[Jeff and Robin]

I wanted to add my two cents worth. I have been running a home based program for almost 13 years. When we started running the program, my son was 3 and my oldest daughter was not quite 5 years old. We always made a point of including her in all of my son's therapy sessions and she quickly became a very competent ABA instructor (at 5 years of age!) Fast forward 13 years and my daughter is now 17 1/2 years old. Not only does she idolize her youngest brother, but is very capable of running through 90% of his programs and doing data collection. Today, she is intent on becoming a psychologist, is an extremely caring and empathic young lady and my point here being that by all means, include your typically developing children in their sibling's program. You will see it pay off in spades years down the pike.

My daughter's involvement was always encouraged by a wonderful junior therapist we had 12 years ago- a young woman many of you know today as one our pre-eminent local consultants-Rachel Russell-who would most certaintly vouch for the merits of including sibs in a home based program.

Best Regards,

Robin Gelfer

[Jeff and Robin]

Nancy,

That is awesome. Was there TV coverage as well? If so, let us know on the Chat when this will be on the telly. Looking forward to some great pics to be posted by Loriane. For those of you who have not already reached this conclusion by reading her posts, Nancy is an extremely articulate and saavy advocate who is extremely competent at presenting our position to the media.

Bravo!

[Jeff and Robin]

To all our FEAT friends and family:

This afternoon, twenty of our members excercised our democratic rights outside Attorney General Geoff Plante's office on the occasion of his Christmas levee for his constituents. Kudos to our wonderful Dave Chan for reading about this in the local Richmond paper and organizing our group. We assembled outside Plante's office where we greeted the Attorney General and yours truly confronted him about his government's reprehensible actions and statements following the SCOCC decision resulting in our children essentially being branded as second class citizens in this country.Unfortunately, the government lackeys including Robin Syme, Cameron Kelleher have already been hard at work and planning to terminate funding in"the spirit of the SOCC decision". Shortly after Minister Plante invited us all to join us in his office for"some Christmas cheer", BCTV showed up and interviewed myself, Nancy Walton and Liz Hummel who so eloquently presented her story with which all of us are so familiar-regression of her child as their funding has been significantly reduced.

Inside Minister Plante's office, Bev Sharpe confronted Minister Plante to communicate our message of our children requiring medically necessary treatment, core health care funding and parents receiving individualized funding in order that our children may continue to receive this treatment. The Attorney General kept insisting that 30 million dollars was being expended by his government towards autism care. We responded by arguing that this money was going to government contractors and not directly to our children's Lovaas ABA treatment. We also pointed out to Minister Plante that the Canadian public had a right to know that despite he and his government's best efforts, we were not going to go away and neither were our children.Minister Plante and his Liberal cronies have displayed their true colours since the SOCC decision by vindictively ripping away funding from the Autism Society of B.C. This is all being done notwithstanding the Attorney General's remonstrations that his government "cares about our children."
The Attorney General was both dismissive and sarcastic. This piece will be aired on CTV tonite on the 6:00 news on Channel 9.

Many thanks to all of our members who are Richmond constituents that demonstrated and walked the Richmond streets with placards in hand.

Best regards,

Robin Gelfer

[Jeff and Robin]

Dear Friends,

I will be giving MP Raymond Chan further petitions with approximately 175 signatures on Monday. Nancy,can you tell me if we still have the Monday November 29th deadline? I am trying to arrange a meeting with Mr. Chan on Monday. Jenn Ralph, if you are interested in coming with me, can you email me privately?

[Jeff and Robin]

Nancy:

Will be sending 50 signatures plus to Richmond MP Raymond Chan this afternoon courtesy of my colleagues at the WCB.

Best wishes for all our kids,

Robin

[Jeff and Robin]

Hi Michelle,

When I do the download, I get the application for the Victoria workshop. I am assuming this was a "boo boo," Looking forward to getting the vancouver application.

Thanks, Robin

[Jeff and Robin]

Avery,

Reading your post made me cry as well. Congrats and best wishes to you and Maureen on Ariel's birthday and achieving all those milestones. She is so fortunate to have you both as her parents! You both are amazing people and so is your little girl.

