Many parents, caregivers and individuals with disabilities are asking how they can get involved.  Here is an easy way to participate and become politically active from your computer or smartphone even. 

Writing an email/letter to your MPP is an excellent way to help move this political cause forward.    If  you need some guidance we attached below a sample letter with some suggested wording, Please customize your letter to your needs, and keep it simple.  One page is best as they receive many emails daily and you want yours to be read. 

Below is a link to Queens Parks MPP directory.    After sending your email/letter we suggest you follow up with a phone call in 3 business days if they have not responded especially important if your looking for a meeting with your MPP. 

We truly believe every single email, phone call and meeting  makes a difference.  

MPP ODC template letter

MPP Contact list and Directory

Sample Letter

Date
NAME OF MPP/PARTY LEADER
Address of Office

Re: Meeting request from (your name)

Dear MPP (First Name Last Name),

As a constituent in your riding, I am writing today to express my concerns with the government’s recent announcement on April 2, 2019, that the needs of anywhere from 25,000 to 50,000 children, youth and adults with disabilities in Ontario will not be addresseduntil the government finalizes its Ontario Autism Program.

The stark reality is that all individuals with disabilities, irrespective of labels, require and are deserving of appropriate therapeutic interventions.   No individual should be forced to wait their turn for life-altering therapies while the government limits its focus to only one diagnosis.

The government needs to ensure that the

advantages being afforded to children with a diagnosis of autism through the OAP, such as access to Direct Funding Options for physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy, are equally available to children, youth and adults with any other disability in Ontario.

To do otherwise is systemic discrimination.

[INSERT YOUR PERSONAL STORY HERE]

The government’s policies and practices towards individuals with any disability other than autism are devastating and discriminatory. Children, youth and adults with any disability need access to the appropriate intervention at the right time and with the appropriate intensity.

I look forward to meeting with you to discuss these issues and ways in which we can work collaboratively to ensure that all individuals with disabilities receive the appropriate, customized, and intensive intervention and they require.

Sincerely,

Your Name
Your Address
Your Contact Number

We put together this petition in response to the thousands of families whose children, youth and adults with ALL disabilities were told to wait your turn.   We are asking you to stand in solitary with us because disability does not discriminate and neither should our government.

CALL TO ACTION: 

Please download, print, sign and mail this petition to Queen’s Park.
Attention MPP Monique Taylor 111 Wellesley St, W. Toronto ON M7A 1A4  

We realize this is old school but Queens Park rules requires hard copy petitions. All ages can sign but you must live in Ontario.

2019.04.08_PetitionToEndDiscrimination (1)

The Real Wait List: Minister Macleod tells over 50,000 children with disabilities in Ontario to “wait their turn”

TORONTO, ONTARIO – April 2, 2019– The Ontario Disability Coalition is dismayed at Minister Macleod and Minister Elliot’s announcement today that the needs of anywhere from 50,000  with disabilities in Ontario will not be addressed until the Government finalizes its Ontario Autism Program.

“The Government of Ontario’s continuing practice and policy of putting the needs of children with one type of disability, over the needs of every other child with a disability, is discrimination.  No child should be forced to wait their turn for life-altering therapies while the government continues to limit their focus to only one diagnosis”, says Sherry Caldwell, Co-Founder of the Ontario Disability Coalition.

The Ontario Disability Coalition will continue to advocate for the needs and rights of all individuals with disabilities in the Province of Ontario until the Government ends its policy of discrimination.

The time is now.

About the Ontario Disability Coalition

The Ontario Disability Coalition was founded to address and redress the ongoing and proactive discrimination of the Government of Ontario against persons with disabilities. It is a grassroots organization, comprised of thousands of concerned parents, caregivers, and persons living with disabilities in Ontario. We represent all disabilities, including Cerebral Palsy, Down Syndrome, FASD, Rett Syndrome, Muscular Dystrophy, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Visual Impairments, Hearing Impaired, Chromosomal Abnormalities, and many other rare and unique disabilities.

MEDIA CONTACT:

For more information, please contact:

Sherry Caldwell, Co-Founder
Ontario Disability Coalition
Tel: (416) 903-5067

Email: sherry_caldwell@icloud.com
@ODCoaltion

• Money is wasted on studies when recommendations are not implemented. research is good if followed by recommended actions;
• Money is being wasted on implementing a strategy which will fail to meet the needs of our disabled children and youth.

Meanwhile our Disabled Children and Youth continue to be neglected.

Failing Grade to Ontario Special Needs Strategy:

Ontario’s current model of Local Health Integration Network “LHIN” in-school therapy is rated an “F” by parents.  The government’s boasts that this will improve with their ‘Special Needs Strategy’.  All they are doing is adding service navigators we feel this will fail as NO additional funding has been provided!  It is a disaster waiting to happen.

Ontario is NOT using our Scarce Tax Money Wisely:

Ontario should be investing in Physiotherapists, Occupational therapists, as well as Speech and Language therapists. They need to work hands on with children and youth with ALL disabilities.  Many Special Needs Children, Youth and Adults can have a useful life and given the chance will be contributing members of society.  Children with multiple disabilities deserve substantial better care.

Champlain LHIN CEO agrees that therapy is consultative!  Therapy provided is not meant to help a child!

Parents must fight for hands on therapy as many are forced into debt,  depleting family bank accounts and taking out a second or even third mortgage.  Families become drained both emotionally and financially. 

Thank you Filipa and Paula for sharing your concerns.

#SpecialNeedsTragedy

Special Needs Strategy work has been going on for far too long – 4 years to be exact – with zero solutions or improvements felt by families. Although we recognized it was started with good intentions by the Ministry of Children and Youth Services, over time it has sadly left families in crisis.

We feel the special needs strategy has been a waste of 10 million dollars, a waste of time, and a waste of public funding and resources.

In a number of areas across Ontario, the decision makers from the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care (CCAC/LHIN), lead agencies such as those who provide preschool speech and language services, the Ministry of Education (District School Boards) and the Ministry of Children and Youth (Children Treatment Centres) met each other endlessly in order to drive change and improvements and reach local consensus. However, they could not agree who would handle the funding. No party was willing to give up control of services, resources, jobs and, most importantly, funding in order to improve the fragmented and broken system for children and youth with special needs. The whole process was ruined by GREED.

Look to Windsor for an example of this. No agreement could be reached and the Ministry of Children and Youth had to send in a mediator.

Sadly there is still no resolution, leaving families in limbo. Some families are unaware of what services are available to them, while others sit on a waiting list. Years of chaos have continued for families and their children without complete coordinated services.

Parents should be capable of managing their children’s rehabilitation funding and may even be able to purchase more rehabilitation services privately. Parents could also choose to use their local Children Treatment Centre if they preferred direct service. They can’t right now, but they deserve this choice.

Ontario voters care about special needs children and youth, and all families expect fiscally responsible and equitable services and resources for children and youth with ALL disabilities. It is 2018 after all.

We, families with children and adults with disabilities, feel like we are climbing Mount Everest. We are just at different stages of the climb. When we bump into the right advocates, they help us move up to the next level and for a brief moment, we can admire the view, close our eyes and breathe. But all too soon, we have to resume the long, lonely ascent.

With the right supports, it could be more like this:

 instead of this

#NoChildLeftBehind #onpoli #SpecialNeedsTragedy