I am shocked and deeply disheartened to learn that the Provincial IDP office, the Provincial Aboriginal IDP, and Supported Child Development Offices will be closed by the end of 2009. I am a registered speech-language pathologist and former director of the Alan Cashmore Centre. I have been working in BC since 1979. The quality of training and support offered to IDP staff and families has made a tremendous difference to innumberable families for whom I have provided services. This network of continuing education, knowledge of best practices, and standards of care has made IDP in BC what it is today. In the 1980s I saw this overarching support removed for SLPs within the Vancouver School Board. The resulting lose of morale, expertise, resources, and accountability for best practices within that system over the last twenty years speaks to the lack of wisdom in removing this kind of resource for the people who provide the direct services.
Dana Brynelsen is a gem. She has served on many boards for diverse issues and needs. This has added to her knowledge of best practices. I relied on her input significantly when developing the Parent-Infant Program at ACC and she helped to establish a very easy collaboration between my staff and IDP professionals. Her sense of humour and tremendous skill in listening to viewpoints and finding common ground resulted in huge changes in how services are delivered to people in BC who have hearing loss. She was instrumental in bringing the Parent-Child Mother Goose program to BC and realizing a provincial office to oversee the delivery of this program throughout the province. She petitioned the health care system to make significant changes to post surgical care of children after losing her own daughter in post op. She didn't get angry - she just got going and had a plan implemented. Dana understands the needs of families and has ensured that families have remained the central focus for IDP professionals. With all of the special needs of the children who receive services through IDP, the professionals could easily have overridden the family perspective without Dana's insistance that families come first. That way of moving in the world has been admired and modeled by everyone who has worked with Dana on a committee, on a board, on continuing education development, or in planning for new programs both within BC and across the country. She has created her role as Provincial Coordinator to last beyond her time by establishing a standard for what is needed to ensure IDP services to young families are of the highest quality in BC. Don't throw this away.
Several years ago, the provincial government dismantled the Greater Vancouver Mental Health Services Society - a world leader in care for people who have mental health issues. It was a bad decision. I urge you to not repeat history again by eliminating another world leader. Keep the Provincial Offices open - the cost of running them is small. The cost of losing them will be huge. Families come first.
Sincerely,
Sue Formosa
Resgistered Speech-Language Pathologist
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