Disability Services Contract
The ACDS negotiating committee (Todd Rich, Jim McCutcheon, Phil Stephan, Tacey Murphy) and the Human Services Ministry held their final meeting on November 24th in Edmonton. Thank you again to Catholic Social Services who have hosted these meetings and organized coffee and lunch and more coffee!
Meetings have been held every two weeks, and more recently every week, as we head towards the deadline of December 1. Regular meetings have been held in between with the broader group of ACDS member representatives from each region (Diane Kotkas, Marilyn Conner, Darrin Stubbs, Todd Rich, Phil Stephan, Jim McCutcheon and Tacey Murphy) and our lawyer John McGee Sr. While we have made significant gains on a number of the contractual requirements and clauses that members identified as issues, a few thorny fundamental issues remain outstanding. The committee is meeting with Minister Sabir on November 29th. We are hoping to see Version 9 of the template soon, and the committee will then do a final review with John McGee. John will follow-up with the Government of Alberta lawyer on edits, with a final meeting of the lawyers, Ministry and myself on December 9th.
Concurrently, the PDD Contract Advisory Committee (with our same six SP regional representatives, PDD regional and Disability Services Ministry representatives) have been working on revisions to the Performance Management Framework which will be attached to the new contract as a schedule. Thank you to Clova Lehr who pinch hit for me on this committee project. Following the Minister's review, the contract will be distributed to Service Providers and ACDS will provide an issues template from our committee, and a legal review from John McGee to support our members in their own due diligence review with their Boards, senior management and legal counsel.
PDD Safety Standards Consultation Report
The final report was released by Minister Sabir on October 26th, 2016. With a mandate of proposing safety solutions, the report focused on recommendations to support safer lives in the community for persons with developmental disabilities, training and educating staff, accreditation standards for community service providers, and principles for interpretation and application of safety codes.
After two tours of the province and the participation of 2000 people, the report clearly reflected the issues identified by participants and presented a broader view of what safety means. Following the release of the report I continued to work with Municipal Affairs, Executive Council and the Health Ministry to support resolution of outstanding issues for Services Providers impacted by non-compliance orders before the repeal of the Standards Regulation, and have contributed to a Q & A Document which is
now posted on the Ministry website.
This report has government-wide implications and will be a platform for future work. I urge everyone to read this report and keep the principles alive. Our ACDS Workforce Council has already had contact with the Advanced Education Ministry, and a senior manager attended our recent ACDS Provincial Workforce Council meeting. He is positive about building upon the report to access opportunities that may be available to support the education recommendations.
This report can open doors for us.
Please see my previous update to ACDS members for more analysis.
Minimum Wage
There has been a positive response from the Minister on the minimum wage issue that is impacting our members,
as noted in Hansard recently. The ACDS position paper on the impact of minimum wage, including two surveys that we completed to identify the scope of the issue, was referenced by many members in their meetings with MLAs over the past few months.
Update on Procurement
Minister Sabir released his statement on November 24th. I couldn't be happier with this most welcome news, enough said. Thank you to our ACDS team and Board that researched and developed position papers, key messages, and a communications plan that reached into each community as Service Providers and their Boards spoke to MLAs on the impact to services, and the value of continuity of care.
Please join me in thanking Minister Sabir.
Minister's contact information:
Phone: 780 643-6210
Fax: 780 643-6214
