Oct 11, 2024
“The system is just a disaster,” Alana MacIntyre told The Sault Star. “I have applications that have been filed last November, the kids have been kicked out of school and the file hasn’t even been dealt with yet while another has been approved within a day. There’s no rhyme or reason to the process and neither I nor the families can get any answers. It’s the children who are suffering.”
Alana MacIntyre’s frustration grows day by day as she witnesses the slow bureaucracy of government approvals needed to ensure that her team can help young students who need it most.
MacIntyre, speech language pathologist and owner of Insight and Spark Rehabilitation, knows only too well the pain and anguish many families across Sault Ste. Marie and the region are feeling as they wait for government approval that will allow their child to get the rehabilitation services they need, often simply to stay in school.
MacIntyre began providing services about two years ago to Indigenous clients under the Jordan’s Principle funding program to provide Rehabilitation and Behavior Support programming to young people. The services, she said, help youngsters, many with intergenerational trauma, stay – or get back – into school classrooms, among other things.