Forty - Funding? Don't talk to ME about funding!

On Friday I received a call from my Cherub's school, telling me that he had passed a language assessment with flying colours (a score of 93, whatever that means, 93rd percentile or 93/100 or whatever).  How good is that?  Awesome, I would say.

Unfortunately, in our situation, this rate of success is actually a 'failure', as it means that he no longer qualifies for autism specific funding, and his position at his specialist school is technically under threat.

You see, the criteria for autism specific funding (or more specifically Autism Spectrum Disorder funding) now involves THREE criteria, and you have to meet ALL THREE to qualify for funding.  You need to have a diagnosis of autism (which he has), you need to score less than 70 on the language test (which he didn't) and you need a psych assessment to say that you have problems (which he didn't even undertake, because once you don't meet one criteria, there's no point moving through the process).

My Cherub has attended his autism specialist school for the past seven years, because....der....he is autistic.  Granted, he is high functioning, but believe you me, the fact that he has good language skills has made very little difference to his emotional and social levels, which are very much behind his peers.  Nor has it made a difference to the fact that he still, at nearly twelve years old, hangs on to a poop for as long as possible because he has such sensory issues that he hates the sensation of doing a poop and won't until he really really has to.  It doesn't make a difference to his temper tantrums, or his inability to process emotions (and understand his own).  It doesn't stop him from not liking to have to wait for something (in fact, as you have seen in previous posts, his high level of language development actually makes this stiatuion worse because he can verbalise how he's feeling, but in totally inappropriate ways!).  His writing skills are still that of a prep, possibly if I am gracious we may now be reaching a grade one level.  He gets his letters around the wrong way, he is only just beginning to be able to write his letters the same size, and the words still have capitals all the way through because these are easier for him to form.

And the myriad of other issues he has - dislike of noise, dislike of crowds, crippling fear of the unknown, crippling anxiety, a tendency towards depression etc etc etc.  Those of you who know him will know what I mean.

Do not tell me that he doesn't qualify for autism funding.  Please, do not tell me this.

But, guess what?  He doesn't.  I have now read the document produced by the DEECD which states the different funding criteria and he doesn't meet all three, so he doesn't qualify under the autism criteria.

So, I get the phone call from the school to assure me not to worry, they have a strategy that they have had to use in the past to enable students to stay at the school and not lose their place.  THEY realise he cannot leave the school, but of course he needs the funding for his place.

So, from now on, my child is going to be funded because of his Severe Behavioural Challenges.

Are you F#$%^&g kidding me?

I agree, Cherub does have Severe Behavioural Challenges, but....again I say 'Der'...he's autistic, this is where they come from.  Why can't they have a level of funding for high functioning autistic kids?  Better still, why can't they just acknowledge that you don't get 'better' or 'cured', and if you've been deemed to be best served in a specialist setting, then quite frankly, by the time you get to year 7 and haven't been moved into mainstream, well, maybe this is because you're not quite up to it because your autism gets in the way, and so you get funding to be able to stay there and get the education that you deserve and can achieve to your best ability.

But now, for the rest of his school life, he will only receive funding because, on paper, he has Severe Behavioural Challenges.  My kind hearted good little boy, who doesn't hurt animals, doesn't draw on walls, doesn't wag school, but does fly off the handle when he gets confused and frightened, will from now on be pegged into that small but dreadfully nasty hole.

I understand that this is not the school's fault - in fact I am grateful that they know of another way to obtain funding for my Cherub.  Otherwise, he would literally be kicked out of his safe environment and thrown into mainstream, where he STILL wouldn't meet the criteria and wouldn't be given any funding for any support.

This is ridiculous.  He has his diagnosis, he has attended the specialist setting for all of his school life, and it is blatantly obvious to all and sundry that he would never EVER cope in a mainstream setting.  If I wasn't so angry over this, I would be spending my days crying and wondering how Cherub is ever going to get through life when even his autism is no longer acknowledged as 'real' in terms of funding and educational support as he gets older.  This is utter bullshit.

