with special needs to access these new spaces.

An increase of $7 million was announced for the coordination of early childhood development programs. It was not made clear what “coordination” would entail.

Budget documents failed to mention or address the growing waitlists for children requiring early childhood development supports and the fact that we still do not have a handle on the size of the caseloads and waitlists.

We do know that children are aging out of the supports before they are able to receive what they need. As we fail to provide children with the supports they need at a young age, we pay more for the additional services they require as they enter the school system and then when they graduate high school. 

Education

The Ministry of Education budget was overall flat-lined over the next three years.

The Learning Improvement Fund saw an increase from $30 million to $60 million. We need clear, targeted direction from the Ministry in terms of ensuring outcomes that actually improve education for students, especially those with special needs.

The Ministry of Education must take a leadership role in supporting all educators, including classroom teachers, to address diversity in the classroom. While there will be an additional 400 Teaching Assistants hired over the next three years within the existing budget allocation, we need to ensure that all educators and para educators receive the pre and post service training to allow them to support students with special needs in regular classrooms.

A new $1200 grant was announced for students between 6 and 7 years of age to receive a Registered Education Savings Plan investment. This is a welcome announcement but will not come into effect for two years, when the province’s budget is “firmly in surplus.”

Supports to Adults with Developmental Disabilities

We learned that Community Living BC would not receive any funding increase.

A small contingency fund exists to address increases in caseloads. This is extremely concerning as the funding would be allocated to those who come forward on an emergency basis or who advocate publicly.

This perpetuates a one-off system to address growing needs and deepens a very real crisis in community living. It cannot address the unmet needs of people waiting for services.

Individuals and their families remain desperately invisible. By not recognizing them in this budget we are balancing our books on the backs of our most vulnerable citizens.

Community Living BC Caseloads:

Residential:

Residential Services caseloads will increase from 5750 in 2012/13 to 6000 in 2013/14 and to 6625 in 2015/16.

At the same time, there is a forecasted decrease in the average cost per client, which will go from $71,000 in 2012/12 to $68,500 in 2013/14 to $66,000 in 2014/15 and $63,000 in 2015/16.

We are concerned increasing caseloads and decreasing costs per person can only happen when existing services are cut and reduced for newly eligible individuals. This formula risks putting us through yet another round of budget cuts.

Day Programs:

Day Program caseloads will increase from 14,500 in 2012/13 to 15,400 in 2013/14 to 16,100 in 2014/15 and 16,900 in 2015/16 while costs per person are expected to decrease.

Again, this is an unsustainable way to address the needs of those newly eligible for CLBC services. Budget documents acknowledge that ageing is adding additional pressures to CLBC’s capacity. If we want to maintain a high quality community system of supports and services we cannot continue to bleed services away from people who need them.

Income Security/ Persons with Disability Benefits

No increase was announced to these very low rates over the next three years, though the number of people receiving PWD benefits is expected to increase by 6% each year.

BC’s Disability Benefits continue to be the 6th lowest in Canada. We must address these abysmally low rates so that those receiving benefits have the money they need to live beyond subsistence levels.

Disappointing budget makes things worse for seniors, struggling families, children

BY JOHN KAY

The provincial budget is disappointing for those of us who believe it’s both pragmatic and morally right to help British Columbians when they need it.

The community social services sector provides that help, for children, families, seniors and anyone who needs support.

We’ve been struggling to do what’s needed after more than 15 years of budget cuts and freezes, and hoped for some relief in this budget.

Instead, it will make things worse, for seniors, struggling families, children with problems and many other British Columbians.

Consider four examples. Community Living BC, which supports individuals and families with developmental disabilities is to receive a 1.2-per-cent budget increase.

But CLBC forecasts a 4.9-per-cent increase in the number of people needing services this year.

The result is a 3.8-per-cent cut in funding available for each client. Support workers will be telling those people, and their families that the government has decided to cut the help they receive to balance the budget. CLBC’s funding for each client this year will be $7,000 less than it was in 2006, the agency’s first year, with more reductions planned for the next two years.

