Ministry of Education consultation

The Ministry of Education is now accepting feedback from the public regarding priorities within the school system.  I am certainly disappointed there is nothing listed regarding special needs in general or FASD specifically.  Please don't pass up this opportunity to make your voice heard.  Go to https://www.ontario.ca/page/for-the-parents to share your feedback.  I would suggest choosing the open submission method and list yourself as a stakeholder referring to your FASD support group as your organization.  Be sure and register to participate in a town hall call as well.

This is what I wrote for the eight boxes.
1) Our STEM instruction needs to get out of this language based instruction.  Our students living with FASD have amazing gifts in these areas but require a visual, verbal hands-on approach in an environment that is conductive to their learning.  Stop requiring them to learn math as another reading textbook and put it in a more application context.  Get them on the tools and learn it that way.

2) There needs to be collaboration between the school system and these needed job skills instead of the current silo situation.  Schools have no idea what employers are looking for and employers have no idea what schools are doing.  There needs to be an identification of what basic skills employers would like to see developed and schools focus on delivering them.  Coding needs to be included in the math curriculum and starts at the elementary level.  There needs to be more flexibility for high needs students particularly those living with FASD.  We need to see radically different environments that copy current workplace environments like Shopify or Google environments.

3) We spend the entire year teaching strategies to our children to enable them to experience success and then take it all away for the standardized testing to remind and shame them just how poorly they will do when we take all their supports away.  We also lower our school's overall score by giving them zeroes if the school chooses not to have them do this shaming exercise.  Don't require students with diagnosed intellectual disabilities like FASD to take the test or punish the school for exempting them.

4) There needs to be parent input as to what life skills are needed.  As the parent of children living with FASD, this is the most important thing to me and the schools teach none of it.  I am teaching all of it because the school's concept of lifeskills is way above what it actually means.  There also needs to be a public mindshift on debt in general.  Society today believes personal debt is acceptable but has no understanding of the impact it has.  Life Skills and financial literacy needs to be taught in a concrete manner.  We used to teach how to take care of a baby in a concrete manner, we needs to teach all lifeskills in real life ways.

5) There needs to be a secure storage place in each classroom.  All cellphones get placed in the storage place by a monitor at the beginning of class and removed at the end of the class.  There also needs to be more monitoring and education about social media.  For our children living with FASD, social media is the hardest and worst thing to try and teach. It always leads to our worst crisises.

6) The first and most important subject within the sexual health curriculum needs to be on alcohol and the impact it has on pregnancy.  There is no current discussion on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder and how it is only created by drinking alcohol during pregnancy.  Within mental health, FASD also needs to be discussed because these individuals are the most vulnerable in our society today to mental health challenges.  Through an understanding of how an individual with mental health challenges will behave, we can have open and frank dialogue without shame and stigma on how to best accept and welcome these individuals.

7) We believe using the model of the Ontario Patient's Bill of Rights would be an excellent way to start.  http://ondri.ca/sites/default/files/HSF%20Patient%20Bill%20of%20Rights.pdf  Change health care to education and patient to parent and use those 12 concepts.  Number 6 with having a third-party competent coordinator would solve a lot of problems that currently exist.  We are using our FASD Worker in this role.  We also believe in the 5C's of Advocacy.  Communication, Collaboration, Consistency, Creativity, and Clarity.  When both parties are committed to doing these five things, we have seen just how successful school can be for our children living with FASD.

8) Our current school system has very little recognition or understanding of how Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder impacts 3% of our children.  They currently put them in impossible environments, ask them to do things they are not capable of, shame them when they fail, don't support them to succeed, punish them as soon as they act out and eventually kick them out where they are forgotten.  These injustices need to end and the Ministry should lead the way by having school boards learn about this disability and speaking with parents about how to best support them.  If they do so, everyone will see how FASD directly impacts mental health, math skills, financial literacy, sex-ed and every other item listed in this survey.

 I recently gave a presentation at the Rural FASD Support Group meeting and would invite you to watch it.  It is very long being almost 90 minutes but you might find it useful.  I focus on the advocacy methods Shelley and I use, the org chart and explanation for our Ontario schools and finish with a good IEP explanation for a student living with FASD.  https://www.facebook.com/robert.more.794/videos/1994012353998884/

On another note, you might want to check out the following site.  http://policyconsult.cpso.on.ca/?page_id=10258  The College of Physicians and Surgeons are accepting public feedback as to the new policies with continuity of care.  I think we have all been in the situation where we have had to explain to a new doctor what FASD is.  These policies are aiming at eliminating that.

To be aware of what other consultations are happening, please go to https://www.ontario.ca/page/consultations-directory