Posts Tagged ‘disabilities’

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Mental health is health care’s orphan

Saturday, February 2nd, 2019

The recent Health Accord between Canada and the provinces will invest $5-billion in mental-health services over 10 years, but spending will still be short of the annualized $3.1-billion investment that is required to reach the Mental Health Commission target of 9 per cent of health spending. 

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People with mental illness don’t need more talk

Monday, January 28th, 2019

It does no good to raise awareness if you have an underfunded mobile crisis team that only has the capacity to go out on calls for 12 hours a day, or if patients wait months for assessment, or if you can’t provide stable, supportive housing for those who need it so they can recover and carry on with happy and productive lives. Let’s talk about that.

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Ontario welfare changes far from being reforms

Sunday, January 27th, 2019

The government wants recipients of Ontario Works and ODSP to work. Curiously, it proposes substantially better financial incentives for people who are certified as disabled. On Ontario Works, the plan is to exempt the first $300 a month of earned income before any clawback, compared to the current $200. Beyond the basic exemption, the current clawback is 50 per cent. The proposal is to make it 75 per cent. That is an incentive to work?

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‘Humans are suffering’: Axing of basic income pilot project leaves trail of broken dreams

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2019

The Star and other media organizations have documented how participants have been able to eat healthier food, buy warm clothing, move into stable housing and enrol in college… In addition to the court challenge, mayors of the pilot communities, international researchers, the Hamilton and Thunder Bay Chambers of Commerce, 900 medical professionals and the CEOs of 120 Canadian companies have called on both Queen’s Park and Ottawa to continue the research project the remaining two years.

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Provincial cuts leave adults with disabilities ‘hanging on a ledge’

Saturday, January 19th, 2019

Parents unable to manage or co-ordinate their adult son or daughter’s daily life believe the only options are day programs, which cost as much as $35,000 a year, or residential care, that typically runs at $140,000 annually, McGill says. Independent facilitators, however, work with individuals to discover their dreams, interests and goals and connect them with much less costly community resources.

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You can’t say inclusive education doesn’t work. We haven’t even begun to try

Friday, January 11th, 2019

Education is not a privilege. It is a human right. That means no child has more of a right to walk into a classroom than any other child. We all know that is not how the system currently works. Our education model was created to support “typically developing” children. When segregated classrooms were abolished, we invited children with disabilities and children who were neurodiverse into a space that was essentially designed to guarantee their failure.

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As parents of complex special-needs kids, we know inclusive education doesn’t work

Wednesday, January 9th, 2019

… inclusion – a system which seeks to include special-needs students in regular classrooms – does not work for complex special-needs students (those, for example, with low functioning autism, Down syndrome, a physical disability and/or who are medically fragile.) However, it can work for mid and moderate special-needs students. (Those with dyslexia for example, or high-functioning Down syndrome or autism.)… The truth is that both camps have their place in education.

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Advocates for students with disabilities call on Ontario to stop school exclusions

Monday, January 7th, 2019

Autism advocates in Ontario are calling on the province to remove a principal’s power to exclude students from school for an indefinite period, saying it is being misused as a disciplinary measure that disproportionately targets children with special needs… families with children who have intellectual and developmental disabilities are increasingly being asked to pick up kids early, start the school day later or simply keep them home for days.

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Educating Grayson: Are inclusive classrooms failing students?

Saturday, January 5th, 2019

Paul Bennett, an education consultant based in Halifax, says a movement to make the classroom the be-all and end-all of inclusion is shortsighted. “The system is not built to accommodate the range of diversity we now have in our school system,” he says. In the case of children… who have the most complex and acute needs, Mr. Bennett says the public education system should provide one-on-one intensive supports and only provide alternative school settings if integration doesn’t work.

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WSIB staffers decry chaos caused by ‘broken’ system that’s putting injured workers at risk

Monday, December 10th, 2018

Chronic understaffing, long wait times and chaotic case management at Ontario’s workers compensation board are putting vulnerable accident victims at risk, compromising the integrity of the provincial compensation system, and jeopardizing financial accountability, according to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board’s own employees.

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