Individualisation—the tactic of treating systemic failures as personal shortcomings—operates in British Columbia’s education system whenever families are urged to “build resilience” in the face of chronically underfunded supports, rather than demanding systemic accountability; by shifting the burden from institutions to individuals, this approach obscures structural neglect and perpetuates harm rcybc.ca rcybc.ca.
Recognizing individualisation tactics
Families encounter individualisation when policy documents and district communications frame access delays and resource gaps as opportunities to develop personal coping strategies—resilience workshops, self-advocacy modules and parent training sessions—while systemic barriers such as understaffed CYSN programs and unmanageable social worker caseloads remain unaddressed; this narrative recurs in reports observing that, “in the meanwhile, children and families need … reasonable workloads, access to appropriate family and community support services,” effectively equating professional support with private perseverance rcybc.ca rcybc.ca.
The cost of individualisation
When systemic failures are reframed as deficits in family resilience, children endure prolonged exclusion, delayed therapies and unreported incidents of restraint without institutional redress; in its 2025 “Too Many Left Behind” spotlight, the Representative for Children and Youth recorded that “families have told RCY repeatedly that their child is not the cause of their struggle—it is the disconnected and underfunded system that holds them down,” underscoring how misplaced expectations of personal fortitude compound injustice rcybc.ca.
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Strategies to counter individualisation
- Embed a rights-based framework in legislation
Amend the School Act to codify the duty to accommodate under section 8 of the BC Human Rights Code, ensuring that educational institutions remove barriers rather than prescribe resilience training; by legislating entitlement checklists and enforceable timelines for individualized supports, policymakers shift the focus from private coping to legal obligation pressbooks.bccampus.ca bchumanrights.ca. - Publish transparent entitlement guides
Issue plain-language manuals for families outlining eligibility for supports—specialised instruction, educational assistants, positive behaviour supports—so that parents need not decode technical policy jargon or await consultations to understand their rights under provincial guidelines. - Facilitate strategic complaints and appeals
Strengthen provincial oversight by promoting access to the BC Human Rights Tribunal for service-denial or unreasonable delay claims, thereby creating a corrective mechanism that privileges systemic accountability over exhortations to personal resilience bchumanrights.ca. - Mobilise systemic advocacy coalitions
Unite parent networks, Inclusion BC, the BC Teachers’ Federation and legal advocates in co-designing policy reviews, ensuring that lived experience informs structural reform—transforming resilience-building workshops into policy co-development fora. - Mandate interim protections
Require boards to implement provisional supports—such as provisional IEP accommodations and emergency positive behaviour plans—without awaiting final policy reviews, guaranteeing that no child’s access to services hinges on individual adaptability.
Conclusion
Individualisation obscures the reality that resilience cannot substitute for rights; by demanding that families “adapt” to under-resourced systems, British Columbia’s education institutions perpetuate exclusion and erode accountability—only through enshrining enforceable entitlements, transparent reporting and robust legal avenues can we reclaim the narrative, ensuring that support is delivered by design rather than demanded of those least able to bear the burden.