I am, of course, thinking on an intellectual level that funding is funding, and at least he is going to be able to stay at his current school.  This is the most important thing.  But I am soooooo crapped off that the only way he can get that funding is to, at least on paper, imply that the funding is needed because he is a challenging student because of his behaviour, ignoring the medical reason for that.

I will be writing a letter to the Minister for Education.  But for now I ask that you share this post with everyone you know so that they are aware of this injustice for kids on the ASD spectrum and their families.

Forty one - Tapping my little heart out

With so much going on in my life at the moment (see previous post), one would think that life was pretty crappy for me at this time. But it's not really, we're going over a bit of a hurdle, we'll get there eventually, and in the meantime I have my latest joy to keep me happy.

Five weeks ago I started attending tap dance classes - and I LOVE it!

Growing up, my very closest friend was a dancing queen; she attended troup lessons on Saturdays, private lessons (ballet, jazz and tap) during the week, undertook exams and of course 'did the concert'. Being relatively inseparable on weekends (we attended different high schools and alternated at each other's houses each alternate weekend), I used to watch her and her dancing friends as they strutted their stuff on a Saturday morning, sometimes for several hours at a time, in the old church hall up the road.

I became a part of that social group - her friends became 'our' friends, one in particular, the others always familiar faces at her birthday parties and the odd trip to the city as we moved into our teens. But I was never a 'dancer'; though I craved to be one I just couldn't bring myself to ask my parents if I could take part, and by the time I was 16 or 17, that part of life had passed me by, because as a girl of 16 or 17, the thought of taking beginners dancing lessons is a bit humiliating - if you hadn't done it by then, you pretty much had missed the boat.

Why I couldn't voice my desire is something that still remains a mystery to me, but I suspect that my excruciating level of shyness had something to do with it, my paranoia about embarrassing myself or not being 'good' at the whole dancing thing, or the fact that at home I was often praised as a 'smart' girl who loved books and classical piano (which, incidentally I WAS pretty good at!). Also, being on the....ahem....chunky side for most of my life, getting into a leotard amongst all those skinny girls wasn't something that I relished the thought of.

So, it was destiny that I was to forgo the chance to pursue my little fantasy of being the next Ginger Rogers.

But, five weeks ago I decided to finally follow this little dream of mine, which had never really subsided, and in fact was exaccerbated when another friend of mine took up tap dancing as an adult a few years ago.

Having donned the shoes and attended the classes, I have not looked back. It is just such a wonderful feeling to be finally doing that one thing that I have almost literally always wanted to do. For that one hour each week I am in another world, my problems fade away as I focus on getting the steps and the beat right. I practise most nights, in my loungeroom, with the CD that the dancing teacher provided (full of very old-school tap dancing music, titled 'Music Maestro Please' - you get the picture) playing at the highest volume level. Harry the cat HATES it when I practise, and actually attacks my legs - one night he sunk his teeth in and drew blood - but I have learned (and so has he) that a quick squirt of water from a water bottle sends him running, and leaves me able to focus on getting the tap tap tap correct.

I always thought that having made the decision to take adult tap dance classes I would somehow feel a sense of regret that I didn't speak up when I was younger, that I would lament the fact that I didn't do this when I was a girl. I was wrong.

Doing something like this at middle age has made the experience all the more enjoyable and precious.

Concert tickets anyone?

Talk later

Janeane
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Thirty Nine - Just checking in

Well, seeing as it's been so long since I've put fingers to the keyboard, thought I would just drop by and say hi.

First, let me tell you that there's a 'subscribe by email' link somewhere on this page where you can now sign up to receive email alerts if you're at all interested in following what I write here. I mention this not because I am a big head egotistical narcisist, but because I usually post on FB when I have written here, and I'm thinking of getting off the whole FB roundabout. I really only manage to get on there to share pics these days, with the occassional status update, and quite frankly I can do that from here - with more detail and in a more personal way. Kind of like writing a letter to all of the people I like/love all at once.

