Lack of FSCD funding a frustrating battle for Lethbridge mother

Families that utilize the services of FSCD receive funds for a set number of hours in their contracts.

To support Meyering, Emoff has hired two staff members to provide care for her son’s complex needs. She said she uses a ‘family managed’ model – which means she found the support staff herself, unlike others who may go through a care provider agency.

Emoff pays her two staff members $19.50 an hour and due to a ‘parent portion’ she covers as part of the FSCD funding, the program (FSCD) provides work-related care for her at $17.12 an hour to help offset the cost for work-related care.

She explained there are different categories of funding under FSCD: work-related, respite and 24-hour respite. The funding for her son’s care is under the work-related care category.

Unfortunately, due in part to the loss of part-time staff at her workplace with Meyering, she’s had to boost the number of hours she’s working.

This, along with the closure of schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic, has put her in a tough position.

She’s had to use more hours than what are in her contracted FSCD agreement.

When contract agreement hours run out, any further care must be paid for by Emoff.

“My hours will run out probably by July, maybe August and then that means I [will] have no money for Ben [her son] from the government until the end of November. That would mean I would be paying out of pocket and that means I have [to] work for free,” Emoff told Lethbridge News Now.

Emoff said she’s been told by her FSCD program worker that “they don’t typically support work-related hours, like from nine-to-five”.

“What it is, is they’re not saying I can’t work outside nine-to-five. They’re saying [that] typically, the average parent works nine to five and we [FSCD] don’t usually go outside those typical hours,” she said.

However, Emoff argues her career is not based on a nine-to-five schedule, as anyone in her profession can find themselves working evenings, weekends and responding to an emergency after-hours.

Being a single mother of a child with a disability also means she cannot leave her son with a relative if she needs to work overtime or leave the house to help Meyering with an emergency.

“I don’t have family. I don’t have someone to rely on other than myself,” she said, adding that’s why her support staff is so important, because they’re willing to be there and on-call for Ben, much like she is for Meyering.

“My thing that I want to get across to the government is that we’re not all a cookie-cutter society. Let parents do what they need to do to work [and] to survive.”

BEN’S SUPPORT TEAM

Emoff had nothing but praise for the staff that support Ben while she’s at work with Meyering.

“His support staff, I love them to pieces. They’re willing to self-isolate with him, so I’m self-isolating with Geoff [Meyering]. We’re a very, very strong team and they’re [the provincial government] trying to destroy our team by not providing my funding,” she told LNN.

Emoff explained that when schools across the province were closed last month, she had to start using contracted hours she wouldn’t normally need to use when Ben was in school, during the day.

Emoff noted that after March 20^th, FSCD allowed her to use school-related care hours. However, before the 20^th of that month – when classes were cancelled – she was unable to get her hours covered.

Because of this, she lost close to 30 hours in which Ben would normally have been in school during the period of March 16 through 19, 2020.

Emoff was told that additional educational childcare (ECC) hours couldn’t be added to her FSCD agreement and her request for reimbursement during that March 16-19 period was denied.

She said she was informed that she’s able to “be flexible” with the current ECC hours in her agreement, however, additional supports “will not be added because of school closures and the COVID-19 pandemic”.

She noted that the government keeps inferring that “non-typical nine-to-five parents” are responsible for their own children.

“I understand that parents DO need to be responsible. But, when you provide a service and help people in a time of crisis, that is why they need people like me, or like front-line staff; workers at grocery stores,” she said.

“I’m sorry our field [is] not designed like a government nine-to-five job and it never will be.”

The financial instability of the situation has resulted in Emoff moving her family to more affordable accommodations in the city.

“I make just as much as I pay my staff, so when I don’t get allotted hours or I miss hours, I basically work for free,” she said.

Emoff added that FSCD funding is modeled off guidelines of the provincial childcare subsidy.

“Typical [childcare] allotted hours are 225. It doesn’t matter what you work but you get those allotted hours, so if you want to stop and get milk, you can or if you need a five-minute break from your household you can [take it]. I’m not given any of that. I’m given eight hours a day. I work eight hours a day so even before COVID, I was paying an hour out of my own pocket [for care] and it’s just frustrating.”

EMPLOYER’S SUPPORT

Geoff Meyering is Emoff’s employer, and shares many of the same frustrations as his support worker.

“I think for her it’s a tough situation to be in. Normally, I have an extra person, but she’s gotten sick, so I can’t hire anybody due to this [COVID-19 pandemic], like I can’t have somebody new into my home. Otherwise, in a typical situation, I’d have a spare person but due to this virus, I don’t have another support staff, [so Emoff] is working 56 hours a week and they [the province and FSCD] have to understand that,” he told Lethbridge News Now.

Emoff has been working for Meyering for around eight months, and although she usually works seven days a week, but Meyering’s extra staff will come in to relieve her.

“I think they need to just look at the situation. Like, look – everybody’s self-isolating and if her little boy was in school, he would have an aid, so where’s the funding gone for that,” Meyering said.

“I told her, maybe she needs to write a letter to the school board stating that, okay my child needs an aid and if he was in school, typically he would have that. You can’t just give him an online program and say, go do that because not even in a normal situation would he be able to go and do his schoolwork by himself. That’s completely unfair to her.”

Meyering added that Emoff is essentially ‘working for free for a quarter of her paycheque’.

A MORAL DILEMMA

A moral conflict Emoff is facing in light of the situation is balancing her responsibilities with Meyering and with her young son.

“I have a moral obligation to be there for people I care about, and I’m torn right now between two of the main people in my life. My employer is important to me, not only for financial reasons – there’s a bond,” she said, adding the staff she’s hired to assist her son help create a safe environment for him.

“My son is my world, and this is an environment that gives him a chance to be a seven-year-old boy.”

Emoff said she’s hoping for a bit more understanding from the provincial government, saying the FSCD funding should not be based on a “typical” nine-to-five, eight-hour a day, Monday to Friday job.

“They [the province] have to learn that we’re not a government job – we don’t have paid sick leave. I have run into many issues, like sometimes [I’ll] get calls from my son’s school [before the COVID shut-down] saying come pick him up and I’ll send staff, but I pay staff out of my own pocket because FSCD doesn’t pay [for] non-typical inside the school hours,” she said.

“The point is that they have to realize the world doesn’t revolve around nine-to-five. Even before this came about, I was already bridging the line of ‘I was going to run out hours’ because I do work non-typical hours and it’s extremely frustrating.”

Emoff said she does sympathize with parents struggling to find care for their children but wants each situation to be analyzed individually by the province.

“I raised my kid on my own, I have a complex needs child, I don’t have atypical work hours. Stop comparing me to everybody else. Let me be who I am and let me support the people [I] support.”

She recommended that anyone looking to find out more about how the ‘family managed’ model she uses to find staff for her son works and its benefits should contact Dave Lawson with Inclusion Lethbridge.

“He’s an amazing advocate for people and families with disabilities,” she said.

COVID-19 SUPPORT

Emoff brought up the recently launched Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB), a federal support for workers impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

She said she doesn’t want to leave her job and collect the CERB because she “could never abandon anyone in their time of need”.

“I know it’s expensive for FSCD and the government to help support my son. I do understand that but, on the flip-side, that’s what they’re there for,” she said.

“[This has been] an ongoing battle even before COVID but now [with] COVID, I’m definitely running out [of hours] faster than normal.”

Emoff added that no one should have to fight to have their child get the help they need to support their disability and no one “should have to fight to stay employed”.

“I just want change. I want change not only for me but for the other people that are facing this.”

by Justin Goulet

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Lack of FSCD funding a frustrating battle for Lethbridge mother

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