u/AnnualPea7381

I’ve been trying to understand how BC’s new children and youth disability funding model (MCFD), announced under Minister Jodie Wickens, was developed, because it will determine who gets support and what kind of support children receive.

What I keep seeing is a small, interconnected group of people and organizations showing up across multiple roles.

From what is publicly available:

• Key expert voices supporting the model, such as Suzanne Lewis and Glen Davies, are connected through PAFN (Pacific Autism Family Network) and ABLE Developmental Clinic / AIMS
• PAFN has received significant public funding and was co-founded by the current Lieutenant Governor
• ABLE provides clinical services and is also involved in training the next generation of psychologists and assessors through the BCSAP residency program
• That training pipeline includes private clinics like Compass Clinic and public systems like Surrey School District
• These programs explicitly train people in assessment, diagnosis, and intervention for neurodevelopmental conditions, which are central to the new model
• Parent input appears to include voices from the Parents and Professionals Plan and the ASN network, which overlap with this same ecosystem
• At the same time, larger parent-facing organizations such as AutismBC do not appear to be equally centered in the public rollout
• PAFN is also closely associated with programs related to SIBS diagnosis, and SIBS is listed within the direct admit pathway for the new model, which raises questions about how specific diagnostic pathways may be connected to particular organizations

At a system level, the new model shifts toward:

• functional assessments
• professional gatekeeping
• community-delivered services
• less direct funding to families compared to previous autism funding

When you step back, it looks like the same network is:

• involved in shaping how “functional need” is defined
• training the people who assess that need
• working within the system that delivers services based on those assessments

There seems to be a high concentration of influence within a relatively tight and interconnected network, especially in a publicly funded system that determines access to supports for thousands of children.

There are also gaps that are hard to ignore:

• Who is designing the assessment criteria, and what are their affiliations?
• What safeguards are there for conflicts of interest when the same groups are shaping policy, doing assessments, training providers, and delivering services?
• Which disability parent voices were consulted, and how were they selected?
• Were families losing autism funding, especially under age six, specifically represented?
• Why do some major parent-facing organizations appear less visible in this process?
• How are different therapeutic approaches represented, including behavioural versus neurodiversity-affirming and PDA-informed approaches?
• How are specific diagnostic pathways, such as those connected to SIBS, structured, and are any organizations disproportionately positioned within those pathways?

This model will determine who gets support and what kind of support they receive, so who shapes it matters.

At a minimum, this seems like a situation where transparency, independence, and diversity of perspectives should be clearly demonstrated. I have not seen that level of clarity publicly.

I am trying to understand if this is just how policy networks normally function, or if others are seeing the same concentration of influence.