Ford government to blame for child traffickers’ access to autism therapy center: advocates

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Province promised to regulate autism therapy providers four years ago but has yet to do so, says Ontario Autism Coalition

An advocacy group blames the Ford government for the troubling situation at an autism therapy center near Barrie, Ont., where a convicted sex offender was living when he and his wife were arrested on new charges this week.

Lauriston Charles Maloney, 42, and Amber Maloney, 36, were arrested and charged on Wednesday with human trafficking and related offences. They both appeared in court via video on Friday and will return to court to seek bail.

Police say the victim – who is now in a safe place and receiving support – was not a participant at the Beating the Odds therapy center or day camp, which Amber Maloney owned and operated at the rural property just northeast of Ivy, Ont.

But families of children with autism are alarmed that Lauriston Maloney, who had previous convictions for child trafficking and was a registered sex offender, was granted access to the centre.

“These are families who have been waiting for help for years,” said Alina Cameron, President of the Ontario Autism Coalition (OAC). “Imagine being on a waiting list for services for your struggling child every day, for five years or more. You think you’ve finally found the right place, and your child has potentially been put in harm’s way. It’s shocking.”

Although the Ontario Provincial Police could not confirm how long Lauriston Maloney lived at the Autism Home Center, property records show the couple purchased the property on February 4, 2022 for $2.8 million.

The OAC accuses the Ford government of putting vulnerable children at risk.

“We believe we are going through this difficult time as a community due to a number of converging factors that are all a direct result of the massive delays in Ontario’s autism program,” Cameron said.

These factors date back to the Ford government’s decision to revamp the autism program after taking office in 2018, dismantling the program the previous Liberal government had begun implementing in favor of direct payments to parents based on children’s ages before changing course again in the face of widespread protests.

The new Ontario Autism Program has been slow to roll out, and the resulting uncertainty has caused problems for reputable autism service providers, who have been unable to invest in human resources and programs.

“Delays in the program made it very difficult for them to keep the lights on,” Cameron said.

Some, like ErinoakKids, cut their programming.

However, the money has recently started flowing to new families after years of waiting.

“So you have families who are desperate for care and can’t find it, so they might settle for something that might not be the best option, or shouldn’t be an option at all,” she said.

Some less desirable centers have sprung up applied behavior analysis (ABA) therapy, but their staff aren’t trained, so “families are paying hundreds of dollars an hour for babysitting,” Cameron said, adding that his group had noted similar complaints about the Beating the Odds Center being streamed online.

In 2019, then-Minister of Social Services Todd Smith promised the province would regulate providers of applied behavior analytics, but that has yet to happen. Two years later, the province passed legislation that will allow the College of Psychologists to regulate the field. Last spring, the college issued an update saying it was waiting for the Department of Health to approve related regulatory changes and that it did not have a timeline for the start of regulation.

The CAO hopes the regulations will prevent a similar situation from happening again and reign in more common problems, such as overburdened families. In the meantime, parents of autistic children are navigating the system on their own, Cameron said.

“Unfortunately, we are going to be in a position where a lot of families are going to find themselves in precarious situations,” she added.

The CAO has some advice for families trying to choose a provider for their child: request criminal record and education background checks from everyone with access to the center, and check therapist references through the Behavior Analyst Certification Board.

Village Media contacted the office of Social Services Minister Michael Parsa, the fourth minister in the portfolio since the Ford government was first elected in 2018, to ask if the minister accepted misconduct.

“The fact that this individual was released unconditionally and slipped through the cracks is a failure of our justice system. When we became aware of the public safety notice from the OPP, the government immediately took action by issuing a protective order,” Parsa spokesman Patrick Bissett said in an email response.

“This man should never have been allowed around vulnerable children, and we are grateful to the OPP for their swift action in this matter.”

Bissett also said the province does not directly fund Beating the Odds and any funding provided to families through the Ontario Autism Program for services must be provided by registered professionals and meet program qualification requirements. According to an archived version of the Beating the Odds website, the company had at least one board-certified therapist.

The statement did not answer questions about proposed regulations for ABA therapy.

The provincial government has been involved with the Beating the Odds Center since the OPP first issued a public warning about it on July 17.

Department of Education officials attended the property on Tuesday, July 18, when they issued a protective order, which stated that “after making an inspection, I believe on reasonable grounds that there is an imminent threat to the health, safety or well-being of any child for whom child care is being provided” and ordering the center to immediately cease providing child care.

A statement from Ontario’s Solicitor General’s office emailed to Village Media on July 19 urged all parents to “stay away” from the facility.

“This individual who has been convicted of such reprehensible crimes should never again be in the presence of vulnerable children. Allowing him to roam freely in our communities and potentially put more children at risk is a failure of our justice system. In conjunction with law enforcement, we have served a protective order on this unlicensed facility prohibiting this individual from being on the premises in the presence of children in care and encourage all parents to stay away from this facility,” the statement read.

The Maloneys were arrested and charged that day.

— With files from Nikki Cole of BarrieToday

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