Growling rant....

[Guest guest]

BlankGrrrrrrr......

I registered A. for an art camp starting on the 26th. When I paid the

registration fee and completed the form I was told that a staff memeber would

contact me to let discuss A's needs and limitations. Since one of the program

co-ordinators ran a program J was in in the spring I was confident that all

would go well.

At 4:30 today I got a call for the director of the centre who informed me that

25% of the program would be run in a room that was not accessible. The staff

thought that they might be able to come up with something for him to do during

that time - gee that sounds great for a child's self esteem now doesn't it!

The unsaid message was clearly " it will be too inconvenient to include your

child. " I was told that they would be happy to refund my money. Since this was

the only camp A. was going to I asked where she thought we might find another

program with only a week's notice. There was no response.

Then she had the stupidity to actually tell me that since they are " only a non

profit agency and not a school they don't have try to include people with

disabilities " - this might be true but I was told by the director that they

could do it. This is the agency partnering with Kidsability to offer programming

for special needs kids. If this is the director's idea of inclusion I will be

calling Kidsability tomorrow to tell them what the director really thinks about

inclusion.

Follow-up today...

I called to pick up my refund and they said it wasn't convenient today. I

informed them that it wasn't convenient for me to try and find a new program

with such little notice. I told them that I would be there this afternoon to

pick up the cheque (I don't even feel a little bit bad that the director had to

come in on her day off to sign the cheque).

I called one of the program partners for another program at Guelph Youth Music

to inform her that I would be pulling my children from the program next month at

the centre next month because I felt that an environment where my children's

needs for physical accessibility were considered a hassle was not where my

children should be.

She was shocked and suggested that the director was having a bad day. I don't

care how bad her day is - it is never acceptable to be so inconsiderate. My kids

don't deserve to be treated like second class citizens.

I will be certain to share our experience with others who might consider going

to the GUELPH YOUTH MUSIC CENTRE.

I'm still ticked and can't find another visual arts program with space - grrrr.

Thanks for letting me vent...