IFSP meeting

Our IFSP meeting was this morning. In a nutshell, blah.

I got a copy of Emily's report on Finn at the meeting. I'll just say what I always say: it's disheartening to see your child reduced on paper to numbers, scores, and percentages. None of it was a surprise; I know that he's delayed in all areas, and I really feel like I've made my peace with that. Not that he's not doing great! He really is, and he's making strides all the time. Still, seeing someone else's assessment of your child just kind of stings.

Our meeting this morning was with our new service coordinator, Celina, who was very, very nice, very thorough and professional (and very young!).

Emily is, of course, recommending that OT continue once a week. Rebecca, our SLP, has not submitted a report, as her contract is not up yet. Celina informed me that we are, in fact, being required to submit request for coverage of services to our private health insurance carrier, contrary to what our former SC, Amber, told me when I last spoke to her. Apparently, Amber just decided to give me part of the story, and then she bailed on us. Nice.

So here's where we're at: Regional Center apparently never did approve funding for in-home OT for Finn past the end of their current contract with Emily, which is now at an end. They did approve funding for in-home speech therapy for Finn, but only for a short-term contract, which is up in October. Amber never told me any of that. She just told me that Regional Center had taken my concerns into consideration and decided to make an exception and continue to allow us in-home therapy.

So as it stands now, they will be submitting a request to our insurance carrier to cover OT. If our insurance carrier approves it, they will NOT cover Emily, nor will they cover any in-home therapist; they will only cover clinic-based therapy, which will mean having to take Finn somewhere else for therapy amidst all the other responsibilities I have with all the other kids, and paying a $20 co-pay per therapy session. The same will go for speech therapy when that contract is up in October. If our insurance company denies coverage, then Regional Center will continue to provide the services, with the therapists, that Finn has been receiving.

I've already made my decision: if we are forced to utilize services through our insurance carrier, I'm opting out. Trucking across town for group therapy and paying twenty bucks a pop for the privilege is just not practical for us, and I honestly can't see the justification. While I think he benefits from therapy to a degree, I absolutely don't think that the benefit is so great as to justify that kind of expense, inconvenience, and disruption to our family routine. I just won't do it. And I won't feel guilty about it, either.

Over time, I've come to see therapy and the service industry as more and more of a trap. They convince you that your child needs to be in the system, needs the therapies, that therapy is the main thing that is going to make this major difference in how productive and "high-functioning" your kid ends up being. And after convincing you that therapy and services are an integral element in your child's success, it turns out that they can't or won't provide said services anyway. It's all a myth. You can spend your kid's childhood therapizing the shit out of them, and it's not going to guarantee anything - it doesn't guarantee that they're going to master this or that at any prescribed time, and it certainly doesn't guarantee that they're going to be independent adults one day. Their capabilities are hard-wired into them from birth - that's what I think. Therapy may give families tools to assist their children in developing certain skills, but I am not at all convinced that therapy is what is making the major differences in our kids' lives. Love and inclusion and good health care are the things that have changed the quality and longevity of people's lives who have Down syndrome.

So anyway. Like I said, blah. Feeling kind of cranky about the whole thing.