The Westlock Independence Network is hoping an upcoming information night will provide some answers to families trying to cope with upcoming provincial cuts to the Persons with Developmental Disabilities program.
The family information night, which is slated for June 11 from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Legion, will revolve around the $23 million in provincial budget cuts being made to PDD. Specifically the evening will focus on what WIN clients should expect to see this summer.
“They’ve (families) been going, ‘This works’ and ‘That works’ and ‘I’m happy with what’s going on,’ but they don’t know the details. It’s like they drive the car, but they don’t know how to fix the car, or how it works, or how much gas it takes to make it work, or how much money it costs to pay for that gas, so their level of information and involvement has been about the services, not about behind all of that,” said WIN executive director Greg Morris.
“We need to improve their education and information because better-informed people make better-informed decisions.”
More than one month ago, PDD northeast service providers announced provincial funding cuts for programming will be phased in over this summer. In the wake of that news, close to 40 people gathered in front of Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock MLA Maureen Kubinec’s office on May 21 to protest the cuts; there have been similar rallies across the province.
In the meantime PDD service contracts are expected to be signed by July 1 and there is a nine-month transition period, allowing changes with families and their supports to be made.
The total northeast regional target reduction is almost $9 million out of a $23 million budget with some service providers reporting cuts as high as 50 per cent, according to Alberta New Democrat Party human services critic Rachel Notley.
But it wasn’t the unfamiliarity of programming that challenged people with developmental disabilities, it was how individual funding allocation would be determined by a Supports Intensity Scale (SIS) being used to measure the level of support and funding each disabled adult might need.
WIN was told the worst case scenario would mean losing as much as $408,332, but Morris said nobody knows what the reality might be and was still waiting to receive an updated funding grid from PDD last week.
“All we really have received officially is one number for the organization that we are told is the worst case scenario,” Morris said. “We don’t know person-by-person, what the real funding dollars will be even to this day.”
On May 30, he noted other organizations working with PDD have signed a three-month contract for their existing funding from April until July 1, which is the date of a new a contract.
“We don’t have those contracts yet,” he said.
“They’re still in draft form. Typically there’s a minimum of 30 days we’re supposed to have that contract before it’s due because we need to get legal opinions and we need to read the contract and understand it thoroughly before we can reasonably sign off that ‘Yes, this is something we can do.’”
Morris said WIN board chair Pierre Boisvert and SIS-trained staff member Annette Borle would be available to answer questions about the information being presented.
He said discussions would likely include topics like how to reduce or slow down funding cuts and how to provide services for people with reduced funding.
“We want to include other families who are on the horizon,” Morris said. “We deal with children as well and PDD doesn’t come into place until they turn 18, so we’ve got people who are 15-16-17-18 years old that need to be aware of the direction in the future as well. The ones that we knows specifically of will be invited.”
PDD representatives will not be attending the family information night.
“I don’t think it’s fair for them to be present, personally. I think families need to be able to talk frankly and I don’t want to put them under the gun. They’ve done their part, they’ve done their presentation. Now we have to get into further details with families.”
WJS Canada has been invited to participate in the forum to bridge communication for the same group of locals that will be affected by the budget cuts, but Morris said it was unclear whether WJS Canada could accept the offer at this point.
“The good news is we have one (funding grid) for our region,” he said. “We have a funding grid for our region and there’s one for Edmonton, and the new one coming out is supposed to be the provincial one. Each time we get a new one, the numbers are better — how that’s possible, I don’t know because we really don’t know how they arrived at those numbers.”
To confirm your attendance at the family information night at the Westlock Legion located at 10004-106 St. on PDD changes on June 11, contact WIN at 780-349-5388 or e-mail [email protected] before June 7.
