YMCA after-school program neglected, discriminated against daughter with Down syndrome, Vancouver family says

A Vancouver family says it has pulled two of their children out of a YMCA after-school program, alleging it discriminated against and neglected their six-year-old daughter who has Down syndrome, and failed to hire a support worker the family had secured funding for.

Katie and Andrew Jameson registered their twins Kenzie and Wally in a YMCA after-school program at Malkin Park. But they say Kenzie, who has Down syndrome and is non-verbal, was increasingly isolated and neglected by the program, as weeks passed with no support worker.

They made the decision to leave the program when they found Kenzie freezing and alone, not wearing shoes outdoors in October, with mucus running down her face and her hair matted and covering her eyes.

"She can't say if she's cold, she can't ask to have her nose wiped, she can't ask to go to the bathroom, she can't ask to have her shoes put back on. These are all reasons that we applied for funding for someone to be in the vicinity," said Katie Jameson.

"I cried the whole way home because as her parent I was like — what did I just do to her?"

In a statement to CBC News, Roberta Haas, child protection lead and vice-president, people of the YMCA of Greater Vancouver, wrote that the YMCA "did not provide an adequate level of care for Kenzie — and failed to meet both the standards expected by Katie Jameson and our own standards. For that, we sincerely apologize."

Haas said the YMCA has submitted an incident report to the program's regional licensing authority and will be conducting a formal review of what happened, and that the YMCA will also undertake an independent review by a third-party to assess how it serves children with special needs. 

Katie Jameson said her daughter's experience reflects those too often faced by children with disabilities, whose needs are frequently not met even in programs designed to be inclusive.

"It's a learned condition to a parent with a child with a disability — if you don't care for your kid yourself, they're not going to get the care they need. Our son was in that program happy and well cared for — her twin. And Kenzie was completely neglected and discriminated against. It's literal side-by-side comparison."

The Jamesons said they registered their twins in the after-school program over the summer. Because Kenzie has Down syndrome, the family interviewed for the program, and applied for funding from the B.C. Centre for Ability (CFA) so that the YMCA could hire an additional support worker for Kenzie.

Katie Jameson said ahead of the first day she was assured everything was in place, and she created instructional videos on how to communicate with Kenzie and use basic sign language.

"I basically provided an inclusion program for them," she said.

But on the first day, she received a call from a staff member saying Kenzie needed to be picked up early because she had gone to the bathroom on herself and no staff member was equipped to assist her.

"I was totally confused because I was under the impression that we had a support person with Kenzie, because we had applied for funding, and the program had accepted the funding, so finding there was no support in place that way was shocking."