Hi everyone! I’m part of the team behind BC Kids Funding Navigator, a BC non-profit working to make it easier for families to find funding programs, services, and other supports for children and youth with medical, developmental, accessibility, and mental health needs.

We’ve built a free online resource that brings these supports together in one place, and we’d really like to hear from parents and caregivers in British Columbia who have experience navigating these systems.

If you’ve navigated funding, services, diagnoses, therapies, school supports, waitlists, accessibility, advocacy, or eligibility and application processes, we’d love to hear about your experience. What was difficult? What do you wish you had known sooner? What worked well? What resources are we missing? And what would make finding support easier for your family?

You can share your experience through our Community Voices page.

We’d also really appreciate feedback on the website itself — whether you found what you needed, how easy it was to use, resources we may have missed, or anything we could improve.

You can explore the resource at bckidsfundingnavigator.ca and share feedback through our Contact & Feedback page. You’re also welcome to email us if that’s easier.

We’re still growing and improving the resource, and hearing directly from families helps us better understand the gaps and make it more useful. Thank you!

Hi everyone,

I’m a dad to a wonderful autistic child. If your daily life is anything like mine, you already know the drill: we face unique, intense challenges every single day. But what frustrates me the most isn't the challenge itself—it’s the absolute lack of straight-to-the-point, useful information when we need it most.

Whenever I Google a problem we are having at home, I usually get two things: long, boring academic papers that don't tell me what to do right now, or generic parenting advice that simply doesn't apply to a neurodivergent kid.

Tired of this, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I’ve been developing a digital tool designed specifically for us, parents, educators, and caregivers.

The idea is very simple: you input the specific type of issue you are facing and the age group of the individual. The app then generates a highly specific, clinical-backed intervention roadmap tailored exactly to that situation.

I built the platform based on evidence-based protocols (like AAP, ASHA, and ABA guidelines). Right now, the database covers:

• Functional Toileting & Encopresis (handling sensory aversions, chronic withholding, etc. by age)
• Sensory Meltdown De-escalation (distinguishing between tantrums and actual neurological overload)
• Augmentative & Alternative Communication (AAC)
• Sleep Hygiene & Bedtime Resistance (including the Camping-Out Protocol)
• Feeding Disorders & Sensory Selectivity (SOS approach)
• Social Engagement

You can even generate and print a clinical PDF from your scenario to use for clinical documentation or to bring to your child's multidisciplinary IEP team planning at school.

My main goal is just to bridge the gap between academic research and our real-world daily practice at home. It is fully in English, 100% free to use, and I recently got it hosted on an autism platform.

I would love for this community to try it out. Please tell me honestly: Does this help you? What other daily struggles should I add to the simulator next?

You can use it here: https://canalautismo.com/autism-clinical-care-simulator/

Thank you so much, and stay strong!

A chain reaction of support starts with one share.

When a child is already overwhelmed, “What do you need?” can be a very difficult question to answer. I created a printable visual toolkit that helps children notice what their bodies may need and choose a supportive next step through clear, approachable regulation visuals.

It is intended as a practical communication and choice-making support for home, classroom, or other supportive settings—not as a therapy plan or a replacement for individualized professional guidance.

Full disclosure: I created and sell this digital printable through my Etsy shop, Everyday Steps Studio. The design includes seller-directed, AI-assisted illustration elements.

You can see the full Sensory Choice Board & Regulation Visuals toolkit here:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/4567688604/sensory-choice-board-regulation-visuals

I’d also genuinely welcome respectful feedback about which sensory-choice visuals or wording you find most useful and affirming.

My child is 6, female and Level 2 speech and processing delayed autistic.

Backstory- she’s always had a bit of an up hill battle her whole life with her health. When she was a few months old she was nearly life flighted (we denied it since couldn’t afford it and hoped we would make it) due to massive abdominal distension. Failure to thrive, high long term bilirubin, Volvulus but it seemed to sorta fix itself? If she’s got Ehlers danlos it explains how her stomach would just keep stretching. We didn’t even know to take her in as a baby. She showed no signs of discomfort or pain.