The social development ministry received a 1.1-per-cent budget increase. But that’s $11 million less than the government forecast the ministry would need just a year ago.

The ministry of children and family development also gets an extra 1.1 per cent. That’s not enough to meet the increasing needs of children in care, and families in crisis. Budgets for child and youth mental health services, child safety and family support and children in care are frozen.

The health budget for this year is $16.6 billion. That’s $200 million less than the government said would be needed just 12 months ago.

We know that when the health care system can’t meet demands for service, the community social services sector carries the burden, adding to pressures on agencies large and small across the province.

We’re taxpayers, those of us who work in the sector. Many of us have children and don’t want them to face higher taxes in the future to pay for our decisions.

But because we’re on the front lines, we also see the folly of cutting services and supports that people need.

It was just weeks ago that we read how badly the province had failed an 11-year-old boy who ended up being tasered in a group home. The lack of quality childhood intervention will almost certainly result in far higher costs in the future — and a much more difficult life for him.

It’s foolish to deny a senior the weekly supports that let her stay in her home. They cost a fraction of the expense of residential care — and provide a richer life.

We’re confident that funding support for our sector will be validated in any kind of cost-benefit analysis.

Certainly, governments can’t spend more than they receive in revenue year after year. The bills will come due.

But there is more than one kind of deficit.

If governments don’t fund needed supports to children, families, seniors or people with disabilities, the result will be higher costs in the future. Those bills will also come due.

Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, the Representative for Children and Youth, made the point clearly in responding to the budget’s inadequate funding for children in care. “British Columbians are going to pay in the future for that,” she said.

The haste to meet an arbitrary balanced budget deadline has resulted in decisions that will hurt thousands of families who rely on the services of our sector — and hurt the future of the province. Small advances — like funding for more child care spaces — are welcome, but fall short of what is needed.

We need, as a community, to rethink our priorities and provide needed supports. Both because it’s right, and it’s in our own interests as taxpayers and citizens.

The coming election campaign is a chance to have a clear, specific discussion on the value of community services and the need for adequate funding and strong partnerships with government.

We want all parties, and candidates, to recognize that we can do better than this budget.

John Kay, CEO of United Community Services Co-op, wrote this article on behalf of the Roundtable of Provincial Social Services Organizations.

A budget that leaves too many behind

“If you cared about kids that are vulnerable, you would do the right thing, and this budget fails to do that right thing yet again. 

“British Columbians are going to pay in the future for that. You can’t mistreat children for where you’re the parent and not expect to pay later.” 

Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, the representative for children and youth, on the provincial budget, in an interview here.

The Roundtable shares the representative’s concern.

We need, together, to recognize that failing to support people - youth, families, seniors - today, means much higher costs in the future. 

Why community social services a good investment; We should be helping children before family problems spiral out of control

By Michelle Fortin 

A recent report from children and youth representative Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond was aptly titled "Trauma, Turmoil and Tragedy."

It's a sad review of the lives of 89 children who harmed themselves or committed suicide, and the supports they received from the Ministry of Children and Family Development.

It's important to learn from these cases.

But wouldn't it make more sense to invest in keeping children from ending up in such desperate situations, in providing com-munity supports to help parents cope with their problems, so they could in turn raise their children successfully, and in addressing problems before they spiral out of control?

That's what we do in the community social services sector.

In her report, Turpel-Lafond found, unsurprisingly, that family dysfunction and poverty were at the root of the troubled lives of these 89 children.

Half of the children were exposed to domestic violence at an early age. "Domestic violence can leave a child with emotional pain, deep stress and some-times physical trauma," Turpel-Lafond notes. The resulting lack of trust means children don't talk about their own problems, or learn the skills to solve them.

About 75 per cent of the children were born to mothers with substance-abuse problems. The information on fathers is scarcer because so many simply weren't around.

