B.C. Disability Funding Shift Raises Concerns for Autistic Kids
New provincial benefit for disabled kids launches in April, but parents say it excludes autistic children with Level 1 diagnoses, risking loss of crucial support.
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B.C.'s new disability funding overhaul will help thousands of kids, but two parents worry it will abandon autistic children whose support has kept them safe.
Starting April next year, the province will replace its current child and youth disability funding programs with a new benefit open to more kids and youth with disabilities. The province is investing $475 million in new funding to provide more families with access to services and supports for their kids with disabilities, many for the first time. Currently, kids with other disabilities that are not medically complex, or who are waiting on a disability diagnosis, receive no direct government funding at all.
Sara Lindberg and Lynn Henderson, members of the grassroots parent-run BC Families for Fair Autism Funding, say the expansion is overdue—but they don't understand why their autistic children will lose funding. Lindberg lives in Port Moody in the Lower Mainland; Henderson lives in Fernie in B.C.'s East Kootenay region. Both have primary-school-aged children with a Level 1 autism diagnosis, as determined under the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Unlike some people with autism, the children have no co-occurring intellectual disabilities.
Currently, eligible children under six receive $22,000 per year. Children and youth six to 18 years old receive $6,000 annually—an amount unchanged since funding was announced in 2003. Lindberg and Henderson say the government's new disability benefit will exclude their autistic kids because the government doesn't view their autism diagnoses as severe enough. "You don't fix a government system by disadvantaging another group of children," Lindberg said.
This loss of funding is particularly concerning because academic research shows an increased risk of suicidality among autistic people without co-occurring intellectual disabilities. One study found autistic people without an intellectual disability are 9.4 times as likely to die from suicide compared with the general population.
