Reflection of BCEDaccess Blog

Our EDCI 336 class was pointed in the direction of the BCEDaccess blog this week after a lecture on assistive technologies in the classroom. I was reading through some of their recent blog posts, and one titled “Families of students with disabilities in BC worry about possible extended break” got me thinking. I know that throughout this entire pandemic, childcare has been a problem for parents as schools, clubs, and daycares shut down to varying degrees; some of these places are still closed depending on the area that parents live in. The discussion of extending this past winter break then was an additional strain to parents, because it came as a late announcement and therefore made arranging childcare an even harder task. What I had not considered however was how parents of children with disabilities were facing an additional hardship because of the extended break. This blog post outlined that these families were dealing with the struggles of finding childcare, while also losing out on resources such as the use of assistive technologies, respite time, therapy, and interventions. These parents fall into a sort of intersectionality where they are facing more hardships than partents of non-disabled children in this situation. I hope to keep this new perspective in mind when looking at future situations that come up for students and their families.