And 27 per cent of the parents had themselves been children in the ministry's care, suggesting a failure to provide the support they needed to grow into healthy adults ready to raise their own children.

The ministry's work is important and difficult, and the representative's oversight is vital.

But this report, like so many others, should force us to look at how we can help children, and their families, before problems are so serious that children must be taken into an imperfect, costly system of government care.

That's our role in the community social services sector. Sometimes, the intervention can be straightforward - counselling for addiction issues, workshops on parenting skills, help with a job search or relationship problems. Sometimes, the support needs to be more extensive, over a longer term. We work with parents, prospective parents, young people and children facing difficulties.

It's challenging. Our agencies - non-profit, private, aboriginal, large, small - work across the province, with people who need a little or a lot of help to make the best of their lives. Some 64,000 people work in the sector, supported by thousands of volunteers.

And it has become increasingly more challenging because our work isn't adequately supported. Funding has been frozen or cut as demand has increased. Our hard-won expertise and innovative approaches - which could help government be more effective in addressing community problems - haven't really been tapped.

All governments face pressures to deal with each emerging crisis.

But the representative's report is a sharp reminder that we need to focus much more on prevention, rather than fixing damage once it is done.

It is important that the best services and supports are available for children and youth as they face huge challenges.

It is equally - or more - important that we fund and support the community-based programs that strengthen families and keep children from needing those kinds of drastic interventions.

Michelle Fortin is the executive director of Watari Youth, Family and Community Services and the chair of B.C. Addiction Specialists and Allied Professionals, and is writing on behalf of the Roundtable of Provincial Social Services Organizations.

A disappointing throne speech, and a challenge

In an oped piece printed in the Vancouver Sun and papers across the province, Tim Agg of the BC Roundtable for Community Services set out what he hoped to hear in the throne speech.

“We need - desperately - to hear that the government is prepared to invest in support that builds better lives for individuals, families and communities,” Agg wrote.

The throne speech today had not one word about supporting people when they need help. 

Things always are left out of throne speeches, based on the government’s assessment of what matters to citizens and to the province.

So people who care about community services - clients, family, supporters who understand the great benefits - need to explain why they are important.

Send an email to Christy Clark or your local candidate, go to a forum, write a letter to the editor. If you think community services are important, you have to tell the candidates and the parties.

Why the Community Counts campaign matters, and what you can do

The BC Conservatives released an alternate throne speech this week in advance of the Liberals’ official speech today.

It’s striking that community social services or support for British Columbians facing short- or long-term challenges aren’t mentioned in the document. 

The alternate throne speech is only 1,400 words. Some things have to be left out.

But it’s a warning to those who care about community services that the party and its candidates might not be aware of their importance, or the current challenges.

That won’t magically change. People who do care - clients, family, supporters, those who work in the sector - need to write the Conservative party (contact information is here) and explain why it is important.

Let your local Conservative candidate know that you care about the issues facing the sector, explain why, and ask what he or she would do to help if elected. Send an email, go to a forum, write a letter to the editor.

Community services have to be part of this election campaign, addressed by all parties and candidates. But making that happen is up to every one of us, and can take as little as 20 minutes a week. That's not much to help build a better future for British Columbians.

The power of going to the public (and media)

The new Family Day holiday meant increased costs for about 80 agencies in the community living sector. They still had to provide services, of course, and were facing about $1.5 million expenses in overtime because of the additional statutory holiday.

The agencies tried to convince the government to cover the extra cost, without success.

Until they shared the problem with Times Colonist reporter Lindsay Kines, who began asking questions. 

Hours later, three days before the holiday, the government announced $1.5 million in extra funding.

There is a lesson. When you have a good case, but aren’t getting anywhere, let the media and the public know about it.

The Times Colonist story is here.

What happens when we don't put resources into helping children

"It tells me that we continue to have deep frailties in our child welfare system, but I'm not surprised by that, because I look at it. It tells me that we're not putting the effort and resources into fixing it. But it isn't just the ministry: it is in fact a system-wide problem. The healthcare system, the emergency room, these schools.

