Stuff you NEED

http://www.autismfurniture.com/
and
http://www.ourcreativemindsinc.com/main.sc

Both of these businesses were vendors at the conference I attended recently. The autism furniture are super cozy foam pillows and beds that are easy to clean and so comfortable. I cannot believe how cheap they are. The creative minds store is a business that brings together all of those products we spend hours searching for on the Internet for fun, safety, and learning.

Check them out!

Amazing website that will read text, websites, and documents to you

I learned about www.readthewords.com from a post that Rachel Maddow had put on Twitter. I reminded myself recently what a great resource this is for people that need reading support and want to have a variety of male and female voices to choose from. Membership is FREE.

Argument #2 in favor of a public choice for health care

Many families I know that have a child with a disability are desperately seeking respite care, babysitters, skills trainers, and consultants. All of these supports are difficult to find at least in Oregon because you have to either be an independent contractor to do the work, have to get lucky enough to find full-time work for an agency, or do the work with no benefits or paid training and hope for the best. There is an agency that will hire and train skills trainers but they charge the funding source almost $30 an hour. Mental Health pays more than that an hour for a skills trainer or respite provider.

Often, families will actually be able to get funding for extra help for their child through the county or state but they cannot find anyone to do the work. The fall out of this is that parents often give up their child to foster care because they cannot manage the stress any longer. This costs the tax payers a lot of money when a child goes into foster care.

Why is it so hard to find someone? You could argue it is the work itself that people do not want to do but in fact what more people say is that they need benefits and working in someone's home for 10 to 12 bucks and hour with no benefits is just not going to be possible.

The county and state spend millions of dollars on foster care for children who come from loving families that simply could not find the help they needed to keep their child safely at home. If the county or state would give just a fraction of this money to families so they could hire and insure some help at home then the savings to the state in foster and crisis funding would happen fairly quickly after some adjustments to the system.

In a nutshell, if there was a public choice for health care then there would be an increase in in-home caregivers (trust me, there would) and a decrease in children having to go into foster care or group homes. In addition, there is a decrease in children being hospitalized which saves money, no police have to go to the home....savings....and the crisis system for children will need less funding. These kids will not grow up in foster care which then can sometimes create a system savvy child that ends up in jail. By the time these kids are adults the state will see much less need to fund crisis programs because more kids are able to stay home with the family and the family gets extra help. It might sound nutty but I know how the money works in human services and if parents are informed and have help then kids do much better than being sent away for the extra help. A public choice equals more respite providers.....equals rested parents.... equals happy kids and positive adult outcomes..... equals less need for crisis funding...... equals more money for funding a public choice or other state needs...... equals better services in other areas.

It just makes sense to take care of people.

Argument in favor of a public choice for health care #1

In May 2008 I quit my job of 8 years to start my own business as an independent consultant. 6 months later I was looking for a job and not because business was bad. Business was in fact incredible and I was even thinking about hiring an employee to help me out with all the work I had to do. The number one reason why I had to end my business was health care. I had other reasons of course but health care was the dealbreaker.

Naively, I applied for a family plan with Kaiser Permanente in order to continue with the same coverage I had through my employer and keep the same pediatrician for my daughter. I was very surprised when I was approved and my healthy 5 year old daughter was denied coverage. The reason she was denied was "unfavorable hospitalization or medical attention" and the letter did not clarify what specifically this meant and the insurance company representative said they did not know what it meant either. I appealed the denial and spoke with my daughter's pediatrician. I asked her, "Could it be autism she is being denied for?" She has never been hospitalized and autism is a developmental issue so the doctor and I both decided that her letter should not address autism when agreeing with my appeal to Kaiser. Smart cookie I am decided that I just better pay a little extra postage for delivery confirmation when sending in the appeal. Wouldn't you know it....when I followed up 5 weeks later (because the appeal information said do not call before then) they had never received my appeal. Or course when I said, "Oh that's funny because according to my delivery confirmation you received it 3 days after I sent it." They were very very prompt in making sure I was able to fax my appeal to the right person immediately after that. Only a few days later I received a letter stating my appeal was denied because of "autism". I decided soon after that it was time to find a job instead so my daughter would have coverage.

I could have been a successful small business owner and was hoping to employ someone. Thanks to health insurers denying private coverage to my healthy daughter who just happens to have autism I could no longer keep the business going.

Heroes in Iran - Building a Global Community

It was 3:30 in the morning June 19th when I started writing this. I was curled up under my blankets in bed with my Blackberry - I was refreshing twitter to get the latest news about the post election rally's. I felt helpless and ironic all at once; comfortable in my bed but gripped by the reality unfolding across oceans from me.
I am overcome with emotion still - I am sharing a minute of this persons life, their real life, happening right then and right now. The twitter posts (I am still too new to twitter to call it a tweet without feeling like a complete tool) have a time marker...half a minute ago it says. I picture this student on the other side of the technology and share the urgency.
I care about these people! I want them to do well, I admire them, I want them to...survive. One person using twitter was off the air for over 20 hours and other users began to air concerns. Collectively we care about these complete strangers and we want them to be free and to live. The two twitter users that I am following the most inside Iran also cause me to worry when many hours go by with no news.

