Bigioni Reception - November 13, 2008
T. Muir Remarks
Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen, and welcome to Bloorview Kids Rehab.
My name is Tom Muir. I am Chair of the Board of Directors of Bloorview Kids Foundation.
Having a child with a disability is both a blessing and a burden for a family.
The highs are higher.
For example, it is always a joyous event for parents when their young child speaks their first words.
But I can tell you from personal experience that when those first few words come at the age of eight it brings joy to the point of tears to the parents.
Unfortunately, the lows are often lower, particularly in the early going.
The news that a child has a disability usually catches parents totally by surprise, and totally unprepared.
It takes an almost unimaginable amount of time, physical effort, new-found skills and emotional stress to raise a child with a disability.
A family cannot do it alone.
Children with special needs often cannot be accommodated in traditional ‘day care’ type programs, and friends and extended family members often cannot manage a special needs child for more than a very short period of time.
Families with special needs children must have regular breaks in order to avoid falling apart - to recharge their batteries – to do things ‘they used to do’, and that ‘other’ families regularly do – like just sleeping in, or going out for dinner or a show, getting together with friends, going away for a weekend, or taking a vacation.
This is where “respite” services come in.
There is a dearth of respite services in Toronto, let alone ‘good’ respite services.
A respite service is only ‘good’ – it only works - if it is good for the special needs child.
Our son, who is almost 18 now, has a global developmental disability. When he was young, he had terrible behavioral problems.
Our family was under enormous emotional stress.
We looked far and wide for respite services, but few were available.
We eventually found a respite service in the east end that would take our Christopher for a weekend.
I’ll never forget dropping him off on Friday evening. It was like a prison. There were few windows, and the few there were had bars on them. The place was dirty and spartan, and there were very few toys around. There was only one staff for five children.
I was all but sick to my stomach leaving, and Chris wasn’t all that happy either.
My wife and I worried about him all weekend, and rightly so.
He was miserable when we picked him up on Sunday. He had been cooped up in the place all weekend. He hadn’t slept for two nights.
Whatever ‘rest’ and stress release we got out of the weekend evaporated over the next few days as we lived with a very tired and unhappy behaviourly-challenged child.
Respite at Bloorview is not just ‘good’ - it is ‘great’.
It allows families to experience more highs and fewer lows.
Bloorview is Canada’s largest children’s rehabilitation and complex continuing care teaching hospital.
It is fully affiliated with the University of Toronto.
It is a provincial facility that has 650 inpatient admissions and 52,000 outpatient visits each year by children from across the province, Canada and around the world.
Bloorview Kids Rehab is quite simply the best facility and organization in the world dedicated to serving the needs of children with disabilities and their families. There is nothing like it anywhere.
The first time a client family walks through the door at Bloorview is usually not a happy time for the family. They are here to begin assessments or treatments of one kind or another.
But as soon as they walk through the door of this magnificent building, and into this wonderful and welcoming lobby, and see the life and energy buzzing about, and then have their first meeting with Bloorview’s wonderful, skilled and caring staff, they begin to feel and understand what Bloorview is all about – to children with disabilities and their families, Bloorview Kids Rehab is about hope:
We are honoured to have you here this evening for this very important event.
On behalf of the Foundation Board of Directors, Bloorview staff and the children and families who use Bloorview’s programs and services I would like to thank Vito Bigioni and his family for their outstanding efforts to raise funds for critically important respite services at Bloorview, and to thank all of you for coming out this evening to support them.
