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Community Living Coalition
Meeting Minutes
September 17, 2004
1. Introductions were made around the room.
2. Update on Meeting between representatives from the Coalition, Family Net,
FSI and BCACL.
 | Joint Vision Statement was developed to help family organizations
advocate effectively. It will be circulated once typed up. |
| There was much open discussion between the organizations to build
consensus on common issues and families present felt it was a positive
meeting. |
3. Update on Self Advocates' Rally - September 10, 2004 at the
Minister's Office in Port Moody. Upwards of 50 people met to express our
concern about the lack of representation for self advocates on the Board of
Community Living British Columbia. There was some good media coverage for
the rally.
4. Update from the Executive Directors' Network - BCACL Member agencies'
Executive Directors met on Wednesday and Thursday and discussed leadership,
innovation, children's services, and retention strategies. There was much
discussion about advocacy strategies - many individuals and families are on
waitlists and the Ministry must increase funding for community living services.
The Provincial government needs to be targeted with effective advocacy
strategies to get some of the budget surplus directed towards Community Living.
Other discussions focused on the collective agreement implementation and
collaborative fundraising strategies.
5. Update on the Interim Authority:
| There is a new ADM/CEO. Phil Goodman has been hired. He
previously worked in Alberta and Manitoba. He starts October 1, 2004. |
| The Ministry has hired Fred Milowsky to do a review of the operational
plan of the Interim Authority. He has interviewed board members, IA
consultants, and advocacy organizations. Many of the people
interviewed expressed concern about the focus of his questions. His
background as a Regional Executive Director in Vancouver doesn't provide
people with much comfort about his experience with community living, his
previous work with families and his work in community development. The
Community needs to be prepared to counter negative aspects of the report
with facts and history and also to engage the new ADM / CEO with the
perspective of families and the community so that he understands the
directions intended. |
| Willow Clinic: Willow has two groups of residents - one group there for
short term assessment and stabilization, and another group that are
long-term residents, stabilized and waiting for community placement.
The long-term group of residents all have new community placements and all
will have moved by the end of September, 2004. The short-term
assessment functions are being connected with the Provincial Health
Authority and a 10 bed resource is being proposed for UBC or VGH or the
Maples site, or back to the Willow Building. There needs to be some
community involvement/input to the planning to keep aware of next steps. |
6. Community Living Restructuring Fund: Year One report is on their website.
$5,600,000 in funds have been disbursed in the first year. The majority of
grants went to families to improve accessibility in people's homes. The
majority of the funding went to Agencies to restructure services. Savings
in operational funding are calculated at $3 Million per year due to the
investments made by the Fund.
www.CLRestructuringFund.ca . The volume of applications has increased
significantly and has slowed down the approval process. Currently, it
takes three to four months to get an application approved. There have been
applications from around the Province. There have only been a limited
number of applications approved to add a fifth bedroom to a group home (less
than 10). There is an annual report on their website. The Deputy Minister
of MCFD, Alison MacPhail, met with the committee this week and was encouraged to
request ongoing MCFD support to the fund.
7. Making a Difference Conference: Organizer Cheryl Hughes was present to
request additional volunteers for an organizing committee for the annual Making
A Difference Conference in March 2005. She is available at: 604-535-4812 -
email address: heartwork@telus.net .
8. Family Net: Family Net AGM passed a motion supporting meaningful
involvement of self-advocates and families in the decision-making of the
Community Living Authority. "FamilyNet supports meaningful involvement of self
advocates and families in decisions affecting their lives and in directing
policies of the Community Living B.C. Board"
(in discussions before motion we felt that
if a self advocate is appointed to the CLBC Board there should be two. We also
discussed great concern over IA board members being put in a position of being
agents for the government, and having to be in a position of cutting funding to
other people's services as an example).
9. Advocacy / Strategies for action:
| Coalition needs to write a letter to the new Minister introducing the
community role and our vision for the Community Living Authority |
| Coalition needs to write a letter to the new ADM/CEO introducing the
community role and our vision for the Community Living Authority
 | Need to request meetings with the above people. |
| Need a small working group to draft letters and coordinate meetings.
Laney, Tim, Linda, Jane, Jackie and Anne will be the action committee. |
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| Coalition needs to express our concerns about the lack of community
involvement on the tertiary care planning - phone calls to MCFD. |
| Request meeting with Lois Hollstedt (Chair of IACLBC) and Alison
MacPhail (Deputy Minister) to express community concerns about the
sidelining of the community in ongoing Authority planning. |
| Interim Authority Board Meetings are open to the public so perhaps the
coalition should ensure that there is more public in attendance at these
meetings. It was suggested that we have at least one family member,
one self-advocate and one service provider attending each meeting. Sue
Salter will coordinate attendance of coalition members at Board Meetings.
Next IA Board meeting is October 19, 2004. |
| Priority Advocacy Issue: Address the waitlist issue. Families and
Individuals are on waitlists for vital services. Children are not
getting Early Intervention services - they are on waitlists beyond the age
of service eligibility. There is a crisis for kids turning 19 years
old and facing no services. There is a crisis for aging families who
are 80 and 90 years old and their sons and daughters are still living at
home and don't get services until a parent ends up in hospital. There
are families on waitlists for respite - the cheapest, most proactive support
available for families. This support must be provided in a timely way
to families.
| WaitList: Fraser Region: 187 people waiting for residential care,
204 people waiting for day programs and 105 people waiting for respite
care - Adults only. |
| WaitlLists for other regions are being gathered to get a broader
picture for the province. |
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| Budget Surplus Issue: The Minister of Finance has requested public input
on funding priorities but has left social services off the list of
priorities - there is a checklist of Health, Education, Post-Secondary
Education, Other Spending, Debt Reduction, or Tax Cuts. Coalition
members should fax the page with those options to their MLA and the Premier
and ask: What about Social Services? What about services to the most
vulnerable people in the Province? Coalition members should also write
letters to the editors of local and provincial papers to raise community
awareness of the fact that the savings came from the most vulnerable people
in the Province and the first place investments should happen is for people
with disabilities and their families.
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| Letter of concern to the Community Living Restructuring Fund regarding
providing funding to enable agencies to create 5 bedroom homes. |
10. Individualized Funding / 1-1 support: Phase One of the IF project has
ground to a halt. Some plans have been approved, other families have
submitted proposals, but have not been approved, and now most facilitators have
returned to their former MCFD jobs. There have been no plans that actually
received funding though. It would be good to invite someone from the
Interim Authority IF project to come to the next meeting and give us an update.
A family was told by an MCFD staff that it is now a policy that 1-1 supports
will not be funded.
11. Next Meeting: September 30, 2004 - Thursday - Burnaby Association 10am to
Noon. Co-Chairs will be Linda Perry and Jane Short. Coalition
members should consider some more volunteers to co-chair and share the workload.
12. Meeting adjourned at 12:15pm.
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