Guided by advocates and community leaders, participants will be taken on a journey to revisit key moments in the history of the inclusion movement in B.C. Join Richard McDonald, Linda Derkach and Karla Verschoor for this important learning foundation at AdvoCon2022, our 8th annual education advocacy conference held October 20th to 23rd online!
Tickets available now – Facebook group members receive a good discounted rate and the first 100 purchased receive a care package delivered to their house!
Richard McDonald is the President of the BC Self Advocacy Foundation. Richard has been advocating for the rights of people with disabilities to live in community for over forty years. Richard is a featured artist in the From The Inside/Out! exhibit and spoke at the demolition of Woodlands.
Linda Derkach has had a long career in the community living sector, including being the Executive Director of Port Alberni Association for Community Living and currently the president of BC Family Net, a provincial network that provides a provincial voice for children, youth, and adults with developmental disabilities and their families.
Karla Verschoor has been with Inclusion BC since 2006, when she joined the organization as a volunteer coordinator. Over the years, Karla has worked in various leadership roles as an advocate, strategic planner and now as Executive Director. Karla has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Alberta where she studied Political Science and Government and a Certificate in Dialogue and Civic Engagement from Simon Fraser University. Karla lives in Vancouver with her husband and daughter. When she’s not working Karla enjoys volunteering at her daughter’s school and with her local neighbourhood house.
Disability History: The Journey to Inclusion
Understanding the challenges and successes to advance inclusion in our province is key to keep our movement strong and moving forward to realize our vision of a world where everyone belongs. Participants will hear what it has taken for people with disabilities, their families, and supporters to get here and how we can come together to face current challenges.
Transitions are a big topic among families and we’re excited to hear from Arden Duncan Bonokoski about initiatives supporting disabled students on the path to post-secondary education. See her speak at AdvoCon2022, our 8th annual education advocacy conference held October 20th to 23rd online!
Tickets available now – Facebook group members receive a good discounted rate and the first 100 purchased receive a care package delivered to their house!
Arden is the Executive Director of the BC Initiative for Inclusive Post-secondary Education. She holds a Masters in Community Health Science, from the University of Calgary. She has been working to advance inclusive post-secondary education since 2009 and is passionate about confronting social bias in ways that enable marginalized people to live inclusive lives on their own terms.
Scaling the impact of Inclusive Post-secondary Education
Inclusive post-secondary education provides a vision of an inclusive life path after graduation. In this session, we will share how the lessons learned over the last 20 years of facilitating inclusion at the post-secondary level can help support students and families to advocate for quality inclusive education in high school.
After this session participants will:
Be familiar with the guiding principles and practice of inclusive post-secondary education
Understand how the vision for post-secondary education can support advocacy and relationship building through the high school years
Have practical actions they can take back to support their own advocacy
The BC Initiative for Inclusive Post-secondary Education (Steps Forward) is on Twitter @STEPSForwardBC
We really value our regular participation in the Mental Health Committee and we’re glad to have Shelley Nessman and others from the committee coming to run a World Cafe on mental health. Join to bring your ideas and learn more at AdvoCon2022, our 8th annual education advocacy conference held October 20th to 23rd online!
Tickets available now – Facebook group members receive a good discounted rate and the first 100 purchased receive a care package delivered to their house!
The Mental Health Committee is a group of professionals with various affiliations to groups and organizations in British Columbia ranging from future planning to public health. Members work for organizations with a focus on mental health and wellness for their constituents. The group began to meet as a response to the pandemic with a dream to support better mental health support for all British Columbians.
What the Health
Join us for an online World Café to talk about what we might need for better mental health as we enter a new phase of the pandemic!
Things change daily and we often forget to take the time to sit with others and think about what is going on in the moment – give yourself the gift of an hour to have conversations and answer some interesting questions about how we are individually and as a collective.
We’re excited to learn from the Self Advocates of Semiahmoo about how to create change in our communities. See them present at AdvoCon2022, our 8th annual education advocacy conference held October 20th to 23rd online!
Tickets available now – Facebook group members receive a good discounted rate and the first 100 purchased receive a care package delivered to their house!
The Self Advocates of Semiahmoo (SAS) are a team of advocates who make change through positive relationships. We have experience in leadership and self advocacy at local, municipal, provincial and federal levels and aim to make our community an accessible and inclusive space for everyone.