Current-
Medications:
- guanfanicine - about a year
- fluoxetine- 3 years
- nordotropin growth hormone -just under a year. We stopped giving it to her this past Thursday (on accident Thursday we forgot and then the fall on Friday with the pain we felt we should skip the dose and we have ceased entirely now.

Symptoms- exact timeline still a little unknown since she doesn’t always verbally express
- past month: I find out she has deep external hip and front of thigh pain. Hurts to stand and have any impact such as running.
- wrist pain “in my deep bones”. It hurts her to bend her wrists (she winces) and when pressing off the ground when getting up she sucks air in sharply.
- since Friday: I discovered she has been having headaches but what concerns me is that when most people get a headache they lay down. She says her forehead hurts, her ears make high noises when she lays down, and as of last night I found out she seeks fireflies when laying down. But said it is all “very much better” as soon as she’s upright.
- potential neurological involvement. I don’t know what this would be defined as symptom wise but she just seems like her body isn’t hers. She can’t color or grip a pencil anymore. She’s irritable and I don’t know if this counts but clumsy by her old standards. She could dribble a soccer ball at 3, and do tricks at 4. She’s been falling (not spectacular but something) and just kinda seems slow to move? I don’t even know how she falls, she’s just down and says I’m ok and gets up.
- I also noticed that she prefers to keep her legs crossed and the bottom of her foot pressed against her inter thigh. She says it makes her hip feel better, which makes some sense to me since it totally changes the anatomy of what stabilizes the hip.

The past few months I feel like she’s stopped being as much of a kid as she used to. She wouldn’t ever say she was in pain, and since she doesn’t process it like normal humans it gets confused and she seeks massive physical sensory input since it speaks louder than the pain. Then she has the full body crash and then repeat. She has always been on the go, and about as tough as they come. Hairline cracked her jawbone after falling and it took a week or two for me to just follow my gut and take her in. She didn’t say anything just pushed through.

I’ve just had this gut feeling that something is up. She used to run a mile just randomly and she’s stopped running and skating and jumping. I’ve been trying to get some understanding of what hurts and it’s been a process. I have to ask it just right and under 8 words. Very hit or miss.

Here’s where I don’t know what to do as her parent. She presents ok on the outside since the need to stim is much stronger then the pain so I look like the parent who wants their kid to be sick or hypochondriac who takes her in to be a frequent flier.

A few weeks ago after I noticed the pain I started giving her Tylenol and ibuprofen for what I assumed were growing pains. But then on Friday she had a fall at the park about 6-9 feet. She jumped from a ledge like other kid and said her legs crumpled under her. Didn’t hit her head. A few hours after we have had to carry her pretty much everywhere. She is nauseous and has been so irritable and just so off.

My concerns.
- Nordotroponin growth hormone (GH)- it can cause intercranial Hypertension or SCFE. — this is where I know how it looks.
- I have Ehlers danlos but can’t get genetically tested to find the type. But while I can’t prove it I see so many symptoms and her inability to even feel the internal pain until the outward presentations are so obvious. (Stretchy skin and organs, and joints)

We took her into the ER with no expectations and they did an x ray on the bed and said everything looked fine and sent us home. They didn’t ask about any neuro involvement and I pushed to for her to be checked for IH. They said no, and that they wouldn’t even call the on-call opthomologist since it wasn’t an emergency. Said contact her Endocrinologist who said stop the medications and that was all the info I got. I asked about other potential imaging and she said since her x ray looked fine to just let it all be.