Best wishes
Robin

[Jeff and Robin]

I have followed with great interest the posts on this board over the last week with mixed emotions; anger at the ill conceived ramblings of those who blatantly attack parents in this province who have fought hard for scientific based medically necessary autism treatment and disbelief at the thinly veiled barbs aimed at Sabrina Freeman who singlehandedly took up the cause nine years ago in B.C. on behalf of all of our children. To those parents whose children have reaped the benefits of Dr. Freeman's efforts and who now receive funding for their programs, let me tell you that the treatment situation in this province was very different ten years ago. There was no FEAT of BC, government providers were sucking up government dollars and none of was being expended on treating our kids. I know this- my now fourteen year old son was the beneficiary of those horrific policies. Nine years ago Sabrina Freeman sat in my house and shared her far reaching vision for children with autism which encompassed trained Lovaas ABA practictioners working locally, removing the need to bring in out-of-country consultants at exorbitant costs to parents, and hundreds, albeit even thousands of families in this province having the resources to run home based Lovaas ABA programs for their children and the creation of an Autism chair at one of our local universities. At the time, there were only two families, hers and mine running home based programs but hundreds of parents crying out for scientific based treatment for their children. The rest, shall we say, was history and FEAT of BC, a small grassroots organization was born. Sabrina Freeman has painstakingly dedicated thousands of hours at great cost on every level to work tirelessly for the children of this province. For those of you who choose to follow a different path for your children in terms of treatment modalities, that is your right as parents. You are, however, missing the bigger picture. FEAT of BC's mandate has always been to support scientifically based autism treatment of which Lovaas ABA is considered the gold standard and best practice. If you wish to promote your preferred treatment modalities, chose your own forum. Create your own organization and be prepared to put in the thousands of hours of work, expending your own financial resources and talking to every parent of a newly diagnosed child. Don't denigrate Sabrina Freeman whose hard work has benefited all of your children. Sabrina, my friend, I want to publicly take this opportunity to thank you for all your energy and hard work on behalf of all our children.

Robin Gelfer

[Jeff and Robin]

Sabrina,

Tonight I listened to Miki's beautiful rendition of Gershwin with tears in my eyes. I know how proud you are of her and her many accomplishments and I know that this musically gifted young woman will receive many accolades in the years to come. As parents of teenagers with autism who have had many years of extensive intervention in Lovaas ABA programs,we know the challenges have been numerous and often it seemed the despair of would overwhelm us. Yet, as you pointed out in such a timely fashion, the benefits our children have reaped from the years of instruction using Lovaas methodology continues to bring them to a place where they will realize their full potential.

Today was also a very emotional day for Jeff and I. Today our 13 year old son Jonathan graduated from elementary school. He proudly marched in to the auditorium with his fellow graduates wearing his grad cap, sat through a two hour assembly with a smile on his face and marched up to get his diploma and shook hands with his teacher and the principal. Following the conclusion of the ceremony, he threw his cap in the air along with all the other students. Eight years ago when Jon started kindergarten, he couldn't be in the gym or sit longer than 30 seconds. So on this auspiscious day, I would like to thank some very special people for helping to bring Jon to where he is today; Dr. Ivar Lovaas and his crew at UCLA where Jon spent nearly a year, Shelley Davis, Andrea S., Bryan, Anita G. Jason H., Sara W., Kevin H. and Will C. Finally, I would like to acknowledge Rachel Russell whom my son has been blessed to have as his instructor for eight years and now consultant for the past two years.

So in closing, my message to the parents of younger children mirrors Sabrina's – continue your home based Lovaas programs and don't give up the good fight.Your children too, will amaze you with where they will be in a few years.

Signing off and apologizing for the verbosity of this post.

Robin
(proud mom of Jonathan)

[Jeff and Robin]

This post is directed to Ms/Mr. Anon who posted earlier this evening. I would like to recommend that you get ahold of the Auton v. The Attorney General of British Columbia and the Medical Services Commission of BC which you can download from this site. Should you also have the time it would be beneficial for you to read archived posts from parents of children with autism who have struggled to obtain medically necessary treatment for their children through "conflict resolution" and "working in good faith" with the government and various school districts only to be told that their children were low on the list of the government's funding priorities. Hundreds, albeit even thousands of parents in this province who have walked the path before FEAT days have agonized as years have ticked away as governments blatantly trod on the constitutional rights of their children. My point is this Mr./Ms Anon, "kill 'em with kindness" is an oversimplification and a very naive assumption on your part that children with autism in this province will be guaranteed an education which is their collective right. Avery, bless him, gives you the benefit of the doubt but I am not so sure. My wish for you is that you never have to experience the heartache that most of us do in fighting to ensure our children have an education which is their right under the law.
with autism.

Robin
(Jonathan's mom)

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