Gazing into the Crystal Ball: Policy Challenges and Opportunities in Community Living

1. Gazing into the Crystal Ball: Policy Challenges and Opportunities in Community Living Presentation to Second Wave in partnership with South Island Community Council, Community Living Victoria, and the Garth Homer Society 12 April 2012 Michael J. Prince

2. Purposes • To offer some thoughts on “the big policy picture” regarding federal and provincial governments and social services • To look specifically at recent policy and political events in BC and speculate on what these developments may mean in the short term, and longer run for innovative and inclusive services for people with intellectual disabilities and their families • To have a conversation with you

3. Outline • Gazing as a practical activity • What is policy and why it matters • Community living is … • BC Budget 2012: CLBC and other policy areas • Policy challenges • Caregiver challenges • Policy opportunities • Always advocacy • Discussion

4. Crystal ball gazing • Can be a very practical activity and possibly a strategic tool: • To reflect on our recent experiences and those around us, seeing into the past and present • To identify key pieces of information • To clear our minds of distractions so that future events will become clearer to us • To isolate real or perceived risks • To clarify and reaffirm cherished values: clear vision

5. What is policy? • Courses of action or inactions by public authorities • Made by governments: federal, provincial, municipal, Aboriginal • And made by public sector agencies in children and family, education, employment, health, housing, social services • Existing policies may act as enablers or barriers: e.g., access to educational transition • The absence of policy can also have positive or negative consequences: e.g., lack of housing options

6. Core elements of public policy • People: citizens, officials, neighbourhoods, communities • Purposes: a position, goals, objectives, intentions, claims, hopes, expectations • Procedures: ways and means of designing, delivering programs and laws • Products: income benefits, services, supports, rights and responsibilities, words and symbols • Power: roles of authority, ideas of legitimacy, and relations of advocacy and influence

7. Policy Matters • Determines programs and services that affect the material living conditions of individuals, families, groups • Contributes to the formation of identities of people as dependent or deserving or not • Shapes relationships between people in terms of inclusion/exclusion, or respect/stigma • Structures clientele as a potential basis for political awareness, debate, and action

8. Community living is … • A vision, slogan, a bundle of aspirations and values • A social movement at local, provincial, national and international levels • A provincial crown agency (CLBC) • A system of services, budgets, contracts, staff, facilities, clients and families, advocates • A system in crisis and a recent political crisis facing the BC Liberal government • An everyday achievement of access and inclusion in varied circumstances for some people

9. BC Budget 2012: CLBC

10. BC Budget 2012: other issues • Education: confirmed previously announced $165 million over next three years for the “learning improvement fund” but general funding for school districts frozen for next three years • Income security: rates for people with disabilities not raised nor indexed to cost of living; no tax credit innovations either for the community • Supports to children and families: no real increase to tackle needs of children and youth with special needs and their families

11. Policy challenges • Outstanding needs due to past cuts and waitlists of service and support requests at CLBC • New youth transitioning to adult care in the next few years: more backlogs? • A renewed focus on employment programs for adults with disabilities: will there be individualized, person-centred supports? Real work for real pay? • The continued absence of provincial legislation on the inclusion rights of all persons with disabilities • Still no independent provincial advocate for adults with developmental disabilities

12. Caregiver challenges • Poor communication on what services are available • Inaccessible programs and services • Inappropriate services (segregated) • Transportation (private and public) • Family costs for professional care • Finding social networks of children and youth • Respite for family members See: Dr. Anne Snowdon, Strengthening Communities for Canadian Children with Disabilities. (2012) http://sandboxproject.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/SandboxProjectDiscussionDocument.pdf

13. Policy opportunities • Working with the BC Representative for Children and Youth on her extended mandate • Ongoing monitoring of CLBC by media and groups • Raising awareness about the UN Convention on the Rights for Persons with Disabilities • December 3, 2012: International Day for Persons with Disabilities – what will BC say? • May 2013: BC general election – embedding community living in a comprehensive economic and social inclusion strategy for the province

14. Always advocacy • Who does this policy (program of proposal) affect? • From where does this policy get its justification? What specific kind of reasoning is a government using? • How are individuals, families and neighbourhoods included, supported, and empowered in the policy development processes? • How does this policy enable people to express their skills, and capacities, to have real choice and inclusion? • How is the experience and knowledge of people with disabilities valued and incorporated into decision making?

15. Discussion: your turn! Thank you! Comments? Questions? Michael J. Prince Lansdowne Professor of Social Policy University of Victoria mprince@uvic.ca