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THE FILM!
Benchmarked is a story about two families who grapple and prevail with the day-to-day challenges of raising autistic children.
When nine-year-old Clifford McIntosh was diagnosed with Autism, his parents, Bruce and Laura waited two and half years before receiving any help from the Ontario government for their son's much needed therapy. As a result they founded the Ontario Autism Coalition to fight on behalf of autistic children for better access to education and government funding.
Paul Ceretti, a single father of five, is suing the Ontario government because his six-year-old daughter Delanie will no longer be receiving government-funded therapy. She was cut off from the program because of a benchmark policy that contains new guidelines to determine which children can stay in the program.
Benchmarked is a documentary that shows just how far parents will go when they feel society is taking their children's future away.
FEATURED INTERVIEWS
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Former Minister of Children and Youth Services |
Former Minister of Education |
~ WHERE ARE THEY NOW, a year later ~
The following are snippets from remarks by Laura Kirby-McIntosh at a Paul Ceretti press conference, March 11, 2010:
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Nothing's Changed! Lack of government help:
"I’m mad because after six years of Liberal rule, services for individuals and families living with Autism in Ontario remain inaccessible and inadequate. It’s shameful. This province is light years behind other jurisdictions, and there is no valid reason why.
It’s been seven years since my husband and I found out that our son has autism. But when we talk to parents dealing with a new diagnosis, I realize that almost nothing has changed in those seven years. The waitlist for IBI is still at least three years long and has over 1500 kids on it. Services in schools are still totally inadequate. Accessing respite funding or case management is virtually impossible. Sadly, my advice to families with a new diagnosis of autism is often this: if there’s any way you can get out of Ontario, do it. Go to Alberta or California or Pennsylvania—but for the sake of your child, get out of Ontario.
Ontarians need to know that instead of doing everything they can to help some of this province’s most vulnerable children, the government has been quietly ordering regional programs to do whatever it takes to reduce the wait list. The regional programs take kids who have a diagnosis of autism from a hospital or a licensed psychologist and they re-assess them. They take kids who are either too high functioning or too low functioning to qualify for IBI and say yes you’re autistic, but you’re not eligible.
Furthermore, the regional programs that administer IBI in Ontario have a record of fiscal and administrative mismanagement should be of concern to every Ontarian. IBI continues to be offered at levels that would likely be considered sub-clinical in other jurisdictions. IBI therapists in this province are still unregulated and are frequently barred from entering schools where their help would be invaluable. Regional program directors continue to discharge children like Delanie, Paul’s daughter, without consistent criteria.
But there is one thing that worries us more than the use of inconsistent discharge criteria: flawed discharge criteria, applied consistently. The Liberals call them Benchmarks. We call them an age six cut-off with a new name."
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NEW OAC Recommendations Report
"The OAC is ready to present a “recommendations report” to the provincial government. Our report expresses a united position from some of Ontario’s most vocal autism advocates. The specifics can be found on our website, www.ontarioautismcoalition.com. While the government convened its own hand-picked expert panel on autism a few years ago, I like to think of this report as the “parent expert panel.” I may not be a medical doctor, but by god I feel like I’ve earned at least three PhD’s in the years since my son’s diagnosis.
It is our sincere hope that Ministers Broten and Dombrowsky will be receptive to this report and move quickly to respond. While I appreciate that they are both new to their respective portfolios, the truth is that the time for consultation and talk is long past. Now is the time for action."
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CLIFFORD'S STRUGGLE: regressing after Benchmarks cutoff
"My son is a handsome, intelligent, talented, funny kid. He’s verbal. He’s “high functioning.” And I love him with all my heart. But for reasons we still don’t understand, he went into crisis a month ago. We saw a sudden spike in violent, aggressive outbursts. In spite of the fact that he’s only 10 years old when he went into meltdown, we couldn’t keep him physically safe. We’ve had to call 911 five times since November. He’s been taken to hospital in an ambulance, and he’s gone in the back of a police car. He’s been sedated. He’s been tied down to a hospital bed in restraints. He’s taken on four hospital security guards at a time and given them a run for their money. But even down the road at the Hospital for Sick Children, the only treatment my son was offered was more sedatives. Sick Kids said they couldn’t handle him and advised us go home with nothing but a prescription in our hands. I think that speaks volumes about the gaps in the system for children with autism.
In the month since that visit, my husband and I have been working full time trying to get help. And despite all our advantages, we’ve come up empty handed. We’ve been told that he’s too high functioning to qualify for case management, and that we can’t access certain respite programs because he doesn’t have medical needs. We’ve had agencies refer us in complete circles, and we’ve filled out more forms that I can begin to explain. It has been, in a word, maddening.
So I’m here because I have questions for my Premier:
If a white, English-speaking, university educated, middle class couple with a background in politics and advocacy can’t access services for a child with autism in crisis, what about other families? What’s happening to the single parent, or the parent who doesn’t speak English? And what’s happening to their kids? And what does all of this say about our self-styled “education Premier?”
And if we can’t restrain our son when he melts down now, what happens when he’s sixteen? What will happen to Delanie and Mackenzie and the thousands of other children with autism as they flood into our school system? And what in the world will happen when our kids reach adulthood?
What I’d really like to do is ask the Premier to his face: if your child had autism, Mr. McGuinty, what would YOU do?"
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CREDITS
Director Ann Pirvu
Producer Riva Finkelstein
Sr. Researcher Margarita Tcarnolousskaia
Camera Aamer Trambu
Editor Andrea Seto
