My hearts breaks. 

Helplessness and a sense of overwhelming dread took over my heart when I learned Draven was missing. On June 12,2022, a sweet boy with autism, that did not communicate verbally, took off on an adventure in Lindsay Ontario and did not tell his parents. Was he following the sounds of nature?  I wonder what sensory experience he might have been chasing…

So much work to be done to protect our most vulnerable children. Should an amber alert have been used?  Was this family one of the 50,000 children sitting on the wait list?  Did the family receive the any meaningful support in the last 4 years since the Ford government blew up the autism file?

This is the fear for so many families with kiddos like Draven.  They elope, they hear something, see something, and off they go to experience it. No sense of danger, just off to experience something interesting. They end up on busy streets and unfortunately by dangerous waters. It is a constant struggle for so many families to keep their kiddos safe. This could have happened to so many. Many of us families that love someone on the spectrum fear this very thing. 

I have decided to write my and MPP (Lorne Coe, because amber alert is a provincially run system) and my MP (Ryan Turnball, because I have little faith in my MPP) to ask they consider putting forth a motion to allow a system like the amber alert to be set up for our vulnerable children. Maybe a system like this could prevent another one of our kiddos from adventuring into dangerous situations that they cannot get themselves out of. Maybe if more were looking for Draven, aware of the dangers he was facing alone and away from his family, he could have been saved. 

We need to do more, we need to do better!

Please consider signing my petition. I will collect as many names as possible until Sunday June 19, 2022. Hopefully the response I receive will be huge and I can send a long list of support for an alert system for our kiddos on Monday June 20,2022. Hopefully we can push our government representatives to do more and protect our vulnerable children.