multiple SCLEROSIS society of canada, BC & Yukon Division In communities across Canada, the MS Society provides information, support, educational events and other resources for people living with MS and their families.
project overview
The Volunteer Legal Advocacy Program (VLAP), partially funded by the Law Foundation of BC, assists individuals affected by Multiple Sclerosis with legal and/or advocacy issues. Our program serves the entire province of BC and the Yukon. The majority of the staff Coordinator’s time involves assisting clients with end of work life issues. This includes applications and appeals for Short and Long-Term Disability, Canada Pension Plan – Disability Benefit, Persons with Disabilities Benefits, and the Disability Tax Credit. Many of these applications are time consuming, including the one for the Canada Pension Plan – Disability (CPP-D) benefit. Since MS is an episodic disease with multiple symptoms, it is often difficult for our clients to articulate their symptoms for their benefit application. Clients find it difficult to articulate how their MS symptoms prevent them from working at any job, for example. Students’ work will involve: - interviews with clients living with MS where they assist the client to articulate their symptoms and functional limitations clearly and in detail, documenting the information in the client’s voice - Depending on the application, the focus may be on how the client’s MS leaves them unable to do their own job, unable to do any job, or requiring assisting with activities of daily living. - Volunteers start out learning how to assist with the Canada Pension Plan – Disability (CPP-D) benefit application. There are opportunities for volunteers to learn to assist with other disability benefit applications, if interested and as needed. - Our lay advocates spend anywhere from 1 to 10 hours with a single client to prepare their symptom document, depending on the benefit application. - Part of this time is spent in telephone or in-person interviews at our office. - We try to pair volunteers up to work with clients. One will lead in asking questions about symptoms and functioning, while the other types of formats the client’s responses. This often takes more than 1 interview and each interview may be around 1 to 1.5 hours in length. - Additional work includes communicating the client over email or phone to schedule appointments, as well as formatting the answers to the questions after the interview - The students are essentially assisting the client to make a strong application and increasing their chances of being approved by illustrating how their situation matches the eligibility criteria for the benefit set out in the legislation. - The work is spread out over a few weeks. A draft of the document is emailed to the client and staff Coordinator for review, and the next interview continues with revisions until all the questions are completed. - The final document will be reviewed by the staff Coordinator (Nyssa Lessingham) and Volunteer Advocate (Marilyn Craig). As needed and in more complex cases, the document may be reviewed by a supervising lawyer. This is rare. Volunteers will need to be comfortable with discussing sensitive topics with clients as it relates to their MS. Symptoms of MS are often both physical and cognitive. Some MS symptoms which require maturity and confidence to broach in interviews, are bladder/bowel dysfunction and depression. Training provides volunteers with the tools and language to have these conversations as they relate to the disability application. Resource manuals, training, and the staff Coordinator are available to support the students. Training includes online modules, a training day (by phone, for students at TRU), and experiential learning with a previous VLAP client over the phone (interview practice). Note on Supervision: Documents prepared by volunteers for clients’ applications will be reviewed by staff Specialist Sohrab and volunteer Marilyn Craig, former VLAP Coordinator and retired lawyer. The staff Specialist reviews files monthly with the program’s supervising lawyer, Daniel Glasner. Students are still encouraged to reach out to the lawyer supervisor for any legal questions. Note that this format of reporting and collecting of applications is designed to improve efficiency, while still making the lawyer supervisor available for support. two students will be required for this project.
expectation of students
students will be provided with online training modules and a mandatory one-day training seminar. volunteers are expected to put in 3-5 hours per week. schedule for completing hours is flexible. there are no prerequisites required.
