By: Angela Brandt
October is Autism Awareness and Acceptance Month in Canada. However, children with autism need more than awareness and acceptance; they need access to various therapies in order to progress and function in a society that has not been designed for them. Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) therapy allowed my son to navigate the world around him. Many children with autism require individual need based therapy to reach their full potential.
My son Misha, who is autistic, was featured in the Downsview Advocate twice last year. The first article in March 2019 was about the Ontario Autism Program (OAP) changes and its negative effect on children on the autism spectrum and their families. The first article in March focussed on the negative effects that recent changes to the Ontario Autism Program (OAP) incurred unto families with children on the spectrum.
The second article highlighted the importance of ABA therapy, an evidence-based beneficial treatment for children with autism. The article also highlighted my local MPP, Roman Baber’s involvement in my son’s life and the Government’s Autism plan.
Thanks to MPP, Roman Baber, and many advocates, the Ontario Government acknowledged that its previously proposed changes to the autism program were a mistake and announced a ‘reset’ to the OAP on July 29, 2019.
The revised OAP would be sustainable, needs-based, , within the budget of $600 million, and would treat as many children in the province as possible. Implementation of the new program was originally proposed for April 2020. As well, the Ontario autism advisory panel made up of parents with lived experience, autistic adults, educators and other experts released their report on October 30th, 2019.
There has been very little communication from the government about the OAP other than an announcement in December 2019 informing families that the rollout date had been pushed to April 2021. Many families were devastated by this news and were left desperate and in despair for the winter holidays.
As a result of barring access to therapy, the autism services budget was not spent. The FAO (Financial Accountability Office of Ontario) published a report in July 2020 about Autism Services Spending which indicated that the government did NOT spend almost one third of the allotted OAP budget. Almost 200 million dollars that could have been spent on providing children with autism access to life changing therapy has been left untouched.
April 2020 has long since passed and it has been almost a year since the Ontario autism advisory report was released, but there is no new OAP in sight.
Many children have lost valuable time. This loss of access to needs-based therapy combined with therapy providers closing their doors due the pandemic, not only means many providers will close their doors permanently, but it also means those children that have been waiting for therapy may never gain the skills they require to function in society. There will be long lasting effects to the government’s blunder with the OAP and will potentially cost our government billions in long term support for this generation of children with autism.
I am grateful to MPP, Roman Baber for his continued involvement in my son’s life. Nevertheless, access to needs based therapy continues to be unavailable for thousands of children and should be a priority for the government.