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August, 2005
What to do when you have concerns about the service provided by a therapist or behaviour consultant.
ACT has received calls and letters from people with concerns about the service they have received from their Behaviour Consultant, Speech Language Pathologist, Occupational Therapist or Physiotherapist. Many of the complaints are regarding a parent’s feeling that an agreement has not been followed or the service provider has not provided what the parents thought had been agreed.
What can ACT do if I have a complaint against a professional on the RASP List?
If you have a concern about a service provider ACT will gather information from you, compile a list of concerns we receive from parents and provide them to the Autism Initiatives Branch of MCFD for their information. You can email us info@autismcommunitytraining.bc.ca or phone us at 604-205-5467 or toll free at 1-866-939-5188.
ACT holds and maintains the Registry of Autism Service Providers. We have no authority or mandate to follow-up on specific complaints about a service by these practitioners or by any others. We are collecting the complaints and maintaining a record of those we receive. We will share this information with the Ministry for Children and Family Development in order that they can better develop their policies. We will protect parental confidentiality. This information will also help us work with the professional community to alert them to parental concerns where we see a pattern of behaviour that is causing parental concern.
ACT's Information Officers can give parents general information so they can tackle their concerns themselves. Our Information Officers can offer suggestions on:
- the relationship between parent and service provider as a business relationship and why a contract is necessary;
- what should be covered in a basic contract;
- what expectations are realistic;
- general information about what a parent can do if they feel a contract has been breached.
If the practitioner belongs to a governing professional body our information officers can assist parents by giving them contact information for these organizations.
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