In light of ongoing contact with our members, provincewide town hall meetings held in November 2020 and a recent town hall discussion on January 26, the following reflects our key position on the Family Support for Children with Disabilities (FSCD) program. Our conclusions are drawn from the lived experience of children and families from Alberta’s united autism community (Autism Society Alberta, Autism Calgary, Autism Edmonton, Autism Society of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, Peace Autism Society, and Chinook Autism Society.) We have forwarded our conclusions to Alberta Community and Social Services, and hope that they will be included in their upcoming (FSCD) program review.
- Keep the FSCD Act and Regulations intact – Alberta is respected globally as a leader for this effective needs based program
- Resource the FSCD program sufficiently to allow timely, efficient and effective services along a child’s developmental path while strengthening family capacity
- Ensure the FSCD program is universally accessible to Alberta’s diverse population
- Support an array of dynamic service models, evolving with best practices, providing each family choices to align with their individual needs, values and circumstances
- Focus all efforts to explore sustainability on the long term objective of developing a cross-ministerial framework to coordinate services and programs that address a lifelong path
Optimising program delivery and reducing “red tape” will help, in part, to address pressures of high demand and the critical need for the FSCD program. However, the greatest path to sustainability will come from strategic coordination of all government programs and community services. Such efforts will set Albertans with disabilities and their families up for a more meaningful life with the least dependency on more costly systems of support.
We look forward to ongoing opportunities to share our collective insight. Moreover, as collective impact efforts through Autism Alberta’s Alliance initiative advance, we welcome the Government of Alberta’s involvement in building the framework of a provincial autism strategy.
For more details, please see our attached Town Hall reports: