Parenting and homeschooling during a pandemic has proven difficult for both parents and children across the province.
With no firm plans on what school will look like come September, many are concerned if their lifestyles will need to change in order to accommodate their children’s schedules while working at the same time.
Parents with children who have autism and other special needs have been struggling throughout the pandemic, with services and therapies suspended during lockdown and having to deal with challenging behaviours without professional support systems in place.
Innisfil resident Lisa Osburn is a mother of five. A 12-year-old daughter, and four sons ages eight, six and two four-year-old twins.
One of her twins, Elliott, has autism and she noticed his skills regress during the lockdown. Pre-COVID, Elliott was attending IBI Behavioural Services in Barrie two days a week, and was in JK at public school two days a week, with one day at home.
“His schedule drastically changed because school and IBI shut down simultaneously,” Osburn explained. “At first he was okay, the first couple weeks he was fine, we did our own thing, but I started noticing some regression on the skills he had worked so hard to achieve.”
The centre was finally able to reopen five weeks ago, and already she has noticed an improvement with his eye contact, vocals and independence.
Elliott was diagnosed with autism in April 2017, and so in May 2017, to better support her son, Osburn enrolled herself in school for autism behavioural sciences.
“It was an investment we decided to do because we couldn’t wait [for services] and wanted to do everything we could to help our son,” she explained.
All therapy is paid for out of pocket, and to supplement the $2,200 a month in services she works two jobs: one as an educational assistant at a high school and one as a part time nurse in palliative care at Royal Victoria Hospital in Barrie.
Thankfully, Osburn lives in a multigenerational household, with her parents living in the basement and helping out with childcare.
“We’ve always been thankful but quarantine has definitely shown us the beneficial side of having grandparents around,” she said.
For September, Osburn has withdrawn Elliott from public school and will be sending him to IBI full time, noting there needs to be consistency in his routine. But she knows not all autism families have those opportunities.
“Because a kid’s routine is so important. And to go week by week or every other day is going to be really difficult for some of these kids,” she said.
Fellow Innisfil mom and friend, Angie Donadio-Hunt has two boys Miles, 10 and Owen, five. Owen was diagnosed with autism when he was in Junior Kindergarten.
Staying home with her kids during the pandemic has had its ups and downs, she said. At first she said the kids were excited about the idea of staying home, but once they started getting into more school assigned work “things started going downhill really quickly.”
Owen was at the IBI Academy two half days per week prior to the pandemic, and only recently started attending again after reopening. Donadio-Hunt says she did notice Owen regressing steadily while quarantined, and now that he is back in the therapy, is doing better with his programming.
“He is happy to be there to have that bit of normal,” she said.
Donadio-Hunt says transitions and self regulation have always been a struggle for Owen, causing a lot more fights between him and older brother Miles during the pandemic.
“We’ve had broken tablets, smashed toys, we’ve had food thrown everywhere, we’ve had an attempt to break the TV,” she shared. “His thing is, he just goes volcanic and has to go off and explode.”
Unlike Osburn, Donadio-Hunt doesn’t have the educational background on how to handle autistic behaviour, and feels like she doesn’t always have control of the situations at home. She worries about Owen’s transition from Senior Kindergarten to Grade 1 in September, and wishes she could enroll Owen full time in therapy.
“I am nervous that it’s going to be too much change, that he’s going to have problems adjusting to everything,” she said.
“We’ll see how much the line of communication is open for parents whose kids will need extra (attention),” she said. “My question is, how much harder will it be to advocate now?”
Amanda Baysarowcih, director and owner of IBI Behavioural Services in Barrie says the pandemic has been hard on all children, especially those with autism.
They were allowed to reopen their centre on June 15, and have had about half the students return, but her staff have been servicing some children throughout the entire pandemic.
“We had families that almost immediately went into crisis mode, where we had no choice but the best clinical interest of the children to then jump in at that point and provide emergency services,” she explained, noting staff were in the home helping children with day to day tasks like getting dressed, eating, and toileting. “The biggest thing about kids with autism is they depend on routine and predictability and overnight that was gone from them."
Between the centre’s four locations, they have 13,000 square feet of space and were able to bring the kids in and spread them out one per room to start, and have been upholding that model in their second and third phases of opening.
When school resumes in September, her goal is to keep as many of the children enrolled full time because they have missed out on three months of intensive treatment and families have been struggling.
“The mental health crises going on in the home of these parents have been substantial,” she shared.
She said it is a two fold approach, trying to support the kids as well as the parents. Parents are struggling with their own mental health and dealing with issues like job loss while handling a special needs child with them full time.
“We’ve had some severe significant cases in Simcoe County,” she explained. “I owe it to my staff because a handful of them stepped in and did what we had to do during this pandemic."
Her staff have also been supporting parents online through Zoom conferences and phone calls, walking them through the behaviours they were experiencing at home.
Baysarowcih says they already work very closely with the school boards to develop learning plans for the children, and is hoping once September comes they will be able to bank the hours they missed over the pandemic and then transition into school “when clinically appropriate.”
“What we will do is absolutely be working with the schools to ensure our clients have a clear cut transition plan in order to come back while ensuring the safety of the staff and our students reentering that environment,” she explained.
Alexanda Adamo, spokesperson for Minister of Education Stephen Lecce, says to support students with special needs, including autism, transition back to school boards are being asked to:
- Consider changes in the school environment and/or remote learning needs when reviewing and updating IEPs.
- Consider additional planning and transition time for students with special education needs to support a smoother transition to school.
- Providing continued access to assistive technology.
- Provide students with significant special education needs, for whom remote learning may be challenging, the option of attending school every day in modified delivery scenarios.
- Work with partners including public health, children’s treatment centres, and local health integration networks, to develop local protocols for the access of non-school based providers, such as rehabilitation therapists and nursing staff, and supporting remote delivery of these services where in-school delivery is not possible.
All 72 school boards are projected to receive and increase to their Grants for Student Needs for the upcoming school year, which includes $3.2 billion in Special Education Grant Funding, an increase of approximately $61.9 million from the 2019-2020 school year.
There is also a $213 million Supports for Students Fund that can be used for any additional critical staffing needs required during the return to school in September, including educational assistants for students needing extra support.
"In 2020-21, the ministry is continuing investments to support school boards in making students with ASD feel safe and supported in their classrooms," said Adamo. "The ministry provides approximately $31.1 million in funding for the Behaviour Expertise Amount. This provides funding for school boards to hire professional staff at the board level who have expertise in Applied Behaviour Analysis, and training opportunities to build school board capacity in Applied Behaviour Analysis."
"The ministry is also providing $6.1 million of funding to school boards for the implementation of After School Skills Development Programs across the province and extending the dedicated space component of the Pilot to Improve School Based Supports for Students with ASD for 2020-21 for the 11 participating school boards."
"We have and will continue to maintain close contact with school boards parents and stakeholder groups, including the Minister’s Advisory Council on Special Education and the Education Standards Development Committee. In collaboration with our partners, we will continue to make special education, and well-being a priority in supporting students in schools."