Connecting with the Community: Making Change Through Positive Relationships
Come listen, learn and ask questions with the Self Advocates of Semiahmoo (SAS). We will do a panel presentation for 30-40 minutes, followed by an interactive question period for the audience. This presentation will be about how we make connections in the community, and how this process leads to positive change for everyone involved. Advocates will give examples of previous events we’ve hosted with partnerships, and what we’ve learned from working with different groups of people.
We’re happy to have human rights lawyer Laura Track with us again to explain the human rights code and tribunal processes. See her speak at AdvoCon2022, our 8th annual education advocacy conference held October 20th to 23rd online!
Tickets available now – Facebook group members receive a good discounted rate and the first 100 purchased receive a care package delivered to their house!
Laura is the Director of CLAS’s Human Rights Clinic, as well as its Director of Education. She advocates on behalf of people who have experienced discrimination and assists complainants to navigate BC’s human rights process. Laura also has a strong interest in making legal knowledge accessible. She delivers workshops and presentations to a wide variety of audiences to help people understand their human rights and comply with their legal obligations.
Laura earned her law degree from UBC in 2006, and holds a Masters in International Human Rights Law from Oxford University.
Human Rights Law
In this workshop, we will discuss the basics of the BC Human Rights Code and how it protects students with disabilities from discrimination. Topics to be covered include:
the legal test for discrimination
schools’ duty to accommodate students’ disability-related needs
leading cases in this area
the process for filing a complaint with the BC Human Rights Tribunal
We’re very fortunate to have the expertise of Levonne Abshire for this presentation exploring Equity, Diversity and Inclusion both personally and in schools and organizations. See her speak at AdvoCon2022, our 8th annual education advocacy conference held October 20th to 23rd online!
Tickets available now – Facebook group members receive a good discounted rate and the first 100 purchased receive a care package delivered to their house!
Levonne Abshire (she/her), MEd., COC, is a second-generation Filipinx, whose family immigrated to Canada in the 1960s and has lived as uninvited guests on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Coast Salish Peoples: Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh for over 40 years. She understands the harm that colonization has had on her own family and place of origin and is committed to advancing Canada’s TRC Calls to Action, especially within health and education. In her role as Director, Health Equity, Promotion and Education at the University of British Columbia, she is responsible for strategic leadership in Student Health and Wellbeing in the promotion and education of health, the prevention of illness, and the advancement of health equity across the University of British Columbia (UBC). More recently Levonne has become a Certified Organizational Coach working with Education and Non-profit leaders in Equity, Diversity and Inclusion initiatives. She is a disability advocate and ally in her community, sitting on the board of directors of the Family Support Institute BC and volunteering with BCEdAccess and Canucks Autism Network, organizations that support families and individuals with disabilities.
Being and Belonging: An EDI Roadmap
In this workshop we will review the concepts of equity, diversity and inclusion, as well as related concepts, such as privilege, power, oppression and marginalization, and how they show up in education and our schools. Participants will have an opportunity to explore their social identity and the ways in which they hold privilege and power and how they can use this towards advocating for equitable education. Time will also be dedicated to reviewing a road map to organizational equity, diversity and inclusion for those who work in schools and non-profit organizations.
We’re excited to have the opportunity to share findings from the partnership study on inclusive education in BC and to seek feedback from attendees. This session is presented by Dr. Jennifer Baumbusch and Tracy Humphreys, executive director of BCEdAccess. at AdvoCon2022, our 8th annual education advocacy conference held October 20th to 23rd online!
Tickets available now – Facebook group members receive a good discounted rate and the first 100 purchased receive a care package delivered to their house!
