GO CANUCKS! for AUTISM

Google World Autism Awareness Day and you will obtain pages of links to inform, update, challenge and inspire you and those whom you may influence. Focus it to the past 24 hours and you receive this page of links. Spotlight you own country or locality as I have by identifying Canada, and you receive a more specific citation.

The e-edition of 24H newspaper ran Stephanie Ip’s feature entitled ‘Awareness is Key to Accepting Autism.’ She writes that 1 in every 110 British Columbia children are born autistic yet the condition remains unfamiliar to most people.

The Vancouver Canucks’ objective yesterday was to raise the level of understanding so that more acceptance of autistic people would result. It was the Canucks’ Autism Network’s Family Festival at jack Poole Plaza where the pledge walk was held. Canucks’ mascot ‘Fin’ and hockey heroes Stan Smyl and Orland Kurtenback. Vancouver Canucks team owner Paolo Aquilini and his wife Clara have a son named Christian, who is 18 years old now and in 1996 was diagnosed with autism in 1996. Paolo said “Children with autism should enjoy a full and decent life. They should be ensured dignity, but ‘should’ is not good enough. They must have these things.” By ‘these things’ Paolo means the year-round sports programs that Canucks Autism Network, CAN provides to autistic youth and their families.

I have learned that in B.C., families with autistic children under the age of six are eligible to receive support program funding up to $22,000 per year. Autistic youth between the ages of six and 18 are eligible for up to $6,000 per year, in addition to the $18,300 per-pupil funding provided through school boards. The province currently provides more than $165 million in annual funding for programs and services that support 7,500 children and youth with autism.