Letter from Sunshine Coast IDP- M. Corder

October 9, 2009


Premier Gordon Campbell
Honorable Mary Polack, Minister Children and Family Development
Lesley Du Toit, Deputy Minister, Children and Family Development


Dear Premier Campbell, Honorable Minister and Deputy Minister:

For the past 18 years, I have been the “sole charge” Infant Development Consultant on the Sunshine Coast serving children birth to age three with disabilities or developmental concerns and their families. Today I am feeling the impact of news from MCFD to cut the position of the Provincial IDP Advisor by the end of December 2009.

This is a harsh blow to isolated programs in rural communities, where we depend strongly on the provincial advisor and staff, as do many families, for support, guidance and counsel. The Provincial Office is responsible for hiring one provincial advisor, one administrative assistant and one regional advisor for each of the five regions in the province. This is not a bureaucracy. This is a skeleton staff providing an enormous amount of extremely important work with, and on behalf of vulnerable families and IDP consultants throughout the province for over thirty years.

As the only IDP staff working on the Sunshine Coast, I contact the Provincial Office staff frequently. I know they have the level of expertise not available to me in my local community. Their support relates to my work with families including: grief and loss issues specific to the population I work with, difficult medical conditions, the latest evidenced based research, intervention techniques, best practices, or training opportunities. The service provided from the Provincial Office is specific to concerns in the field of infant development and has been created over 30 years. For instance, the family centered philosophy is the underlying approach of the IDP, and the Provincial Office models this approach to families and consultants. It provides a personal direct link to a vast array of other “family-centered” networks and supports provincially and nationally. The provincial advisor and assistant have always been available for empathic direct telephone discussion and support, so important and helpful in an era of automation and technology. The BC Provincial IDP Office has become known internationally as a leader in the field of infant development and without this valued and reliable service, I know the quality of my work with families in my rural community will be diminished.

The Provincial Office also provides strong advocacy to local agencies for high quality professional development for IDP consultants, to assure the highest quality service to families. In this regard, the Provincial Office has been responsible for organizing state-of- the-art summer institutes and inservice training specific to the philosophy of the program. Over my 20-year career in IDP I have attended 6 summer institutes at UBC, leading to a post-degree diploma in infant development and have attended spring and fall in-services annually as well as many conferences and workshops. The Provincial Office organizes leading edge professors and researchers in the field of early child development to teach summer institutes and bi-annual inservice training sessions. These “experts” are known to the provincial or regional advisors who make it their job to carefully research “the best” in the field. Without the work of the Provincial Office in providing the best training available for IDP consultants, we would be at a great loss in developing the skills most suited to doing our jobs.

Another aspect of the provincial office is the creation and regular updating of the policies and procedures manual, including in-depth evaluation tools. This important document is based on research, best practices and years of experience from Provincial Office staff and input from families on what works best. It provides standardization for all IDP programs in the province and assures consistent family-centered service to families when they move between communities. This 265 page document provides the structure we all use and value because it is created from “real” input from users of the program and from the staff at the Provincial Office who “care”.

I have always felt honored and proud to be part of this wonderful caring community of infant development consultants of BC, and it’s provincial advisor who has role-modeled all that the program aspires to be. Her empathy, compassion, humour, overall generosity and caring for families and consultants have given us the strength to carry on in times of challenge, grief and overwhelming family trauma. As the only consultant doing the IDP work on the Sunshine Coast, I cannot imagine how it would be without the support, expertise, caring and direct service the Provincial Office provides. The quality of service to families would definitely be impacted. I strongly urge you to reinstate the funding for this much needed and valued Provincial Office of Infant Development.


Sincerely



Merrily Corder
Infant Development Consultant
Sunshine Coast Infant Development Program


Cc Dana Brynelsen, IDP Provincial Advisor
Carole James, leader of the opposition
Nicholas Simons, MLA
Vicki Dobbyn, Executive Director Sunshine Coast Infant Development Program