Monday, September 7, 2009

Letter sent to our service coordinator

Michael's and my discussions have come to this conclusion: we have agreed to reduce the services Finn is currently receiving (PT and OT) from weekly to monthly. Here's the email I sent to our service coordinator a few minutes ago:

Dear Amber:

After a great deal of discussion, my husband and I have decided to request a reduction in services for Finnian. We believe that we, as a family, have the means to help him continue to progress and achieve goals in the areas of gross and fine motor skills, feeding, and cognition. We would like to receive visits from a physical therapist and an occupational therapist (preferably Eun and Andres since we already have an established and positive relationship with each of them) on a monthly basis to provide guidance to us on furthering Finn's progress.

I assume you are still in the process of writing up Finn's current IFSP; the above changes would be appreciated. If you would also let Eun and Andres know that we are reducing services to monthly rather than weekly, I would appreciate that as well.

Please feel free to contact me via email or phone at (---) -------- if you have any questions.

Thank you -

Lisa Morguess

I feel pretty good about this. We'll see what happens!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

good luck! after reading some of your posts about this, my husband and i decided that we would also like to change Lauren's IFSP. She still gets ST, PT, and her teacher, but we cut out OT, because her teacher pretty much does everything the OT does, and Lauren LOVES her teacher. She never did anything for OT but cry. We felt it was a waste of everyone's time.

anyways, i hope it works out.

Lisa said...

You should feel good about it! Check out Bridget's Light for a related post when you have a chance!

BLOOM - Parenting Kids With Disabilities said...

Hi Lisa -- Thank you for listing BLOOM in your blog roll.

I love Finnian! He is beautiful. And I'm enjoying your blog. You've figured out the downsides of the overfocus on what our kids can't do -- and feeling like every moment has to be turned into a "therapeutic one," which can take a lot of the joy out of life.

My son Ben is 15 now, and it took me a lot longer to let go of the drive to "fix." You may enjoy reading two blogs I wrote related to this:

The Enough House
http://bloom-parentingkidswithdisabilities.blogspot.com/2009/05/enough-house_26.html

and

What makes my son enough?
http://bloom-parentingkidswithdisabilities.blogspot.com/2009/06/what-makes-my-son-enough.html

I look forward to hearing more about your wonderful family.

Perhaps we could do a guest blog with you over time on BLOOM where you reflect on your decision to reduce therapies.

Have a great day!

Louise

http://bloom-parentingkidswithdisabilities.blogspot.com/

My name is Sarah said...

Hi Lisa, This is Joyce. Good for you!! You know what is best for Finn and your family is able to provide so much for him. I believe there need to be a continuum of services available. I have always hated how they want to make it one size fits all. I will be curious how they respond.

datri said...

That's great that you are making a decision that feels right for YOUR family. I think you've come to a good balance with the monthly consults. Waiting to hear what they have to say (although with all the hoopla about CA's budget crisis, I can't imagine them complaining about it!)

Beth said...

My first visit to your blog! And I hope you can hear my applause from Virginia (though I didn't read enough to figure out where you live)! Yay for parents who are looking out for the ENTIRE CHILD.

Don't second guess your decision--Finn can and will develop just fine, with minimal "formal" intervention. Keep working on language and cognition, since those are the basis for his success in life--relationships with family, friends, co-workers,etc.

Yay yay yay! I love it when kids get to be kids!