With no swear words.

Mostly.

This weekend has been one based around 'cleaning out'. I know, I know, the word 'cleaning' isn't at the top of my vocab list, but 'cleaning out' certainly was this weekend (no laxatives involved, in case you are wondering, I am talking about something totally different, as you will soon see).

It's hard rubbish time - yay! Time to get rid of all the crap I have acccumulated over the past six months and see how many people view my trash, as their 'treasure'. This is the joy of hard rubbish time, it's not the feeling of satisfaction of cleaning out the shed (which I got majorly this time, as it had in fact been TWELVE months since I last got rid of the hard rubbish). The joy of hard rubbish time comes AFTER you put it all out on the nature strip, and see who comes around to pick through your total crap to find their little treasures to take home.

This is a big part of any kid's life, by the way. Doing the hard rubbish, then sitting at the window, just waiting for the vultures to come around, then saying to your parents in absolute amazement "What the HELL do they want with that?"

And now, in the age of social media, that same conversation is occuring, as we speak on at least one Facebook page:

"Someone took the lamps? What do they want THOSE for?"

"Don't know, probably desperate. Probably sell them for ten dollars at trash and treasure next weekend".

And here, then, is the conundrum.

If we KNOW that people are going to take our crap and actually make a PROFIT on it, why the blue blazes don't we do that OURSELVES????

Answer? We are lazy.

Well, I realise here that I speak for myself, as I know there are some of you out there who do actually do the ebay thing that I cannot be bothered with (and some make a nice little profit out of it too.) But I can't be bothered with that. Stuff it, they can have it for free if they feel like poking around in a pile of goodness knows what from a household they don't even know.

But I digress.

Scatters came over yesterday afternoon and we spent a couple of hours going through the crap that I'd collected over the past twelve months. Well, collected and then thrown out into the shed, waiting for that wonderful week that we know as 'Hard Rubbish Week' (which starts tomorrow here in downtown Moreland).

I couldn't have done it without him, we moved old desks and broken chairs, old cupboards and mattresses, an old air conditioner. God, it was empowering to get rid of all that crap.

The best bit was the sweeping up afterwards, and the great release of guilt that I have had for a while now that my father's beloved shed was becoming a pseudo rubbish dump. Not any more, he'd be relatively happy with the state it's in now I think. (Although he was one of those blokes who loved his shed so much that you could possibly have eaten off the floor, he swept it religiously and everything was in it's place, so he's probably still looking down from Heaven, shaking his head in despair.)

Then, early this morning I was up and cleaning the fish tank, which had come to resemble the ocean at the time of that massive oil spill two years or so ago. This cleaning effort was due wholly to Scatters, who walked in the door after not having been here for a while, and said in his blokey oh-so-observant tone "Jeez, the fish tank could do with a bit of a clean". It had been on my list for a while now, as the gunk and grime slowly built up over time, and the fish near on screamed at me every time I fed them "Heeeeelp, we are slowly suffocating in here!!!". The fact that someone commented on it kind of gave me that kick up the butt that you sometimes need to do these things.

And, once again, with the job complete, I felt a whole lot better about life in general.

The next cleanup I'll probably do will be the Facebook thing (as mentioned at the beginning of this post). I'm feeling a little overwhelmed with all the notification emails I keep getting, and although I have turned most of them off, I now have this urge to continually log on to see whether anyone has left me a comment. That's bad. It's a bit of a catch-22 situation really: the notification emails annoy the crap out of me, but without them I get paranoid that I might miss something. And quite frankly, it makes my brain hurt.

So, dear friend, feel free to pop your email addy in the box to the right if you feel like it. And feel free not to. I won't know any different.

Talk later

Janeane

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