We realize we are more the same than different. The people of Iran want what we want in the US. Freedom and to have our leaders truly representing our needs, interests, and concerns.

Imagine if online social networking is what changes the world. I have learned more about Iran in a week than I have learned my whole life. I want them to do well. They are heroes.

Since I wrote the above post it is now a few days later - June 21st, 2009. We have seen real horrors and murder unfolding before us through our computers and televisions. Few in the world will be the same after this experience; especially those living....and dying in Iran.

There are haters on the web complaining about the Internet traffic devoted to this and proclaiming our utter lameness as Americans in becoming interested in the Iranian situation but not having a clue about the region prior to this. To them I say..."So What!" Honestly it is better late than never that our ethnocentric, individualistic, and attention deficit disordered nation actually notices that there is a world outside of our shores. I am sorry it took this terrible event and that people suffering and reaching out to us through the web is what opened our eyes.

I really am hopeful that this opportunity to understand that we are more the same than different in this world will not be lost.

I think it would be wonderful if we build on this shared global experience and collect more stories and images from other places of both joy and pain.

Quote of the Day

Whites must find ways to take collective responsibility for racial subordination. And, perhaps most centrally, Whites must come to understand that either one engages in meaningful antiracist action, or one supports White supremacy; there is no middle ground.

From this link:
Whiteness as Metaprivilege

Portland Public Schools Restructing the Pioneer Program

Special education services restructured to better serve students

5/21/2009

Portland Public Schools is realigning a core piece of its special education services – the Pioneer Schools -- to better meet student needs, tap the expertise of administrators and encourage teamwork.

The restructuring is also the start of the district’s larger effort to address a nationally recognized problem of misdirecting and inappropriately serving African-American students and English language learners in special education. The new structure allows for more tailored services, rather than combining a range of students with a variety of behaviors in one setting.

Portland Public Schools launched the Pioneer Schools in 1999 with three classrooms. Before that, students in special education who were in need of intervention were sent outside the district to private programs at great expense. Very few ever returned to their neighborhood schools. Pioneer Schools, led by Principal Stacey Sibley, brought these students back to receive services within the district. The percentage of students able to return to their neighborhood schools increased from 1 percent a year to as high as 20 percent a year.

“I worked in some of the out-of-district programs, and I know that many of the students who were sent there -- and their parents -- would miss typical school experiences such as art programs and PTA,” Sibley says. “We’ve been able to have all of those things at Pioneer and more, including yoga and a parent support group.”

Today Pioneer includes Pioneer at Holladay (elementary), Pioneer at Youngson (middle school), Pioneer at Columbia (high school), the Pioneer Annex and a day treatment center where students receive mental health services. Together they serve 230 students on a typical day and 450 students a year.

Over time, the types of students sent to the Pioneer Schools grew. Today, students who are expelled or who are being evaluated for special education attend Pioneer along with students in special education, with a range of eligibilities from behavioral disorders to mental health issues.

The result can be a negative spiral for students who do not require the restrictive environment and intensive interventions that their classmates need. And these students, as is the case with the larger special education population, are disproportionately black or English language learners.

Under the new structure, students who are expelled and those who are being evaluated for special education each will be served at new settings. A student who is expelled, for example, may attend one of the community-based organizations or Education Options Programs. Students in special education who are expelled will get their general and specially designed instruction at a separate location. The goal is still for those students to rejoin their neighborhood school when their expulsion is over.

The Pioneer Schools will return to the original focus of serving students in special education who require time out from their neighborhood school for social and academic skill-building and stabilization.

“We believe this approach not only focuses more on the specific needs of these students but groups students with similar challenges, allowing for peer support and a clearer path to returning to school,” said Joanne Mabbott, director of special education services. “The structure also continues to support teachers and principals who need a place to refer students for intervention.”

The new structure follows a teamwork model. Each of the Pioneer Programs will be led by a program administrator with a dedicated staff and control over his or her budget. This promotes stability, focus and team building within each program and decreases the need to move staff members across the four campuses based on attendance. Opportunities for collaboration among the programs will be offered; however, there will no longer be a principal overseeing all four locations.

“We recognize that there is a lot of work ahead to assure that we are correctly identifying and serving all students appropriately,” said Superintendent Carole Smith. “This move to better differentiate and more specifically assist different groups is the beginning of a shift in our thinking that will lead to greater equity.”