Jennifer is a Professor at the UBC School of Nursing. She is also mom to a 19-year-old disabled and medically complex woman who completed 14 years in the public education system. Jennifer started the SPICE (Supporting Progressive Inclusive Child-centred Education) Research Unit because of her experiences parenting a disabled student. The research conducted in the SPICE lab mainly uses population-based data to examine learning outcomes of students with disabilities and learning exceptionalities. Jennifer also leads research about the impact of the pandemic on inclusive education in British Columbia. For more information about the SPICE Research Unit, please go to spice.nursing.ubc.ca
Community Conversation around Joint UBC/BCEdAccess Research Project
Project: Addressing Community-Identified Needs in Inclusive Education for Students with Disabilities and Complex Learning Needs During and Following the COVID-19 Pandemic
We’ll present the findings from a partnership study focused on the impact of the pandemic on inclusive education in BC. The aim of this forum is to have a dialogue about the priority areas emerging from the research findings. These priorities will then inform the creation of accessible, plain language tools such as policy briefs and infographics that can be used by individuals and organizations in their advocacy efforts.
We’re excited to have Sue Sterling-Bur return again to present at AdvoCon2022, our 8th annual education advocacy conference held October 20th to 23rd online! We look forward to learning more about UNDRIP and the TRC and how they fit into advocacy for Indigenous students in #bced.
Tickets available now – Facebook group members receive a good discounted rate and the first 100 purchased receive a care package delivered to their house!
Sue Sterling-Bur is from the Nlakap’mux and Sto:Lo Nations and is the Vice President – Students for the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology, which is the only Indigenous public post-secondary in B.C.
Sue is a Ph.D. Candidate at The University of British Columbia Okanagan Campus and also works as a Graduate Research Assistant with Dr. Jeannette Armstrong and Dr. Rachelle Hole in the areas of Indigenous research and disabilities. Sue’s doctoral research will provide an Indigenous perspective on the systems of belief for giftedness in children with disabilities. She will base her research on the Nlakap’mux Spilahem stories to identify the ethics, values, and beliefs that will guide and direct working with and supporting Indigenous people with disabilities. Sue is passionate about Indigenous Early Learning and Childhood Development and advocates to enhance the quality of life for Indigenous children and youth to ensure the best chance in life.
Indigenous Rights Within the World of Dis-ability
In this workshop, the speaker will discuss how we can use the Declaration of Rights for Indigenous Peoples Act (2019) and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action (2015) as advocacy tools for supporting an Indigenous Person with a disability.
BCEdAccess and Family Support Institute have been working together to develop some education advocacy toolkits and will be presenting the set of meeting toolkits and talking about some strategies at AdvoCon2022, our 8th annual education advocacy conference held October 20th to 23rd online!
Tickets available now – Facebook group members receive a good discounted rate and the first 100 purchased receive a care package delivered to their house!
Chantelle Morvay-Adams is one of the Founders and Chair of ADHD Advocacy Society of BC. She is an ADHD mom of two amazing kids. Recently diagnosed with ADHD, she has many loved ones who have had this piece of their identity confirmed for a lot longer.
Coming from the East Coast a few decades ago, she held some interesting jobs before settling down and having kids, from selling Papyrus, to working for a Canadian diamond wholesaler, to bill collections. Since having kids, there have been some real roller coaster rides, some of which led her to being on a Strata Council for nine years and then taking a Strata Management Course. However, while building her career, inclusive child care was a huge issue, and she had to make the choice to leave her budding career to focus on her children and their equitable access to education and supports. She found a small group of parents on Facebook who were also trying to navigate the education system and 8+ yrs later, Chantelle is proud to be on the Board of Directors of BCEdAccess and to have helped it grow to 5,000+ strong. Collaborating with other organizations, developing and delivering a yearly Education Advocacy conference, she is honored to create weekly Inclusive Minecraft social sessions for children and youth.
Not one to ever stay still and in true ADHD fashion, Chantelle had her own radio show on CIVL Radio in Abbotsford called “All In”, started an Inclusion Sub-committee with a PAC that kicked off the “Wall of Wonder” that is now popping up around the province in various schools/districts by other amazing families, and held various positions on PAC’s, including co-chair of DPAC before moving to Vancouver island. She also was lucky enough to get back to her old career, even for a little bit, as Building Manager for a Strata.
However, over all these years, seeing the gaps in the specific area of ADHD Advocacy, she decided to put her insatiable energy into getting the word out about what ADHD IS…and what it is NOT and to advocate for better supports and services in all areas.
She is eternally grateful for her journey, even with its ups and downs, that led her here, to the incredibly beautiful, unceded, stolen lands of the Snuneymuxw, Sna naw as, and Stz’uminus First Nations. She lives here now, working with the knowledge that she has a role to play in learning the truth of colonization and moving towards reconciliation as an active ally.