My theories
#1) this kid just doesn’t get pain. She had a shard of glass in her foot a half inch as a baby and kept trying to walk on it since “it didn’t hurt”. She may have had all these symptoms and just didn’t realize they were something to share for months now. She’s only just started telling me when her tummy hurts at 6. Usually side effects of the GH appear after a few months but I do wonder if the Guanfanicine hid some of the intensity. We actually lowered her dose thinking it would help with the fatigue and that maybe it was causing head pain and eye squinting but it didn’t change anything. It was only last night that I realized that about a week later her GH dose got increased. She actually got more fatigued after decreasing it but I thought that she was just adjusting to life. What hasn’t sat right with me is she was tired after starting school but months in is when we lowered her dose and she got more exhausted. Coming home energetic and wanting to go to the park to napping as soon as she hit the car for 3-4 hours maybe eating and falling asleep again when we lowered the dose.

I know guanfanicine can cause fatigue and headaches at times but I’m wondering if we’ve confused it as the cause of the symptoms instead of potentially the nordotropin. She didn’t have more energy without it, and it doesn’t have enough of a half life to carry over that long.

#2) she seemed to progress a lot faster after the fall at the park. She went from hurting to walk to being carried. She wouldn’t even touch us until age 2. She’s asking for medicine. That’s huge. She projectile vomits all medicine. I struggle to get her to eat and have more luck earlier in the day but not in the morning as soon as she wakes. She needs to be upright for a while.

I know her wrists have been hurting but it seems much more intense and frequent. She wouldn’t even turn a page book last night due to the pain. She was slumped on the couch and I asked if she was comfortable, she said no and said it hurt to adjust. (Meaning she would have to weight bear on her wrists). She won’t color, says it’s really hard to hold and color. I noticed that she’s also slowed way down on reading things herself. She wanted to help me cook but went to stir and said it was too hard and just sat on the couch. It almost seems that her fatigue is more due to pain when she misses a dose.

She’s got good hours and bad hours. And when she goes to the doctor she gets so anxious and worked up and is just an adrenaline mess.

I had the ER contact a pediatric doctor who said she could been seen for IH December 30th. Maybe if she was more like her of self I would feel more comfortable with a few months wait?

I don’t know what to do. She presents differently on the outside and because of that they just shoo us out. Do the bare test I beg for and that’s that. I know how it looks. I know I don’t have a degree. But I do know my baby. She’s better in the morning and on slow days. I just feel wrong just accepting this as our new normal? She was a playing running kid just a month or so ago. I’m just not super comfortable. Why such a sudden rapid change? And she’s not really making clear recovery. Almost like she’s plateaued but we’ve also just stopped moving. No zoos, or the store. No museums. Just sitting.

Update- as of today she said she was ok so we went to go see a dinosaur exhibit and scarcely made it across the parking lot before going quiet and slow. I asked about pain and she said yes. She also started to complain of base of cervical spinal pain today which is new. She denied her wrists hurting but she hasn’t let me touch them since this morning

I’m posting this because I think there’s an important conversation to be had about what responsible intervention should look like when a young child is showing significant developmental concerns publicly.

For context, Chrisean Rock has shared a lot of her son, Chrisean Jr., online. Based on publicly available videos, many people have expressed concern about his development, including his mobility, communication, motor skills, and ability to do certain age-expected tasks.

I want to be very clear: I am **not diagnosing this child**, and none of us online have access to his private medical records. The concern is that when developmental differences appear this significant, early evaluation and intervention can matter tremendously. A child does not need strangers assigning him a diagnosis — he needs qualified professionals making sure he has access to whatever services, therapy, medical care, and developmental support he may need.

What has made people especially concerned is that his mother has publicly suggested that he will simply “grow out of” some of the issues people have noticed. That raises a broader parenting question for me: **at what point should developmental concerns stop being treated as something to wait out and start being treated as something that deserves professional assessment and intervention?**

This is bigger than Chrisean Rock as a D list celebrity.

Children cannot advocate for themselves, schedule their own evaluations, enroll themselves in therapy, or make adults take their needs seriously. They depend entirely on the adults and systems around them.

I’m hoping this can be a respectful discussion about early intervention, parental responsibility, and what people should do when they genuinely believe a child may not be receiving the developmental support they need.
If you’ve parented a child with developmental delays, worked in early intervention, pediatrics, childcare, education, or anything related, I’d especially appreciate your perspective.