Schools closed for almost four weeks weigh heavily on the daily lives of parents, and for those whose children are disabled, the challenge is entirely different. “Mental health is giving way,” says Taline Ladayan, mother of an 8-year-old daughter who needs constant care.
“Think of the rest of us too and find a solution!” »
Taline Ladayan appeals as much to the unions as to the government of François Legault. “I have the impression that everyone makes fun of us, everyone has their own agenda,” she laments. When she talks about the last few weeks with her daughter at home full time, the words “heavy” and “difficult” come up. “It’s really a lot,” she sighs.
This is because Paleny, who is 8 years old and has multiple disabilities, attends a specialized school in Laval which has been closed “indefinitely” since November 21 due to strikes in the public sector.
Like nearly half a million students whose teachers are affiliated with the Autonomous Education Federation, she has missed 19 days of school so far.
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
Paleny needs about six hours of care a day, the school normally gives her parents a break in addition to being a stimulation for the young girl with multiple disabilities.
School is a respite for us and it is a stimulation for her. I can’t leave her sitting in her wheelchair and focusing on my work.
Taline Ladayan, mother of Paleny, 8 years old
“When she is there, she does nothing: I have to stimulate her, make her play with her toys, put her on her standing board,” explains Mme Ladayan, who is the director of a non-profit organization. Her husband also works full time.
Paleny needs about six hours of care a day: giving her medication, making her eat and drink, changing her diaper, stimulating her.
Impossible for Mme Ladayan to take his daughter to work: the places are not suitable.
” It’s catastrophic ”
President of the Little Kings foundation, which helps young people with intellectual disabilities, and herself the mother of a boy with an autism spectrum disorder, Vania Aguiar knows well the situation in which these parents find themselves. .
“It’s difficult, because they don’t have the choice to stay at home. You can’t keep a child like that easily, it’s much more complicated,” she says.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
The president of the Les petits rois foundation, Vania Aguiar, during the inauguration of the new Irénée-Lussier school
For parents of disabled children, “it’s catastrophic,” also says Vania Aguiar.
For children with disabilities, it is also catastrophic because they lose all their points of reference: their friends, their teachers, their school workplace. It’s very difficult.
Vania Aguiar, president of the Little Kings foundation
The teachers and those who support these students “work hard, so hard,” she nevertheless says. “But it must be resolved very quickly, for our young people who have to go to school,” continues Mme Aguiar.
If she recognizes the right of teachers to strike, Taline Ladayan says that parents “have limits”.
“If these children’s caregivers are exhausted, who will take care of them? “, asks the mother, who is worried about the parents of disabled children who do not have some of her “privileges”, such as being able to work from home.
“Even if the parents support the teachers, there is a fatigue that sets in,” also observes Vania Aguiar.
This is not the first labor dispute to leave parents of severely disabled children in the lurch. At the start of the 2022 school year, the bus drivers’ strike forced many parents to keep their children at home for several days, because adapted transportation was not available. Several specialized schools welcome children who come from far away to attend classes that are adapted to their needs.
A surprise could fall through
For the Little Kings foundation, the closure of schools poses another problem: if they do not reopen by the holiday break, we will end up with 600 gifts which were to be distributed in 3 specialized schools in Montreal.
“This year, it’s proving more difficult to make deliveries. We were supposed to do it on Monday, but it’s not looking good,” says Vania Aguiar. A large proportion of the young people in these three schools are “in a very precarious situation”, she says.
Students from the Irénée-Lussier school in Montreal are among those who were to receive this surprise before the holidays.
Ironically, Prime Minister François Legault and Minister of Education Bernard Drainville were present at the inauguration of the newly built school last October.
More than a month before the strike began, they were greeted by a demonstration by union members of the Inter-Union Common Front and the Montreal Teachers’ Alliance.