Ontario Autism Program: behaviour plan budget instructions

Overview

Families can choose how they receive services through the Ontario Autism Program (OAP). Families can get evidence-based behavioural services through a regional provider or get funding to purchase these services through a direct funding provider. For families who choose the direct funding options, clinical supervisors must complete a behaviour plan budget for children who registered for the OAP before April 1, 2019.

Clinical supervisors do not need to complete and submit a behaviour plan budget for families who registered for the OAP after April 1, 2019.

Get the behaviour plan budget form.

Maximum hourly rate

If a family has chosen to receive services through the direct funding option, their OAP behaviour plan will be funded up to a maximum of $55 per hour for evidence-based behavioural services.

The maximum hourly rate includes all:

• direct hours spent with a child, family member and/or any member of an OAP family team
• time spent assessing the strengths and needs of a family when the child and family are present
• meetings with members of the OAP family team identified by the family
• time spent with the OAP family team to consult and align the approach to services across multiple environments or to support maintenance and generalization at home and in the community

The hourly rate must include taxes and indirect services such as report writing, therapist supervision, travel, program supplies and staff orientation. These services cannot be billed separately.

A service provider may charge more than $55 per hour for some services, but budgets will only be funded to a maximum of $55 per hour. Any budgets that clinical supervisors submit with services billed at a rate higher than $55 per hour will be returned to the clinical supervisor who submited the budget so that it can be revised and submitted again with the standard rate.

OAP service providers are expected to charge a lower hourly rate for services that are less resource intensive (for example behavioural services delivered in group settings) compared to services that are more resources intensive.

Submission guidelines

Budgets will be funded to a maximum of six months. Any budgets submitted for a duration longer than six months will be returned to the clinical supervisor who submitted the budget and they must submit the budget again.

Clinical supervisors are responsible for developing and submitting the budget associated with each OAP behaviour plan. When developing the budget, clinical supervisors are expected to adhere to ethical billing practices and standards, such as those outlined in the Behavior Analyst Certification Board Professional and Ethical Compliance Code for Behavior Analysts, and the College of Psychologists of Ontario Standards of Professional Conduct.

The clinical supervisor must submit a package that includes the completed budget, the OAP behaviour plans and clinical supervisor attestation form to a single point of access provider for processing. The single point of access will have 30 calendar days to check the documents for completion and to issue funding for the services that are outlined in the child’s OAP behaviour plan.

Once the single point of access reviews all three documents for completion, the single point of access will immediately provide funding to the family for the first three months of service delivery.

After the first three months, the single point of access will review the invoices and budget before issuing the next installment of funding. For OAP behaviour plans that are shorter than three months in duration, the entire funding amount will be provided in one payment.

Changes to the behaviour plan

If there are significant changes to the OAP behaviour plan (for example, a change in method to achieve a goal or emerging challenging behaviours) but the services can still be delivered within the submitted budget, the clinical supervisor should prepare an amendment to the OAP behaviour plan showing how services will be delivered.

Clinical supervisors who provide services under the OAP’s direct funding option must submit the amendment to the single point of access.

If the changes in the OAP behaviour plan are beyond the scope of the funding included in the budget, the clinical supervisor must submit a new OAP behaviour plan to the single point of access.

Invoicing

Please provide families with regular invoices based on this budget. The single point of access will reconcile those invoices against this budget before issuing the next installment of funding.

Complete the budget

Get the behaviour plan budget form.

The budget has the following sections with service information:

• evidence-based behavioural services
• service objective
• service setting
• hourly rate
• total hours
• total funding
• total duration of behaviour plan in weeks

For each category you can select an option from drop-down menus or fill in the cells with the required information.

The OAP service information included in the behaviour plan budget must reflect the details provided in the child’s corresponding OAP behaviour plan and clinical supervisor attestation form.

To capture all behaviour plan information, you can add rows to the budget as needed.

Learn more about the OAP and evidence-based behavioural services in the OAP guidelines.

Evidence-based behavioural services

Choose one evidence-based behavioural service for each row in the budget template:

• planning and goal-setting with a child and/or family or caregiver
• assessments of child and/or family or caregiver strengths and needs to inform the development of a behaviour plan
• OAP family team meetings
• one-to-one intervention
• small group intervention (a ratio of less than five children or youth working with one clinician)
• large group intervention (a ratio of five or more children or youth working with one clinician)
• peer-mediated intervention
• parent or caregiver-mediated intervention
• consultation services with the family
• family or caregiver capacity-building and training
• consultation with other professionals involved with the child/youth

Service objective

For each evidenced-based behavioural service, choose one of the following as the primary service objective:

• increase parent or caregiver and family team members’ knowledge of and skills in using behavioural strategies
• support early child development to increase the rate of learning in young children in all areas of their development
• teach children and youth the skills they need to participate at home, at school and in the community
• reduce challenging behaviour that interferes with learning and adaptive functioning

Service setting

OAP services can be delivered in a variety of settings. Choose one or more of the following service settings:

• in a centre
• at home
• in the community

Hourly rate

Identify the hourly rate of each evidence-based behavioural service up to a maximum of $55.

Total hours

Identify total number of hours related to each evidence-based behavioural service for the duration of the plan.

Total funding

The amount of expenditure for the completion of the child’s OAP behaviour plan should be as follows for each type of evidence-based behavioural service:
total # of hours X hourly rate = total funding
The hourly rate must not exceed $55 per hour.

Duration of OAP behaviour plan

Indicate the duration of the OAP Behaviour plan in total weeks.

Example service scenarios

Example 1. A child requiring support to improve social skills

You assess a child who is struggling with social interactions with peers at school. The child and family’s goals include increasing conversation skills and dealing with conflicts with friends. You recommend a social skills program that targets social interaction for children with autism.

