Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Whose side is she on, anyway?

I am disappointed in our service coordinator. She's really bad about communication with me - it takes her forever to return phone calls, and usually when I do finally get her on the phone, she's clearly in a rush. She's very nice, but I'm starting to wonder how effective she is. Or maybe my expectations just aren't what they should be? I'm not even sure what her role is supposed to be exactly - where is her alliance supposed to be? My impression is that she's supposed to be an advocate for Finn. However, she gets her paycheck from Regional Center. Almost seems like some sort of conflict of interest.

Anyhow, Finn had that feeding eval a couple weeks ago, and the therapist we saw wrote up a report and sent a copy to our service coordinator, a copy to our pediatrician, and a copy to us. In the report, the therapist recommended that Finn receive feeding therapy 2X per month as part of his IFSP. Apparently our SC called Finn's PT on the phone and asked her if she had observed any feeding issues with Finn (she's never watched him eat, so no). She told Eun, who in turn told me, that she would submit the recommendation to the "team." Okay, fine. But why is she not communicating this directly to me? Why am I hearing all this from our PT? And that was over a week ago that she told Eun that the recommendation was being submitted - I haven't heard a word about it, whether it's been approved, denied, nothing. And I'm irritated.

Actually, the feeding issues with Finn seem to have worked themselves out for the most part. He willingly eats pureed foods by spoon now 2 - 3X a day. So at this point, it's not even that I feel so strongly that he get the additional therapy (although I do worry about transitioning him to more solid fare), but it would be nice to get the communication from our SC that we're supposed to get, don't you think?

4 comments:

Wendy P said...

That would frustrate me to no end. Check my blog - I posted pics that have the chair insert our PT made for Kira. You might ask your PT if something like that would benefit Finn. I totally forgot she even had it until I was going through old pictures.

Loved Michael's post yesterday, btw.

Anonymous said...

A Service coordinator is not an advocate generally but IS supposed to coordinate services and assist you in navigating the system to get his needs met. Call her supervisor/call a meeting and push her to meet your needs. It's unfortunate but often that's what it takes- why so many parents get into adversarial positions with the system!

Brandie said...

Yes, she should be communicating with you. I requested and received a new SC last month. I gave her plenty of opportunity to get her act together, but it only got worse. I, also, used to hear things from Goldie's therapists instead of her. I don't get why she's asking the PT about feeding?

Crittle said...

Our SC sucks too. I wish I had some tips other than pull your hair out and hope for the best. It's such a crap shoot.