I strongly oppose eliminating service facilitation and replacing it with a support broker model. Our service facilitators know our children, understand their individual needs, and have taken the time to build trust with our families. That relationship is extremely important and cannot simply be replaced by assigning someone new who may not know or understand our child’s situation.

I understand that there is a need to control costs and use resources responsibly, but eliminating a service that families depend on and capping hours at 56 is not the place to make those cuts. The people making these decisions need to understand what families are actually dealing with day to day.

It is difficult to make decisions like this without fully understanding what it is like to raise and care for a child with a disability. Families are already managing challenges every single day that most people never have to think about. Replacing an experienced facilitator with someone who doesn’t know our child is a major step backwards. It risks disrupting relationships that took months or even years to build and could reduce the quality of life not only for our children, but for the families caring for them.

Please reconsider these changes and listen to the families who live with these realities every single day.