Together with the child and their family you identify a set of goals to help build social skills, such as interactive play and conflict management.

Through a discussion with the child’s parent or caregiver, they tell you that their child had previously received behavioural services to improve social skills, but their child had been unable to maintain and generalize those skills at home. The parents suggest that their child might benefit from some parent coaching in the home to support their progress. The parents also identify the child’s Brownie leader and educator as members of their family team and ask that these professionals be included in their OAP behaviour plan.

You begin to develop the child’s OAP behaviour plan, including descriptions of the intensity and duration of services based on the needs, strengths and goals of the child and their family.

In this OAP behaviour plan, the evidence-based behavioural services the family will receive include:

• 1.5 hours of planning and goal-setting with the family
• 2 hours of assessment (including functional behaviour assessment and/or curricular assessment) to inform the development of the OAP behaviour plan
• 0.5 hours of team meetings per week, including weekly meetings with parents and monthly family team meetings (or more frequently as needed) for a total of 8 hours over 16 weeks
• 1.5 hours per week of large group-based intervention delivered by a senior therapist for a total of 24 hours over 16 weeks
• 4 hours of parent or caregiver training
• 2 hours of phone consultation to support maintenance and generalization at home and in the community
• 2 hours of consultation with other professionals involved with the child (for example Brownie leader or educator)

Budget

Total duration of behaviour plan in weeks: 16

Example 2. A child requiring support to reduce challenging behaviour

A family comes to you for an assessment of their child who has been engaging in a behaviour that puts them at risk of injury and may be limiting their quality of life.

Through a discussion with the child’s parent or caregiver, they explain that their child is non-verbal and they are having a difficult time determining the reasons for this challenging behaviour. They also express concern that because this behaviour is new, they have limited knowledge of how they can support their child or how to help other family members respond appropriately when the behaviour becomes particularly challenging.

To better support their child with autism and their other family members, you suggest that the family may want to consider including their adult son, who lives at home, as a member of the family team. You also suggest that the family team should include:

• a health professional to determine if physical discomfort might be impacting the behaviour and to support the child’s overall health
• the child’s educator who may need crisis management training and will be able to help with maintenance and generalization
• a speech language pathologist who can evaluate the child’s ability to understand language and support the child to learn communication skills

Working closely with the family, you identify goals that they would like to achieve including identifying why the behaviour is happening, increasing functional communication and decreasing the challenging behaviour.

You develop an OAP behaviour plan to meet the family’s unique needs and build on their skills. To reduce the risk that the behaviour poses as quickly and effectively as possible, the family commits to a five-month plan that supports and stabilizes the child in a centre-based program, then generalizes skills to home and other environments.

In this OAP behaviour plan the evidence-based behavioural services the family will receive include:

• 3 hours of planning and goal-setting with the family
• 15 hours of assessment (including functional behaviour assessment and/or curricular assessment) to inform the development of the OAP behaviour plan
• 0.5 hours of team meetings per week, including weekly meetings with parents and monthly family team meetings (or more frequently as needed) over 20 weeks for a total of 10 hours
• 15 hours per week of one to one intervention with an instructor therapist delivered over 20 weeks for a total of 300 hours
• 1 hour per week of parent and caregiver training over 20 weeks for a total of 20 hours (this includes parents, their adult son and the child’s educator)
• 4 hours of consultation at home and at school to support maintenance and generalization
• 2 hours of consultation with other professionals involved with the child (for example health care professional, educator and speech language pathologist)

Budget

Total duration of behaviour plan in weeks: 20

Addendum to Ontario Autism Program Guidelines and Behaviour plan budget template and instructions

Effective July 29, 2019

On July 29, 2019, the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services announced steps to provide continuity of service while providing the necessary time to design a new needs-based autism program by April 2020. 

The OAP Guidelines, OAP Clinical Framework, Clinical Supervisor Attestation form and OAP Behaviour Plan Budget Template, will continue to apply to all renewed Behaviour Plans, with some revisions. The following addendum outlines amendments to the OAP Guidelines and OAP Behaviour Plan Budget Template that apply as of July 29, 2019.

This addendum should be read in concert with the corresponding sections of the OAP Guidelines, OAP Behaviour Plan Budget Template, and OAP Behaviour Plan Budget Instructions.

Revision and addition to the OAP Behaviour plan budget template

Effective July 29, 2019

On page 1 of the OAP Behaviour Plan Budget, under “Submission guidelines”, replace:

“Budgets will be submitted and funded for a maximum of six months. Any budgets submitted for a duration longer than six months will be returned to the OAP provider submitting the budget and will need to be submitted again”.

with:

“Budgets will be submitted and funded for a maximum of six months. Any budgets submitted for a duration longer than six months will be returned to the OAP provider submitting the budget and will need to be submitted again. The service hours a child receives per week in any renewed Behaviour Plan must be equal to or less than the service hours they received per week in their previous plan”.

Revision and addition to the OAP Behaviour plan budget instructions

Effective July 29, 2019

In Part A of the OAP Behaviour Plan Budget, under “Submission guidelines”, replace:

“Budgets will be submitted and funded for a maximum of six months. Any budgets submitted for a duration longer than six months will be returned to the OAP provider submitting the budget and will need to be submitted again”.

with:

“Budgets will be submitted and funded for a maximum of six months. Any budgets submitted for a duration longer than six months will be returned to the OAP provider submitting the budget and will need to be submitted again. The service hours a child receives per week in any renewed Behaviour Plan must be equal to or less than the service hours they received per week in their previous plan”.