Shut it down: Why POPARD cannot be trusted to support neurodivergent children

We asked for help.
We got a behaviour chart.

We invited experts into our child’s life, hoping they would help school staff understand his anxiety, his trauma responses, his fiercely sensitive nervous system. We asked for relational strategies grounded in respect and attunement. We shared research. We named his diagnosis. We explained, in plain terms, what would cause harm.

And they gave us a reinforcer menu.

This is what families across British Columbia are still facing when they are referred to POPARD—the Provincial Outreach Program for Autism and Related Disorders. Behind its polished branding and talk of inclusion, POPARD continues to operate as a hub for Applied Behaviour Analysis in BC schools. And for neurodivergent families, especially those raising children with PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance) profiles, that means trauma.

It means staff using charts and token economies to incentivise “expected behaviours,” without regard for the cost. It means misinterpreting avoidance as opposition. It means punishing panic as noncompliance. It means children being gaslit, retraumatised, and told—repeatedly—that who they are is wrong.

It means families being silenced.

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Behaviour charts are not neutral

Let’s be clear: behaviourism is not a harmless tool that can be adjusted to fit every child. For children with trauma, anxiety, or PDA profiles, behaviourist approaches are often actively harmful. Strategies like sticker charts, token systems, or praise for compliance can trigger dysregulation, provoke shutdown, and damage relationships. For children who are already masking to survive, these tools don’t support learning; they reward suppression.

They teach children that being palatable is more important than being safe.

And when families say so—when we explicitly ask for person-centred, trauma-informed, neurodiversity-affirming support—POPARD often responds with polite disregard. In our case, they sent a handout from 2007 that framed “turning your body away from the group” as an unexpected behaviour that might make others feel annoyed. That’s not support. That’s a thinly veiled justification for enforcing eye contact, compliance, and normativity at all costs.

When we pushed back—when we explained, again, why reward systems cause harm—POPARD insisted on pressing ahead with their “priority concern.” They acknowledged rapport was important. But they kept their eyes fixed on the chart.

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Whose evidence counts?

In BC, POPARD is framed as a province-wide autism resource. But its entire framework is grounded in the language and logic of behavioural control. Its consultants are overwhelmingly trained in ABA, a methodology that has been heavily criticised by autistic adults, disability scholars, and trauma experts for decades.

Even when families offer newer, relationship-based approaches grounded in the latest research—from Bruce Perry, Mona Delahooke, Dan Siegel, Nick Walker, and others—POPARD regularly dismisses them in favour of “evidence-based” strategies, as if the only evidence that matters is that which can be counted, charted, and controlled.

But we are evidence.
Our children are evidence.
The harm is real.

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The province cannot continue to fund harm

Every year, the Ministry of Education and Child Care funnels public funds into POPARD’s operations, training modules, and school-based consultations. These services are presented as supports—but for many families, they function more like enforcement mechanisms, pushing compliance over care, data collection over consent, control over dignity.

This isn’t a matter of staff intentions. It’s about institutional design. POPARD was built to disseminate a particular worldview—one that sees autistic behaviour as something to be modified, corrected, or shaped. That worldview is incompatible with neurodiversity, disability justice, or the kind of inclusive education the province claims to support.

It is time to shut it down.

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Misused, misapplied, and misaligned

What makes this situation even more egregious is that our family never should have been referred to POPARD in the first place.

POPARD’s own referral criteria are clear: school teams should only request consultation when a child does not already have an effective home-based program or external behaviour support in place. In our case, we had both. We had years of documentation outlining what works. We had a private behaviour consultant—paid out of pocket—who had already recommended equivalent strategies for school. We had a clear, consistent support plan grounded in best practices for PDA. The problem wasn’t a lack of information. It was a refusal to listen.

Instead of following our lead and honouring the plan already developed, the school chose to create yet another hoop for us to jump through. They invited POPARD not to collaborate, but to provide institutional cover—to condone their refusal to act.

And POPARD complied.

They ignored the existing plan. They bypassed the documented strategies. They offered up generic charts, token economies, and “unexpected behaviour” scripts pulled from the early 2000s. They ignored out testimony. They became complicit.

This wasn’t just unhelpful. It was an abuse of process. And it caused harm.

We demand:

• An immediate review of POPARD’s practices, staffing, and training frameworks
• A public commitment to end the use of ABA-style behaviourist strategies in BC classrooms
• The replacement of POPARD with a trauma-informed, neurodivergent-led centre for inclusive practice
• A formal apology to families harmed by POPARD’s interventions

British Columbia has the opportunity—and the moral obligation—to build something better. But that work cannot begin until we reckon with what has already been done. POPARD is not a safe, neutral support for autistic children. It is an instrument of compliance in an education system that still sees difference as deficit.

It cannot be reformed.
It must be dismantled.

We deserve better.
Our children deserve better.
And we will not stop until they get it.