"It costs money to run a good system, and it takes well-trained and committed people with good values. But when you do something like this to a child, it also costs you, and we will pay one way or the other. I hope we decide to pay upfront to do what's right, because we will end up paying at the backend for the children that get harmed."

Children and Youth Representative Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, in a Tyee interview on her report Who Protected Him? How B.C.'s Child Welfare System Failed One of Its Most Vulnerable Children.

Community services need stable funding to help vulnerable

By Tim Agg 

We can predict some things that will be in the Throne Speech on Feb. 12. It will praise the government's job plan, and talk about balancing the budget. Education and health care will receive at least passing mentions.

But those of us in the community services sector are going to be listening for long-overdue commitments to action on the critical issues undermining our work.

We need - desperately - to hear that the government is prepared to invest in support that builds better lives for individuals, families and communities.

We need to know that the government, and MLAs of all parties, recognize that a decade of cuts and frozen budgets have done real damage to our province, and its future.

What we do matters. We're the people and agencies providing specialized help when people need it. We run day care centres, work with families in crisis, deal with addictions and help people be the best parents possible. We help keep seniors in their homes, and support people with disabilities in living independent, rich lives. From cradle to grave, community services are there to support people when they most need it.

And we are in crisis. Most agencies have received no cost of living increases for a decade even as costs and demands have increased. We have cut services and seen waiting lists grow. Fundraising and volunteers have helped, but we have reached the breaking point.

Our agencies - private and non-profit, large and small - need to be able to count on government ministries as partners in building a better British Columbia. We share many goals, and can be most effective when we work together, as real collaborators.

And, like schools and hospitals, we need stable, long term funding commitments in order to make our communities safe places to live, learn, work and play.

More than 64,000 people work in the sector. This highly trained, experienced workforce, supported by thousands of volunteers, improves the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in this province annually. But frozen wages and the daily stress of trying to meet too many needs with too few resources are taking their toll on the people on the frontlines - and that's bad for the people we help.

Our sector delivers economic returns. The TD Bank recently reported, for example, that for every dollar invested in early childhood development, three dollars would be returned. Providing home-care services for a senior costs far less than residential care. Helping young parents build better parenting skills changes the lives of their children in every developmental respect: physically, intellectually and emotionally. Rescuing a teen from the early stages of addiction prevents both the heartbreak endured by families, but also future costs from healthcare to treatment to incarceration. There is more than one kind of deficit that governments can leave for future generations. Failing to provide help and support today means much greater costs for in the years ahead.

There is also a strong moral argument supporting the sector. We have the ability, as a society, to help and support people when they need it. We can change their lives, strengthen families and communities and give every British Columbian the chance to contribute to a better future. It is wrong to turn our backs on people who need our help to overcome adversity and live full lives.

The Throne Speech might also talk about helping the "most vulnerable." That's important.

But we're all potentially vulnerable. An injury can make employment impossible without help and support. A child can fall into addiction. A crisis can threaten family stability. Violence can rip a family apart. We provide help when it's needed.

We'll be listening closely to the Throne Speech. We need to hear evidence the government understands the importance of community services, and is prepared to fund them and work with us as partners.

We're going to keep listening, and watching, when the budget is presented Feb. 19.

And we're going to be making sure all candidates and political parties understand the importance of our sector and its current critical challenges, and are committed to providing the support that will mean a better British Columbia.

Tim Agg is chair of the Roundtable of Provincial Social Services Organizations and Executive Director of PLEA Community Services Society of BC.

Lack of mental-health services endangers kids at risk, families say

Owen and Kelly Bradley have started an online petition at change.org for a specialized hospital unit for children experiencing a mental-health crisis

LINDSAY KINES

Times Colonist

A shortage of emergency services for children and youth with serious mental illness in Greater Victoria is putting vulnerable kids at risk, families say.

In two recent cases, parents allege their daughters were sent home from the emergency department at Victoria General Hospital despite being in obvious mental distress.

