The announcement said more children will be supported. Here's what they didn't say.

The numbers behind the announcement

We are not against inclusion. We are against exclusion disguised as inclusion.

Every child with a disability deserves support. The question is whether this redesign actually delivers that.

In February 2026, the BC Government announced a new Children and Youth Disability Benefit, replacing the Autism Funding Unit and School Aged Extended Therapies (SAET). The announcement described a major new investment in children with disabilities.

We believe every child with a disability deserves support. The question we are asking, and the one every family deserves an answer to, is whether this redesign actually delivers that. Or whether it asks some of the province's most vulnerable children to pay the price for a system that was never properly funded to begin with.

When the AFU ends, the replacement isn't ready

The Government's own documents show a rollout schedule that leaves families in a gap. It points them to services that either don't exist yet, or won't exist for years.

This is not speculation. The timeline below comes from the Government's own published documents.

1. Spring 2026 · Available now

   Paediatric therapies

   Expanded speech-language pathology, occupational therapy, and physiotherapy, with stronger integration with behavioural supports. Delivered in home, community, and school settings. This is the only new community service available before the AFU closes.

2. March 2027 · Closure

   Autism Funding Unit ends

   Direct funding for eligible Autism families stops on March 31, 2027. Families move to the new Disability Benefit if they qualify, or to the income-tested Supplement. Supplement payments do not begin for another three months.

3. July 2027 · Pending

   Disability Supplement payments begin

   The tax supplement begins payments. It is delivered through the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), not the Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD). Families who lost AFU funding on March 31 have waited three months. Families earning above the income threshold receive a reduced supplement or none.

4. Summer 2027 · Pending

   Behavioural and mental health supports

   Assessment-informed intervention, skill-building, caregiver coaching, and coordinated care for children with behavioural or mental health challenges including anxiety, emotional regulation difficulties, and school exclusion. Available approximately 4 to 5 months after the AFU closes on March 31, 2027.

5. Winter 2027 · Pending

   Navigation and family support services

   Helps families understand what supports are available across health, education, and community systems. Particularly important for families in rural or remote communities and those without a single diagnosis. Available at least 8 months after the AFU closes. The exact date within Winter 2027 has not been specified.

6. Spring 2028 · Pending

   Expanded programs for children 6 to 18

   Increased access to therapeutic, behavioural, social, and recreational supports for school-aged children and youth. Group-based and community-delivered models. Available approximately one year after the AFU closes. The services school-aged children need most are still being phased in a full year later.

Four things the announcement didn't address

These are not political complaints. They are practical questions that remain unanswered for families right now.

1. Eligibility

A line was drawn. Without clinical evidence. And without warning.

Of the ~28,000 families currently in the AFU, only 12,000 to 15,000 children are expected to qualify for the new Disability Benefit, around 9,000 of them Autistic. The remaining AFU families are directed to a tax supplement or community services, with around 5,600 receiving neither. (CYSN FAQ p.3, p.15)

Children who do not qualify for the Benefit were previously guaranteed $6,000 per year through the AFU. Under the new system they receive an income-tested tax supplement, delivered through the CRA rather than MCFD, and not available until July 2027 at the earliest. Their needs have not changed. The eligibility line did.

2. Geography

A cash benefit only works if there are services to spend it on.

A portion of the new funding goes to community-based programming: the in-person services, therapists, and family supports that disabled children actually need. This investment is real and it matters.

But community programming requires communities. It requires infrastructure, trained staff, accessible facilities, and proximity to families. In rural and remote BC, that infrastructure either doesn't exist or is hours away. The Government's own documents acknowledge that navigation services are "particularly important for families in rural or remote communities." Yet those services don't arrive until Winter 2027 at the earliest.

3. Funding vs. demand

The caseload is growing 36%. The per-child value is shrinking.

The Government projects the number of children in the CYSN system will grow from 58,000 to 79,000 over the next three years, a 36% increase. This growth is real. It is driven by rising Autism diagnoses, better identification of complex needs, and children with medical needs surviving longer and requiring more support.

The funding does not grow at the same rate. When you divide the available budget by a rapidly growing number of children, each child receives less. More children in the system with less per child is not expansion. It is managed decline.

4. Therapy continuity

Direct funding gave families choice. The new system takes that away.

For years, AFU funding gave Autism families one thing that is almost impossible to put a price on: control. Families could choose their own speech-language pathologist, their own occupational therapist, their own behaviour support worker. They could find someone who understood their child, their community, their language.

A disability benefit administered through a support planning process is a different thing entirely. It adds steps, gatekeepers, and timelines between a child's need and the service that meets it. For children whose development depends on consistency (the same therapist, in the same place, on the same schedule), that disruption has a cost that never appears in a budget line.

What a fair system actually looks like

These are not abstract policy positions. They are the minimum conditions for a system that works for the families it is meant to serve.

"Not a cut, a redesign. One that happens to exclude thousands of disabled kids."

The burden of proof belongs to those making the change, not to the families living with the consequences.

These six asks are achievable if the Government chooses to act on them. None requires new legislation. Each requires only that the Ministry apply its own framework to its own decisions.

1. No gap in coverage. The Autism Funding Unit must not close on March 31, 2027 until the replacement is fully operational. A three-month funding gap for disabled children is not a managed transition. It is a transition without a safety net.
2. Halt the transition pending proper process. Immediately halt the transition of Level 1 and 2 Autistic youth to needs-based review pending: (a) clinical realignment with the Ministry's own 2021 suicide risk guidance; and (b) finalization of the assessment tools and criteria that, by the Ministry's own FAQ, do not yet exist.
3. Rural and remote equity. Community programming must reach communities. A benefit without accessible services behind it is not support. It is a promise that cannot be kept outside of major urban centres.
4. Funding that keeps pace. Per-child investment must grow with caseloads and inflation. A fixed envelope divided by a growing number of children is not investment. It is rationing by another name.
5. Direct access for every Autism diagnosis. Expand Direct Admit eligibility to include Autism at all DSM-5 levels. A confirmed diagnosis should be sufficient for direct funding access. Full stop. Eligibility that requires a separate needs assessment introduces assessor discretion that disadvantages families in rural areas, lower-income households, and those without the capacity to advocate through a complex system.
6. Apply the Lancet Commission guidance in full. The Government has cited the Lancet Commission's diagnostic framework to justify this redesign. But the Commission's clinical guidance explicitly warns against eligibility models that gate access on developmental delay, the very model now being implemented. Reform the Direct Admit criteria to reflect the Commission's full guidance, not only the parts of its nomenclature that support the Government's preferred outcome.