I wrote a post couple of weeks ago about how Simon was approved for the Autism Waiver. Since then, we have been starting to put things into place. And yesterday, I notified our case worker about which providers we will be using.
The original suggestion was to stick with the after-school program and work our way into the system more slowly. Since we are eligible for services in multiple areas, we can incorporate them one by one. But after thinking about it for a short time, I realized that we would likely be better doing everything at once. It will mean overloading him, yes, but he’ll be overloaded ONCE rather than 3-4 times with each new introduction. So we’ll have a few nightmare weeks and then hopefully it will be DONE. If we were to introduce things slowly, the misery would just feel like it was never-ending.
So, we will be working with an after-school program located in the same facility where Simon will be going to school (coincidence, but can’t beat the convenience). They offer several classes including drum lessons, martial arts, dance (I think they work with Zam Dance), organization … all things that he either needs or we were thinking about doing for him. It’s our thought that he will do this 4 days / week (with the 5th day being religious education in the evening).
We did decide to take advantage of the IISS services (still don’t know the acronym) to help him in religious school (mainly). After speaking with the provider, they can accompany him to religious school and help him during the classes. We’ve been using older students (age 13 and above) to help him to date, but having someone with more experience and more knowledge of how to help him can only benefit him, right?
But taking advantage of IISS services can also be used to help Rachel indirectly. They have a category of “Family Integration”. We can create goals under this category to teach them to work together and help each other. Then we can further work with Rachel to extend beyond her brother and hopefully help her in the community at large. Hopefully this will also help her social interactions across the board, something that has been causing her great distress for the last year or so.
I still have no idea what I’m doing. As usual, I’m flying on a wing and a prayer, hoping the decisions I make / made will do good and not harm. We never know until we get there though. Here’s hoping that this’ll do some good!
A Day In The Life Of The Crazies! 