The families say both girls ended up on long wait lists to get into Ledger House, which has 13 acute- care beds for children and youth with complex mental- health issues from across Vancouver Island.

“It’s just a huge gap in mental-health services for children,” said Kelly Bradley, whose 11-year-old adopted daughter suffers from bipolar disorder. “The community resources aren’t there that people refer you to. “The crisis line will help if your child is having a bad day, but not the kind of days where you have to hospitalize your child [because] they need acute care.”

The Vancouver Island Health Authority denies that anyone in crisis gets turned away. If an emergency-room physician decides that a child requires immediate help, they will be admitted to the pediatrics unit, the authority said in a prepared statement.

But health officials acknowledge that a rise in child and youth psychiatric cases is putting a strain on the system.

“We do recognize that there is a need for additional support for children with mental-health issues and certainly we’re working on improving things for this population,” said Dr. Richard Crow, executive medical director of mental health and addiction services.

Kelly and Owen Bradley, who asked that their daughter’s name be withheld, have started an online petition at change.org calling for a specialized hospital unit to treat children experiencing a mental-health crisis.

Kelly Bradley says her family called the mental-health crisis line three times in recent weeks to get help for their daughter. Each time, crisis workers could hear the distressed girl in the background and advised the family to go to the emergency department.

The situation was so serious that the Bradleys had to get police to assist in transporting their daughter safely.

On the first visit, the hospital kept their daughter in a safe room for four days, before sending her home, Kelly Bradley said.

Within 20 hours, the young girl was back in emergency, only to be released after a few hours.

Two days later, the same thing — only this time, she was discharged before her parents could even get to the hospital, Bradley said.

“She’s hurting herself, she’s hurting her family, she’s begging them to keep her, and she still was sent home.”

The Bradleys, who have adopted six children out of the child-welfare system, said the situation has put unbearable stress on their entire family. “You have a child who’s violent towards themselves, or toward their family, and it’s up to the parents to stay up all night and make sure they stay in their room and make sure the other kids are safe and make sure that they’re safe.”

Bradley said it took nearly three weeks after the first emergency-room visit to get their daughter admitted to Ledger House, which offers stabilization and assessments but no long-term treatment.

A second family, who wish to remain anonymous to protect their child’s privacy, is still waiting to get their teenage daughter admitted to Ledger House despite a series of mental-health crises.

The teenager first sought help in late December for depression and anxiety. She was told to take a bit more medication and sent home from emergency a few hours later, her mother said.

But she ended up in emergency again a few days later, and was kept on the pediatric unit for two weeks.

“It’s very unusual for them to hold them that long, but she was refusing to leave,” her mother said.

Still, the family feels she has yet to get the help she needs. “Up at VGH, they have very little support for these children,” the girl’s mother said. She said the mental-health workers are run off their feet trying to deal with five to eight children with serious mental-health issues as well as those that come into emergency.

“What I found at the hospital is that they’re doing the best that they can with the very little resources that they have, but this isn’t the appropriate unit for these kids. They really need a specialized mental-health unit for them.”

Victoria child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr. Clare Wood said the region needs an acute crisis program for children and youth with serious mental illness.

In busy periods, there can be up to eight children with acute mental illness on the pediatric unit at Victoria General Hospital without sufficient mental-health staff to properly care for them, she said.

“It’s under-resourced and under-staffed.”

The conditions, however, can be life-threatening. Wood noted that suicide is still the second-leading killer of young people in Canada and that depression is the major precursor.

“These kids are at high risk,” she said.

Wood said studies show the benefits of early intervention in improving the development of children and youth with mental illness and their ability to function later in life.

But community mental-health services are fragmented and difficult for parents to navigate, she said. The Ministry of Health delivers some programs, while the Ministry of Children and Family Development provides others, and the two ministries often take different approaches.

“I think the families are very brave to come forward,” Wood said. “It’s very difficult. They face tremendous stigma and judgment in the community based on the child’s behaviour.”