Emergency funding relief for Okanagan parents of deaf and hard of hearing children

The Ministry of Children and Family Development has granted the Deaf Children Society of B.C. an additional $230,000.

The one-time emergency grant means that outreach services for Okanagan children who are deaf or hard-of-hearing will not be scaled back for at least another year.

“It’s definitely a great start in the right direction,” said Kelowna resident Kelly Wilson, whose three-year old son Max is deaf.

Max has received weekly lessons in American Sign Language (ASL) for most if his young life.

His family, including his older brother, has also been learning ASL so they can all communicate.

But funding shortfalls threatened to reduce those once-a-week lessons to only once-a-month.

“That’s his language and if this isn’t continuing, then I feel they are taking his language away from him,” Wilson told Global News last month.

The ASL lessons are part of outreach services offered through the Deaf Children Society, which supports about 560 families across the province.

Lisa Meneian, the executive director for the Deaf Children Society, told Global News that funding levels have not increased in 10 years while the number of families needing support has.

“The number of families that are accessing the service has more than doubled, and so we have the same pot of funding that needs to be divided among more than double the number of families,” Meneian said.

The additional funds will allow children like Max to continue his ASL lessons on a weekly basis, but only for another year.

Meneian said unless more and permanent funding is allocated, families will face scaled-back services again next year.

But she added that the emergency funding buys the society more time to work with the ministry to demonstrate the increased demand for the critical services.

“We are committed to strengthening our relationship with all levels of provincial and federal governments, and will continue to work towards our goal of equitable access to early intervention programs and services for all deaf and hard-of-hearing children in B.C.,” Meneian said.

“We still have a long road ahead of us.”