Image description: Light -complexioned woman, with rosey cheeks, wearing a smile, a grey knit toque and scarf. behind her a beach extending into the background.
Workshop: How to request, prepare for, run and follow up advocacy meetings
It can be incredibly stressful and intimidating to ask school staff for a meeting when things may be going sideways, or you can see things becoming challenging. We are here to help lay out a path for you to follow and take away some of the guess work that comes with our communications with schools.
Chantelle is on Twitter @picsofyoucmorv
Read all the details about our conference here, more information is being added every day!
Victoria, 29 August 2022 – This year’s Exclusion Tracker report shows BC children and youth with disabilities missed thousands of days of school, were left without support or instruction, were left out of field trips, clubs and events, were secluded and restrained, and numbers haven’t improved over 4 years of collecting and sharing data.
For 4 years parents, guardians and caregivers have been reporting to BCEdAccess the exclusion of their disabled children and youth from the BC school system.
This year’s BCEdAccess Exclusion Tracker reports show 4760 individual incidents of disabled students being excluded from their education in the 2021/22 school year.
The report unearthed other BC school exclusion trends in data, compared over 4 years:
September – Gradual entry and partial days
54 reports specifically cited gradual entry/being asked to keep their child home due to no EA or Nursing support in September 2021/22.
This resulted in 342 missed school days for just these 54 students in the month of September.
Restraint and Seclusion, and systemic oppression
“Schools are still keeping children in isolation and seclusion, away from their peers and the supports they need to de-escalate,” says Tracy Humphreys, Executive Director of the BCEdAccess Society. “Others are restraining children, without first using de-escalation, earlier intervention or following safety and support plans. Districts do not collect data or information on restraint and seclusion room use,” says Humphreys.
The report finds that both overall and more specifically within respondents who reported restraint or seclusion, there is overrepresentation of some child/youth identities.
Restrained/Secluded
2020/21
2021/22
H and R
4
2
G
16
16
Waiting for assessment
2
3
Southeast Asian
3
0
East Asian
0
2
African
1
2
Indigenous
5
6
LGBTQ2SIA+
7
8
Income under $25K
5
4
Identities have been changed, but the following is in a report from last year’s survey:
A Kindergarten student is waiting for assessment. There was an incident where they showed some aggression and now are only allowed to attend 2 hours per day. They are West Asian and African, and have a single parent earning under $25K per year.
Student Voice
This year a voluntary set of questions for disabled students to answer directly was included. 34 students responded. Nearly 78% of them were not told why they were excluded by the school:
Here’s what some of them had to say:
Tell us about how you were excluded.
I got in trouble for other kids bugging me.
I played a game I did not understand
Can’t be in the class with my friends; Can’t take the school bus
They make me stay in the calm room. I am not allowed out. I am in jail.
What do you hope will happen now?
I will get the help I need
I will get to play outside with my best friend. He is in the other class.
They will make a plan for me
Be with my friends in the class, take the school bus, be included
“BCEdAccess meets with the Ministry of Education and Child Care staff on a regular basis and efforts are made to address barriers to access for students but current legislation and policy does prevent a lot of resolution to individual issues. The Minister of Education and Child Care is aware of the Exclusion Tracker and several school district boards have seen our presentation on the Tracker data which includes suggested solutions.” Nicole Kaler, Chair, BCEdAccess.
“Not having an up to date provincial policy and having a ministerial order that allows exclusion is discrimination embedded in law. “ says Kaler.
The BCEdAccess Society is an organization of families of children and youth with disabilities and complex learners all over the province of British Columbia. We champion and support children and youth who have disabilities and who are complex learners to reach their full potential in BC education, and in all aspects of their lives.
This is achieved through families supporting families, sharing information, providing education to families, allies, professionals and students, providing community engagement and awareness, and other activities to promote equitable access to education and inclusion for all. We run a well respected annual parent/guardian advocacy conference, bringing together families, self-advocates, educators and allies of children and youth with disabilities. We also do research into the exclusion of students with disabilities from school and community, and other disability issues impacting children and youth. We advocate to local and provincial government on behalf of families to improve accessibility in all aspects of the lives of children and youth with disabilities.
