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Context: Committee Evidence - SDIR-40 (SDIR) - Nov/28/23

Mr. Peter Simms (Senior Education Advisor, Plan International Canada Inc.)

12:07:34 p.m.
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I will be brief, because I know time is short. It is about money. It is about the amount of money. Yes, there is never enough, but I think before that we should also be aware that we can do more with the money we have at the moment and be slightly better. That's in a couple of ways. This also relates to what Ms. Vandenbeld was saying. We can bridge between sectors a little bit better. Inclusive education isn't just solved in the education community by ministries of education. We can link with ministries of health and ministries of social protection as well. Bridging together some of the services that are currently splintered can take us a long way. Then we can look at where more targeted additional money should go.

134 words

Context: Committee Evidence - SDIR-40 (SDIR) - Nov/28/23

Mr. Peter Simms

12:23:56 p.m.
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I can jump in there. Yes, even though Plan isn't technically a signatory of that call to action as yet, that's a procedural fact. It's not because we have any issue. We completely commit to those sectorial gains. We actually have slightly more ambitious ones in other areas as well. The nature of the development industry means that we sign these things in slightly different ways, but those three commitments are the absolute priority.

77 words

Context: Committee Evidence - SDIR-40 (SDIR) - Nov/28/23

Mr. Peter Simms

12:41:55 p.m.
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Thank you. I'll be very brief. I think the fact that there is such a range of different types of disabilities and the fact that diagnosis is very poor mean that the operative word when we're talking about disability inclusion is “inclusion” rather than “disability”. It's about making sure that the schools—in particular the teachers Tracey was talking about—are in a position to respond to the needs of children, whatever those children require when they come to school and how they get to school. That, I think, is the paradigm shift we're looking to have when it comes to the breadth and the range, particularly in the challenging contexts that we're talking about. I'll stop there.

130 words

Context: Committee Evidence - SDIR-40 (SDIR) - Nov/28/23

Mr. Peter Simms

12:52:21 p.m.
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Thank you very much. To answer the previous question around how you adapt, develop and respond in so many different circumstances, part of it is working with organizations of people with disabilities, OPDs, and this was mentioned previously. Those kinds of organizations are central to making sure that the responses we bring in—what we know works in one context and around international best practice—are then adapted and developed for the specifics and the nuances of what works there. Most particularly, because OPDs are often community-based, they have that bridge for the way these things operate, the communities we're trying to support and the social environment that surrounds the school. It's about engaging with organizations of people with disabilities and making sure that they're funded properly and that the partner funding, anything that comes through an organization like Plan International, is able to fully support their needs. That's central to making sure that we can adapt and respond to all the nuances and variations in the reality for disability.

177 words

Context: Committee Evidence - SDIR-40 (SDIR) - Nov/28/23

Mr. Peter Simms

12:54:46 p.m.
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It's very important, because children with disabilities are disproportionately affected by violence. Again, that's true specifically for girls with certain types of violence as well. This is where you have to view child protection as a key component of any education system—of any inclusive education system, particularly. That means you have to have a bridge to protection systems and to health systems. Health systems might be the ones, for example, that are able to respond. Protection systems, for example through social workers and social systems, will then refer any cases of violence and follow up. Again, at the community level, community-based child protection mechanisms are a central component of the multiple facets of an inclusive education system. We often narrow it down to the image of a classroom, students in the classroom and the teachers, but in order for that child to be there and to be able to exist properly in that place—and to their full extent—there are a lot of components that need to work with that. The child protection system and the education system need to be hand in hand so that violence prevention is central.

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